Solana MEV Bots in Copy-trading: The Complete Guide
Surely, in your career as a copy-trader (or if you’re still starting out) you’ve seen a portfolio that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit and you think, “If I copy-trade this, I’ll get rich too!”. What you don’t realize is that it’s not even a human trader, but an MEV bot designed to “extract value” from the Solana blockchain in ways that you simply can’t replicate manually. For instance, have a look at the following wallet:
It made $1.1M over the last 7 days with a 100% Win rate! Crazy Right?
Well.. we are sorry to tell you that you are not going to become a millionaire just by copy-trading it. In fact, you will end up losing money, and you will soon understand why.
What are MEV Bots?
Maximum Extractable Value (MEV) bots in Solana are automated programs (bots) that scan the blockchain for profitable trading opportunities without any manual intervention. Unlike traditional MEV activities, which are usually managed by validators, these bots automatically search for and execute trades to maximize profits. Before continuing, let’s quickly explain how solana validation works (Hope you can understand it):
- Transaction Flow: When users submit transactions to the Solana network, they first enter a mempool (memory pool) where they wait to be processed.
- Validator Role: In Solana, one validator is elected as leader for a specific time slot and is responsible for ordering transactions into a block. Other validators then confirm these transactions through consensus.
- MEV Opportunity: This is where MEV bots come in. These bots scan the mempool for profitable trading opportunities, such as price differences between exchanges or large pending trades they can “sandwich.”
- Priority and Tips: MEV bots often pay higher transaction fees or “tips” to validators to prioritize their transactions. Services like Jito Labs have built specialized infrastructure that helps both validators extract MEV and distributes rewards more fairly.
- Sandwich Example: In a sandwich attack, the MEV bot spots a large pending transaction, quickly sends its own transaction to buy the asset first (front-running), waits for the user’s transaction to execute and move the price, then sells immediately after (back-running) for a profit.
- Confirmation: Once validators process and confirm all these transactions, they’re permanently recorded on the blockchain.
So why are they popular at Solana? Well, Solana offers significantly cheaper fees and much faster transaction speeds compared to other blockchains, making it an ideal environment for these bots to operate effectively.
In almost all cases, the mev bot attacks you will see are so-called Sandwhich attacks, where the mev bot buys just before you and sells after, taking advantage of the small increase in token price caused by your purchase. From a very general perspective, this is how it looks:
In the real world, this would look something like this:
Looking at the example above, this is how a sandwich attack looks in practice:
The bot (GHP…29e) buys tokens first, then the user (HVZ…eg5) is forced to buy at a much higher price (because the MEV bought $862 right before him, making the price go up), and immediately after, the bot sells. All happening at the same timestamp (12:41:24).
This is the classic sandwich pattern – the bot’s transactions form the “bread” while the user’s transaction is the “filling” in between. The user ends up paying more than they should have, while the bot walks away with a quick profit from the price difference.
MEV Wallet: GHPCChGqtKf4sFaN1wPPCapcweKXBBngB3hF7D6nT29e
How to Identify MEV Wallets
Identifying MEV Wallets is very simple. You simply have to look at the number of transactions the wallet has: If it is extremely high, you can assume with absolute certainty that it is an MEV wallet. To do so, you can use Gmgn.ai (for which we have a blog post about):
In the case of our wallet, it has 22,692 buy and sell transactions (which curiously the number coincides). Clearly, this can only be done by a bot. What human would be glued all day long to the screen making so many transactions?
Why MEV Wallets Are Dangerous For Copy-trading
Copy-trading MEV bot wallets is extremely dangerous and will almost certainly result in losses while the bot profits.
These sophisticated bots operate with specialized infrastructure, privileged mempool access, and execute transactions with millisecond precision that regular users simply cannot replicate.
When you attempt to copy an MEV bot’s trades, you’ll always be several steps behind – buying after prices have already risen and selling after they’ve fallen. The bot profits precisely because it executes both sides of the sandwich attack with perfect timing while being connected directly to validators.
Your transactions will execute with normal latency (Even with OdinBot’s lightning speed), missing the narrow profit windows the bots exploit. Additionally, MEV bots often pay premium fees to prioritize their transactions, further ensuring they execute before yours.
By the time your copy-trading order processes, market conditions have already changed, leaving you holding tokens at unfavorable prices while the bot has moved on to its next profitable opportunity.
OdinBot’s MEV Protection System
OdinBot protects copy-traders from MEV bots with two key safeguards:
- Price Protection prevents trades from executing at significantly worse prices than the mirrored wallet, automatically canceling orders when slippage is excessive. This feature is built-in, which means it will always apply to every single transaction. You do not need to worry about it.
- MEV Protection offers three configurable tiers:
Fastest Mode: Sends transactions directly to validator leaders through staked connections for maximum speed. Best for time-sensitive trades where MEV risk is acceptable.
Balanced Mode: Only routes transactions to validator leaders with clean histories (no sandwich attacks). Provides good protection without significantly sacrificing speed. Recommended for everyday trading.
Protected Mode: Routes transactions exclusively through Jito protocol, which prevents sandwich attacks entirely. Offers maximum protection but slower execution. Ideal for larger trades or highly volatile tokens.
Choose the appropriate level based on your trading priorities (and portfolio size). Speed, protection, or a balance of both. Our recomendation is that if your size per transaction is superior to 1 Solana, you should use the Balanced Mode and increase it to Protected if you are trading with 3-4 Solana per transaction.
Closing Thoughts
MEV bots simply aren’t meant to be copied – they’re playing a completely different game than regular traders.
You can spot them easily by their ridiculous transaction counts and those perfectly matched buy/sell patterns. They’re using special connections and tricks that we just don’t have access to.
Even with OdinBot’s speed, trying to follow these bots is like trying to outrun a sports car on foot – it’s just not going to work. You’re much better off finding actual traders with real strategies who make sensible moves you can follow. If you don’t know how to spot a great wallet for copy-trading, kindly read our detailed blog post aboit it here.
At the end of the day, what looks like magical trading from these bots is really just them taking advantage of their special position in the system – something we regular folks can’t do.
