I tracked how much MEV I lost over 6 months of trading on DEXs. the number was disgusting.

So I went back through my wallet history and used a couple of MEV tracking tools to figure out how much value I actually lost to sandwich attacks and front-running over the past 6 months. not gonna share exact numbers but it was enough to make me seriously rethink where and how I trade on-chain.

the thing that pissed me off the most wasn't even the big trades. it was the small ones. $200-500 swaps getting sandwiched for a few bucks each time. doesn't feel like much in the moment but it adds up fast when you're making multiple trades a week.

what I learned:

• AMMs are basically open season for MEV bots. your trade hits the mempool and you're cooked
• private RPCs like flashbots protect help but they're not a complete solution. you're still trusting the builder not to screw you
• intent-based systems (cow swap etc) are better but they introduce solver trust assumptions and don't work for everything
• the only architecture where MEV extraction is structurally impossible is one where transaction ordering is provable and verifiable. not hidden, not trusted, but mathematically proven to be fair

honestly the biggest takeaway is that most people have no idea how much they're losing. the "invisible tax" framing is accurate. you never see a line item that says "MEV bot took $4.50 from this trade" but it's happening on basically every swap.

anyone else tracked their MEV losses? curious what numbers people are seeing. also curious if anyone has found a setup that actually eliminates it, not just reduces it.