A single on-chain swap turned into a $50.4 million loss after a mempool leak allowed an MEV sandwich attack to exploit thin liquidity and protocol failures. The incident highlights persistent settlement risks for large DeFi trades.
Vitalik Buterin on March 2, 2026 proposed a plan to reduce centralization among Ethereum block builders and tackle “toxic MEV,” where visible pending transactions are exploited for front-running and sandwich attacks. The measures aim to improve fairness and transaction privacy for ETH users.
Ethereum developers are advancing the 'Glamsterdam' upgrade to tackle miner/extractor value (MEV) fairness, with a target launch in 2026. The full scope is still being defined, but teams see it as a positive step for users and DeFi.