User loses $1 million USDC after MEV bot intercepted transaction

One user made a mistaken transaction, sending $1 million USDC to a contract address. A MEV bot swooped in and took the funds before they could be ￰0￱ Ethereum user made a common mistake – sending funds directly to a smart contract ￰1￱ this case, the wallet owner wanted to bridge $1 million, but did not follow the proper steps. Instead, the wallet holder sent the funds directly to the contract ￰2￱ transaction was recorded, and if filled, it would have frozen the funds forever, as if sending them to an invalid address. However, it was also noticed and swept by an MEV bot, which held the ￰3￱ like some unlucky soul just sent $1m USDC to a bridge contract directly instead of calling the proper methods, getting it all immediately sweeped by a MEV bot 😭😭💀💀 ￰4￱ — deebeez (@deeberiroz) September 16, 2025 The MEV bot was probably set out to watch for transactions to the contract, as it immediately noted the ￰5￱ initial owner who sent out $1 million received the funds from a large-scale wallet, possibly an exchange, then attempted to bridge the ￰6￱ bot stores the funds in a dedicated wallet The destination MEV bot wallet just saw its biggest transaction for 1 million ￰7￱ funds are held in the wallet, which received its biggest single transaction so ￰8￱ MEV bot stored the funds in a dedicated wallet, which received its biggest transaction to date. |), then the contract approved him infinity and he just withdrew ￰9￱ — ￰10￱ (@YannickCrypto) September 16, 2025 The withdrawal, in fact, may still suggest the initial $1 million is stuck in the contract, while the bridge is now at a ￰11￱ MEV bot paid 0.11 ETH for the immediate execution of the ￰12￱ Nansen, the recipient address is now tagged as ‘ token billionaire ’, a relatively new wallet starting its first transactions in ￰13￱ the recent addition of $1 million USDC, the wallet had a smaller portfolio on multiple chains, including BNB Chain, Base, and ￰14￱ the user regain the funds?

The wallet used to sweep the USDC seems to be set to claim small sums sent by ￰15￱ are no signs of ethical MEV usage, which can return some ￰16￱ Ethereum users, block builders have become ￰17￱ 82% of traffic goes through MEV boost, generating over $1 million in daily ￰18￱ this point, the wallet owner may only receive the funds if the MEV bot owner sends them ￰19￱ best approach is to manually check destination wallets and never send funds directly to a contract ￰20￱ Bybit now and claim a $50 bonus in minutes