MEV Maestro Yoink Netting $2.65M on 59 Blocks in August
Techniques Utilizing White Hat Hacking, Flash Loan, 1inch Limit Order.
We have examined the searcher-builder integration of Builder “I can haz block?”, a.k.a. Frontrunner Yoink on:
In which way this searcher-builder seizes 4 of 6 consecutive blocks by pushing all other participants out of competition with a 6-token arbitrage.
Today, we will dive deep into Yoink’s detailed strategies of netting 1061 ETH, worth $2.65M, after deducting validator payouts.
We have filtered 59 blocks built by “I can haz block?” in August. Let’s examine the top 4 blocks ranked by builder rewards.
Block 20468848: Exploiting the Arbitrages Generated by Themselves From the Ronin Whitehat Hacking
On Aug 6th, the day after the Black Monday, the Ronin Network has experienced another significant exploit with approximately $12 million (4,000 ETH and 2M USDC) siphoned through its bridge, done by two transactions, one of which, interestingly, is done by Yoink’s MEV bot 0x698.
In this exploit transaction, Yoink’s bot swapped the snatched $2M USDC for 800 ETH, substantially deviating the rate of the Uniswap V3 Pool and triggering the ripple effect of price changes in several trading venues. And Yoink’s bot filled this block with its arbitrages utilizing the openings.
This block has 24 transactions, 23 of which belong to Yoink, marked in the image. The transaction on Position 1 is the exploit above. Then, Yoink finished 20 arbitrages. Most of these arbitrages uses this tactic of Position 3’s transaction: exchanging assets via several trading venues and transferring the susplus to its own builder as miner tips, as shown in red.
After the 20 arbitrages, the builder transferred 791.7 ETH to the bot’s contract 0x698 in the transaction on Position 22.
On Position 23, the builder paid its bid, 11 ETH, to the validator from Ether.fi.
Although it seems like Yoink keeps the 791.7 ETH, according to Ronin, Yoink and the other whitehat returned most of the funds and shared $500K bounty.
Blocks like this are rare due to its special characteristics. Now let’s examine the 2nd highest rewarding block.
Block 20459016: A 10.6M Worthy Flash Loan Master Class
Builder “I can haz block?” received 165 ETH as builder payments and sent only 63 ETH to the validator, pocketing over 100 ETH, via Block 20459016 at UTC 2024-08-05 01:15:47.
There are 36 transactions in this block, as shown below. We marked transactions concerning Yoink.
It showed that 145 ETH builder payments are connected with the first transaction, whose token flow chart is here.
In this transaction, the bot 0x689 detected a big limit order from 1inch then it repeatedly used the same strategy:
borrowed flash loans from Balancer;
partially filled the limit order of buying ETH with USDC;
swapped the received USDC for WETH via other trading venues.
Overall, 0x689 borrowed about 4,251 ETH flash loans, leading to 145 ETH revenue for Yoink, as shown in Step 87: 0x689 transferring 145.2772 ETH to Builder “I can haz block?”
The other arbitrages, identified by EigenPhi, are familiar ones that employ price differences among different trading venues for profit.
For example, the transaction below, on Position 3, uses flash loans from Balancer to finish the trade between Uniswap V3 and Curve.
Block Height 20459324: The Elite Session of Liquidations and Arbitrages via 1inch Limit Order
The market’s plunging on Black Monday caused about $1 Billion liquidation of crypto assets. Yoink, being one of the savviest player, did not let the moment slip away.
At UTC 2024-08-05 02:17:47, the searcher-builder integration gave Yoink the advantage to pack the 39-transaction block with more than their own 20 liquidations and arbitrages. In the end, the entity took 86 ETH as builder payments and shared 48 ETH with the validator.
Take a look at the best money-making liquidation on Position 27 of this block.
Here is how the job got done.
Bot 0x689 borrowed 1.2M USDC from the Uniswap V3 pool by using the flash-loan-like flash swap feature. (Step 1 )
Bot 0x689 repayed the debt of the borrower with the 1.2M USDC and received the debt asset, 563 WETH. (Step 2-5)
The bot repayed the flash swap, 543 ETH, to the Uniswap V3 pool.
The bot sent most of the surplus of the liquidation, 20 ETH, to the builder as miner tips.
The most profitable arbitrage in this block is on Postion 36.
Its tactics is not far from the 145-ETH-builder-payments transaction.
Borrow flash loans from Balancer.
Fulfill the 1inch limit order and receive USDC.
Swap USDC for USDT.
Swap USDT for ETH.
Send 19 ETH to the builder EOA.
To sum up, Yoink received 86 ETH builder payment and shared 48 ETH with the validator, collecting 38 ETH as gains.
You can go thru all the transactions in Block 20459047 and 20458926 to see the similar approaches used by Yoink and the bot in these arbitrages and liquidations.
Yoink, the Grandmaster of Searcher-Builder Integration
After deducting payouts for validators, we calculate that the net profit of Builder “I can haz block?”, a.k.a. Frontrunner Yoink, is 1,060.8 ETH, worth $2.65M, which would make this entity the 4th highest net income builder among 19 fellow builderss.
However, Yoink’s average income per block reaches unbelieverable 18 ETH, since it only builds 59 blocks in the whole August. MEV Builder 0x3b ranked the 2nd on this index with 6.1 ETH per block while Titan is 0.025 ETH and BeaverBuild 0.012 ETH.
It’s obvious that, for Yoink, quality matters more than quantity. Their ability of packing many MEV transactions into one block allow them to outbid other builders and secure more profits when opportunities emerge.
More such cases from Yoink can be found in our previous posts:
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