By sniping meme coins on DEX, we made a whopping $50 million

Original Article Title: How We Made +$50M Sniping Shitcoins On DEXs

Original Article Author: CBB, Crypto KOL

Original Article Translation: Luffy, Foresight News

Editor's Note: The author of this article, CBB, is a well-known figure in the DeFi and leverage trading community, who previously gained widespread attention for sharing his experience of earning $5 million using the HyperEVM arbitrage bot (see: "Analyzing the HyperEVM Arbitrage Bot: How to Seize a 2-Second Opportunity to Earn $5 Million?"). On October 29, CBB also warned about the high leverage risk of Stream's xUSD. Today, potentially due to the impact of the Balancer hack, xUSD has indeed significantly deviated from its peg.

In this article, he recounts his complete journey from entering the crypto world to sniping shitcoins on DEXs and achieving a $50 million profit in one year. The following is the original content:

August 2020. My brother taught information technology at university, while I had just finished an 18-month stint as a product manager at an insurance company.

The cryptocurrency industry bid farewell to years of stagnation and was slowly recovering from the collapse triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. We made some small gains on the Binance Launchpad, but our portfolio's total value was barely $50,000.

At this time, we started to hear about a new protocol called Uniswap. Friends were trading shitcoins on it, often making 3-4x profits in a few hours. We had no idea what this was all about, but our intuition told us it was something out of the ordinary.

A friend talked to me about "sniper trading." He said that when the bZx token was listed on Uniswap, a bot made $500,000 from sniper trades alone. It was simply unbelievable. Both my brother and I were shocked and eager to understand how this was possible.

At that time, my brother knew nothing about the Solidity smart contract language, and we didn't even understand the underlying logic of blockchain.

First Snipe Attempt

In late August, my family and I were on vacation in Spain. In an attempt to snipe a trade on Uniswap, my brother, who had just started learning Solidity a few days prior, decided to join in.

There was a token called YMPL about to launch, and the market hype seemed promising. We formed a sniping team and even brought in a few friends to pool funds together—after all, as beginners, we didn't want to take on the risk alone.

We invested 50 ETH (valued around $20,000 at the time). As soon as YMPL launched, we successfully sniped 8% of the initial supply. I logged into Uniswap and sold everything in less than 30 minutes.

How much profit did we make? 60 ETH (around $30,000). Considering our entire investment portfolio was less than $50,000 at the time, we were ecstatic. Making money seemed so easy in that moment.

We wanted to earn more.

Two days later, a new sniping opportunity arose: VIDYA. With the profits from the previous trade, more funds at our disposal, and a bolstered mindset, we invested 165 ETH and netted 159 ETH within 15 minutes, surpassing our previous gains.

Four days later, another sniping opportunity presented itself. We put in 460 ETH and made a profit of 353 ETH, equivalent to $135,000. It was our first time earning a five-figure sum in less than an hour, and the feeling was incredible.

Uniswap's popularity skyrocketed, trading volume soared, and cryptocurrency enthusiasts flooded in. We knew deep down that such easy money days wouldn't last. We needed to become more professional and truly understand the underlying logic of snipe trading.

What Is the Principle of Snipe Trading?

To list a token on Uniswap, the project team must first add liquidity to the pool. In our initial sniping attempts, we always sent our buy transactions after the "add liquidity" transaction was confirmed on-chain, often resulting in being one block behind.

Meanwhile, some competitors managed to have their trades included in the same block as the liquidity addition transaction.

After some research, we discovered that by monitoring the Ethereum node, we could watch the public mempool and see pending transaction details before they were officially confirmed.

Starting from September, our sniping process evolved as follows:

1. Monitor the mempool to capture pending "add liquidity" transactions;

2. Immediately send a buy transaction with the same Gas fee;

3. The goal is to have the buy transaction included in the same block as the add liquidity transaction and executed shortly after.

The New Era of Sniping on Ethereum

Mid-September 2020.

Ten consecutive days without any new token launches - this period of calm was just right for us to upgrade our bot.

However, a new challenge emerged: the end of summer vacation meant my brother had to go back to teaching at the university, and sometimes the sniping opportunities coincided with his classes. Luckily, at that time, it was still during the COVID-19 pandemic, so all classes were conducted online.

Whenever a token was about to launch, he would tell his students, "Do your own research for ten minutes." Taking advantage of this window, he could focus on executing snipe transactions.

The next snipe target was CHADS. The market hype was unprecedented, and we were ready to invest 200 ETH, aiming for a sure win.

My brother and I were on a voice call, feeling both nervous and excited, with the pressure at its peak.

He was the first to see the "add liquidity" transaction on the terminal. When the bot detected the signal, he said in a serious tone, "Ça part." (French, meaning "It's starting")

I will never forget that sentence. Before every snipe, he would say the same sentence in the same tone, instantly sending my adrenaline soaring.

Upon hearing that sentence, I frantically refreshed the Etherscan browser, hoping to see our ETH balance depleted - indicating that we had successfully entered.

We did make the purchase, with a 200 ETH position. The candlestick chart skyrocketed instantly, and my task was to manually sell on Uniswap.

The gains from CHADS were incredibly high. I was shaking, sweating profusely, highly focused, just selling batch after batch to lock in as much profit as possible.

In the end, we netted 675 ETH (about $270,000). The feeling was unbelievable, but the immense pressure and adrenaline left us exhausted.

There was no time to rest. Three days later was FRONTIER, the same operational process, the same intense thrill, and a profit of 800 ETH.

CHARTEX is in two days, with a profit of 700 ETH.

