Re:Ethereum Is a Dark Forest
by iSnow on Friday August 28, 2020 @06:32PM
(#24311016)
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.
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.