Ethereum core developer Eric Connor revealed that a Maximal Extractable Tag (MEV) bot obtained 584 ETH, worth over $1 million, from front working an incoming hack in the transaction mempool.

Several diverse well-known MEV block rewards had been recorded all over the a comparable time, with the recipients earning 345 ETH, 247 ETH and 51 ETH. The rewards stem from front working transactions sent by exploits that took residing on Curve Finance’s liquidity pools on Sunday.

Critically, these MEV rewards are a truly extraordinary recorded in the history of Ethereum, incidentally falling on the network’s eighth legit twelve months in existence.

In assert to develop these rewards, MEV bots reproduce and front drag transactions by paying the block producers a well-known amount of ETH to transfer their transactions as a lot as the front of the line.

“They’re paying money that was stolen from victims as kickback bribes to Ethereum validators,” wrote one user on Twitter.

Whereas plenty of market participants puzzled the morality of block producers retaining these rewards that came from hacked funds, Connor opined that returning the funds is seemingly more advanced than it seems on the surface, while noting it is “potentially a honest grey put.”

In the meantime, no longer no longer as a lot as one MEV bot deployer has returned funds after front working a hacker’s transaction. Blockchain information reveals that “c0ffeebabe.eth” returned 2,879 ETH worth $5.3 million to the Curve deployer contract.