What is MEV, and how Cypay reduces it

MEV — Maximal Extractable Value — is the value that actors such as validators, searchers, and block builders can extract by reordering, inserting, or censoring transactions within a block. Because transactions are visible in the public mempool before they're confirmed, a bot can see your pending swap and profit at your expense.

The sandwich attack

The form most relevant to everyday swappers is the sandwich attack:

1. The bot sees your swap sitting in the mempool.
2. It buys the same asset immediately before you, pushing the price up.
3. Your order executes at the now-worse price.
4. The bot sells right after, capturing the difference.

You receive fewer tokens than you would have without the attack. Related tactics include front-running (a bot copies your trade and jumps ahead by paying higher gas) and arbitrage and liquidations, which don't always harm the user directly.

How Cypay reduces the exposure

Cypay reduces this exposure through several standard measures:

• Private transaction submission routes your order through a private channel — a private mempool or relay — instead of the public mempool, so bots can't see it before execution.
• Strict slippage protection ensures that even if manipulation is attempted, the order reverts before executing at an abusive price.
• MEV-aware routing, where applicable, avoids routes and pools with higher sandwich risk.

In practice, the goal is for the price you see in the quote to be as close as possible to the price you actually receive.

Why it matters. MEV is the hidden tax of a transparent system. The same public mempool that lets anyone verify the chain also lets anyone watch your order before it settles. You can't make the ledger less open — so the defense is to keep your intent private until the moment it executes. Knowing MEV exists is what turns an unexplained "bad fill" into something you can actually guard against.