You swap tokens and get a noticeably worse price than the app quoted you. No error, no warning — just less crypto than expected. You may have been sandwiched: a bot spotted your trade, jumped ahead of it, and profited from moving the price against you.
Sandwich attacks are automated, common, and completely invisible unless you know what to look for. The good news: six simple swap settings and habits make you a much harder target.
id=”what-sandwich-attacks-are”>What Sandwich Attacks Are
When you submit a swap, it sits in a public waiting area (the mempool) before being confirmed. Bots watch this waiting area for large trades. A sandwich bot places its own buy order just before yours — pushing the price up — and a sell order just after, capturing the difference. Your trade is the filling: you buy at the inflated price the bot created.
You pay for this twice: once in the worse execution price, and again in the higher slippage your trade absorbs. Small trades on quiet pairs are rarely worth attacking, but the more your trade moves the price, the more attractive you are as a target.
6 Swap Safety Settings
1. Lower your slippage tolerance. Set it as low as your trade will still go through — high slippage is an open invitation for bots. 2. Use MEV protection. Many wallets and aggregators now route through private mempools that hide your trade from bots; turn this on if available. 3. Set a transaction deadline. A short deadline means a delayed trade cancels instead of executing at a manipulated price. 4. Split large trades. Several smaller swaps move the price less and attract less attention than one big one. 5. Use limit orders where supported, so you define the exact price you’ll accept. 6. Avoid volatile moments — thin, jumpy markets make sandwiching cheaper and easier for bots.
Trading Habits That Help
Beyond settings, trade on liquid pairs where your order barely moves the price, and double-check the quoted price versus what you actually receive — a big gap is a red flag worth investigating. For a deeper dive into bot defenses, read our full guide on protecting swaps from MEV bots.
When moving value between chains, the same care applies: our Solana-to-Ethereum swap guide walks through a cross-chain move with safety settings in mind.
The Bottom Line
Sandwich bots prey on loose swap settings. Keep slippage tight, enable MEV protection, set short deadlines, and split big trades — simple habits that keep your execution price close to what you were quoted.
This guide is for education only — not financial advice.
