MEV (Maximal Extractable Value)

MEV refers to profit that can be extracted by controlling the order, inclusion, or exclusion of transactions within a block — separate from the profit any individual transaction would earn on its own. The most common form ordinary users encounter is a sandwich attack: a bot spots a pending swap, places a trade immediately before it to push the price against you, lets your trade execute at the worse price, then immediately sells back for a profit.

On Solana, MEV is closely tied to specific validator client software (notably Jito’s), which has built infrastructure both for MEV extraction and for redistributing a share of that value back to stakers, rather than letting it accrue purely to sophisticated searchers and validators.

Using an aggregator with MEV protection, and setting a reasonable slippage tolerance rather than an overly generous one, reduces your exposure. See our Solana DEX security guide for more.