MEV Bot Roasts Phishing Attacker on Base Chain

A phishing attack on August 6 drained $501,650 in USDC from a victim's wallet on the Base chain. The attacker attempted to convert the stablecoin into wrapped ETH through Uniswap V4 swap without setting proper slippage protection.

An MEV bot spotted the unprotected swap and executed a sandwich attack, driving the price up with one transaction before the swap and capturing the inflated difference with another after. This resulted in the attacker receiving only about 67.9 ETH from the swap, valued at roughly $129,000, a 74% haircut on the original theft.

The victim sent on-chain messages to both the attacker and the MEV bot operator, asserting that they had identified the perpetrator and offering a 10% bounty for the return of the stolen funds. On August 7, no funds had been returned, and no arrests had been made.