Solana sandwich bots took $29.7 million before costs, mostly targeting Pump.fun

Sandwich bots extracted about $29.7 million before costs from Solana trades over an 11-month period, according to blockchain data provider Bitquery. It found 96% of detected attacks on memecoin platform Pump.fun's launch curve and its PumpSwap exchange.The investigation, covering successful swaps, counted 6,850,144 attacks by 2,545 bot wallets affecting 2,154,994 distinct wallets between October 30, 2025, and October 7, 2026. Those addresses do not represent a count of individual people: other bots' trades accounted for 39% of the estimated gross take.A sandwich places a bot's purchase and sale around another trader's swap. The first purchase raises the pool price; the intervening buyer receives fewer tokens, and the bot sells into the higher price. The cost reaches the trader through execution, even when the swap completes successfully.Wide slippage marked greater exposureAmong trades sent by swap router Jupiter through Pump.fun's launch curve or PumpSwap, trades allowing 20%–50% slippage were sandwiched 14 times as often as those allowing under 3%, Bitquery found.Slippage tolerance sets how far execution can depart from a quote. Jupiter's documentation describes a minimum accepta...