MEV Bot Operators Earn Millions of Dollars Airdropping ApeCoin Token

The operators of the MEV Bot have used loans from the NFTX public pool to brand BAYC’s ApeCoin (APE) tokens. This, coupled with the lack of liquidity after the launch of trading, has led to anomalous spikes in the asset’s price.

The project team introduced the ecosystem-linked token on March 17. Its emission will be 1 billion coins and will remain unchanged. Among the holders of NFT BAYC, as well as derivative assets of MAYC and NAKC, 150 million APE will be distributed.

At the moment, 12,121 addresses have branded tokens (over 79% of entities admitted to the airdrop). 

Parsec Finance founder Will Sheehan has noted that amid the distribution, the NFTX pool was literally “washed” by MEV operators- bots.

When interacting directly with smart contracts of the NFTX platform, users have the opportunity to use the Flash Mint function. By analogy with flash loans, it allows users to borrow assets without collateral and repay them in a single transaction.

Under normal conditions, this would bring nothing but transaction costs to the initiator of the operation. However, in the case of the APE airdrop, users made a significant profit.