Maximal extractible value (or MEV) is a byproduct of DeFi’s public, permissionless design, where pending trades are visible before confirmation and can be reordered for profit. Luckily, protocols and apps are getting smarter about how to mitigate MEV, and savvy swappers are learning how to stay one step ahead.
Learn a few practical steps you can take to help protect your swaps from frontrunning, sandwich attacks, and other MEV strategies.
Ways to shield your swaps from negative effects of MEV
By protecting yourself from the negative impact of MEV, you can keep more value in your wallet (and even reclaim price improvements). Unlike common crypto scams such as honeypot tokens, minimizing your exposure to MEV is less about knowing which tokens to avoid or links to click, and more about choosing the right tools or settings.
Minimize your exposure to extractive MEV with these tips:
1. Route swaps through private mempools
Some interfaces route your transaction through private pools. Because trades aren’t broadcast to the public mempool, frontrunning and sandwiching bots can’t see them.
Uniswap Wallet’s swap protection feature, which is enabled for all Ethereum Mainnet transactions, does just that, shielding your swaps from sandwich attacks and front-running.
2. Use protocols with intent-based execution
Meta-aggregators like UniswapX let you submit your swap “intent” to a private network of fillers rather than the public mempool.
Instead of extracting value for themselves, they bid to give you the most competitive price. Any extra value they generate is returned to you as a price improvement on your swap.
3. Place limit orders
Placing a limit order pins your price in advance and only executes when market conditions meet your target. Since matching happens at execution time, it’s much harder for bots to slip in trades around yours in order to extract value during block creation.
Limit orders on the Uniswap Web App are powered by UniswapX.
4. Set tight slippage settings
Sandwich bots prey on wide slippage tolerances by pushing the price just enough to trigger your swap—and profit off the difference.
In the Uniswap Web App or Wallet, set a low slippage tolerance so these attacks become less profitable (or unprofitable) and your trade only executes within your acceptable price range.
But keep in mind, your swap may not succeed if your slippage settings are too restrictive. If this happens to you, try raising your slippage tolerance slightly until your transaction is successful.
5. Prioritize pools with deep liquidity
Low-liquidity pools are prime targets for MEV bots, since even small orders can swing prices and create arbitrage opportunities.
The Uniswap Protocol offers deep liquidity across many token pairs. By sticking to its highest-liquidity pools, you get smaller price swings — which means fewer MEV opportunities and steadier trade execution.
Secure your swaps from MEV
While no single tactic can get rid of malicious MEV forever, these tools and settings help you keep more value in your swaps.
Swap with confidence on trusted Uniswap apps. Get started with the Uniswap Web App or download Uniswap Wallet for built-in swap protection.
