What is a sandwich attack?
Short answer
A sandwich attack is when a bot spots your pending swap, buys right before you to push the price up, lets your trade fill at the worse price, then sells right after for a risk-free profit — "sandwiching" your transaction between its two trades.
You are most vulnerable with high slippage tolerance on a thin pool. Tighter slippage, smaller size, and private transaction routing reduce your exposure.
Related questions
How do I avoid being sandwiched?
Keep slippage tight on deeper pools, reduce trade size on thin ones, and use private routing where available. Cranking slippage makes it worse, not better.
Is a sandwich attack the same as MEV?
Sandwiching is one form of MEV — value extracted from transaction ordering. Other forms include arbitrage back-running and front-running.
How do I know I was sandwiched?
Your fill is noticeably worse than the quote, with two bracketing trades around yours in the transaction history.
Reading the chart is step one. Getting pinged in real time is step two.
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Education only — not financial advice. Memecoins are extremely high risk.
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