Crypto glossary
MEV bot scam
An MEV bot scam tricks users into deploying and funding a supposed front-running bot contract whose hidden code sends the deposit to the scammer.
The bait is usually a YouTube or social media tutorial promising passive income from an arbitrage or front-running bot. Viewers are told to paste a ready-made Solidity contract into an online editor such as Remix, deploy it, send ETH to it and press start. The code is obfuscated so that the destination address is assembled from scrambled strings, and calling the start function forwards the balance to the scammer.
The scheme borrows credibility from real maximal extractable value, a genuine and profitable activity run by specialised searchers with infrastructure, private order flow and constant competition. The tutorials often show fake profit screenshots and comments from accounts that claim to have earned money, and some ask for a larger deposit to cover gas costs.
Real MEV bots are not shared for free on video platforms, and profitable strategies disappear quickly once public. Anyone who cannot read and verify every line of a contract should not fund it, and no legitimate guide requires sending funds to a contract before seeing how it works.
Example
Following a video tutorial, a user deploys a front-running bot contract, deposits 1 ETH as recommended and calls start; the transaction sends the full balance to an address hidden in the code.