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I agree. I don't even understand what is happening here honestly, and why it is seemingly so popular. Could someone explain what exactly these bots are sniping,

• iSnow 6y ago
  This is a super special case and I am honestly amazed that some bot is watching for it. The common use-case on Ethereum is sending tokens from A to B, and that can't be front-run or falsified by a bot. This is the original use-case of crypto: sending around symbolic tokens that represent money. Ethereum also has a lot of other usages though, and here is where it can get hairy. For instance, exchanges exist (Uniswap) where you can swap Token A for B. However, your intent is an Etherereum transaction which can be read by bots as you publish it and can be front-run if you are not careful. In this case, someone basically misplace money: instead of sending it to an account, they put it onto their car rooftops, up for grabs. And then, some Mexican stand-off happened: the bots wouldn't notice but once the white-hat hackers moved, the bot would try to grab the money faster. Ideally, the white-hatters would have crafted their Uniswap interaction in one transaction - they are atomic and the bots wouldn't have a chance to interfere. But it got late and they tried to hammer away the problem and allowed the interaction to spread over two transactions.