MEV Spam monitoring with Forta Firewall

Since March, Forta Firewall has screened over 450 million transactions for leading networks like Ink, Plume, and Celo. Firewall’s footprint has expanded over that time to include a variety of compliance and scam screening. And today, it is expanding again with support for MEV spam.  

What is MEV Spam?

When you think of spam, you think of activity that takes up space but doesn’t add any value. Wasteful. There is a lot of wasteful activity L2s today, in part because transaction fees have become so cheap. A large portion of L2 spam comes from MEV bots looking for arbitrage opportunities. These transactions repeatedly query prices, usually don’t find an arbitrage opportunity,fail to execute, and settle with zero value transferred. The result is wasted blockspace and unnecessary consumption of network resources.

On L2s with very low fees, it’s not uncommon to see MEV spam make up over 50% of the total transaction volume.

Why screening matters?

You can’t manage what you can’t measure. If you don’t have the visibility and insights about your chain’s transaction activity and patterns, it’s hard to make smart decisions around product and incentives. Firewall  provides insights into the scale of your chain’s MEV spam problem by quantifying total spam transaction counts, the percentage of total transaction activity attributable to spam, and the total gas wasted. 

As transaction volumes continue to rise, MEV Spam poses an increasing threat to network efficiency. Forta Firewall safeguards networks against both malicious activity and wasteful inefficiencies, ensuring performance remains resilient and sustainable.

MEV Spam adds to the growing list of categories supported by Forta Firewall, including smart contract exploits, custom blacklists, OFAC sanctions, and a variety of scam categories.

Forta Firewall functions as fully customizable infrastructure, enabling chains to define tailored screening criteria and enforcement logic that align with their unique requirements.

Explore Firewall in action: book a demo and discover how advanced screening keeps your chain secure and compliant.

About Forta

Forta offers onchain security and compliance, leveraging advanced AI and machine learning to proactively detect and prevent threats. Spun off from OpenZeppelin in 2021, Forta has top tier backers such as a16z, Blockchain Capital, and Coinbase Ventures.