Six days later, we have accumulated a total profit of 2300 ETH, which is absolutely crazy. Just a month ago, after years of ups and downs in the crypto industry, our total assets were only $100,000.

On September 18th, an unexpected surprise arrived: the Uniswap airdrop. All addresses that had interacted with Uniswap were eligible to claim.

Due to our extensive testing in the previous weeks, we had amassed a large number of eligible addresses, with each address able to claim around $20,000. I remember my brother going through all the wallets we could find, ultimately claiming millions of dollars.

Our last sniper shot of the month was on POLS — Polkastarter's platform token, and Polkastarter later in the year became a top Launchpad.

Smart Contract and Infrastructure Upgrade

It's time to upgrade our bot once again.

In the first month of sniping, we had set a buy-in limit: investing X ETH to buy at least Y amount of tokens. Under this mechanism, we had to execute multiple transactions, especially when in most cases, we had no idea how much liquidity the project team would provide.

For instance: if the project team only added 20 ETH of liquidity and we attempted to buy with 200 ETH, the preset limit order would be rendered completely ineffective.

My brother designed a new system: for every 1 ETH invested, to buy at least Y amount of tokens, and until this limit price is reached, we buy as much as we can. We were the first to implement this mechanism.

Another challenge was that we never knew if the project team would use ETH, USDT, or USDC to provide liquidity. My brother devised a smart contract for this purpose, enabling automatic token purchases regardless of the trading pair that goes live.

We are also striving to improve the speed of the bot. In the CHADS sniping battle, although the profits were substantial, we were clearly not the first snipers to enter after liquidity addition.

We deployed Ethereum nodes in multiple regions, allowing them to compete and vie for sniping rights on the same transaction. Soon, we discovered that the node deployed in Northern Virginia always had the fastest speed.

This led us to believe that Northern Virginia is the optimal location for running sniping servers.

Further research confirmed our hypothesis. At that time, almost all users were conducting transactions through MetaMask, which would route all "Add Liquidity" transactions through Infura's public RPC endpoint, with Infura's servers located in Northern Virginia. More broadly, a significant portion of Ethereum infrastructure is concentrated in that region.

Therefore, the Amazon Web Services Northern Virginia node proved to be the most competitive and latency-optimal sniper configuration.

We also developed a highly unconventional meme coin sniper process:

1. Identify Sniper Target: Typically, we had 10-15 crypto friends helping us discover new hot meme coins. The first to discover the target could participate in the sniper with a 15% capital allocation (while also bearing the corresponding risk). Some friends solely by discovering sniper targets have earned between $300,000 to $700,000.

2. Confirm the Decentralized Exchange that will be listing (Uniswap, Sushiswap, etc.);

3. Confirm the trading pairs that will be listed (ETH, USDT, USDC, etc.);

4. Find the wallet address responsible for the listing (on-chain tracking);

5. Deploy the sniper smart contract, set parameters: capital size and buy limit price;

6. Immediately sell after listing, usually completed within 30 minutes—because most meme coins are garbage.

Polkastarter Era

From October to early December, the market was relatively calm. The speed of new token listings slowed down, and there was even a time when we thought the sniper era was coming to an end. Fortunately, we had accumulated a significant amount of ETH, and even just holding was going well, and life was very comfortable.

But come December, the meme coin market resurged. Token launches on Uniswap became active again, and a new Launchpad quietly appeared: Polkastarter.

The first sale on it was the SpiderDAO project, with each wallet limited to purchasing 2.5 ETH. However, my brother discovered that this purchase limit was only effective at the user interface (UI) level, and we could still directly make large purchases through the contract. We made several large transactions and successfully bought 50% of the total supply on sale, and even sniped it at the start. This transaction made us earn $500,000, and here we go again.

This example fully reflects the current state of the crypto ecosystem. Most project teams are complete outsiders, having no idea what they are doing. This is an incredible opportunity for us, and we must certainly make the most of it.

At the time, as some decentralized finance (DeFi) projects began launching synthetic assets, we made $600,000 through arbitrage.

December became a turning point in our entrepreneurial journey—my brother decided to resign from his position as a university professor.

In January of the following year, we moved to Dubai, with both of us fully dedicated to sniper trading.

Our mindset was simple: never miss an opportunity. Even if there was only a "mere" $10,000 profit potential, we would take the shot. We knew this window of opportunity would not last forever, and we did not want to miss any chances.

In January, we secured several good profits, such as PHOON, accumulating $3 million in profits.

Most of these profits were held in ETH, and ETH's price also soared—from $200 when we started sniping to $1,400 by the end of January, in just five months.

Anti-Sniper Measures

Starting in February 2021, more and more project teams implemented anti-sniper measures during token listings. People had grown tired of snipers and began incorporating anti-sniper mechanisms into token launches.

The first measure: buy limit. In the first few minutes after the token launch, users could only buy X amount of tokens. My brother was the first to design a sniper smart contract with a looping feature, allowing us to purchase most of the initial supply in one transaction—each loop buying the token's limit amount. With this smart contract, we stood out in the competition because most competitors did not have access to this technology.

Smart contract innovation was one of our biggest advantages. My brother always found the sniper's breakthrough, and we actually welcomed anti-sniper measures—they made the competition less fierce.

The second measure: single wallet buy limit. My brother designed the main contract with "sub-smart contracts," where the main contract would call a new sub-contract for each buy transaction.

These features were very practical and played a significant role during the meme coin craze on the Binance Smart Chain in the following months.

Polkastarter Peak and Intense Competition

Starting from February 2021, we officially entered the Polkastarter era. Every token issued on Polkastarter experienced a massive surge, making each token a high-return opportunity for snipers.

However, the competition has become extraordinarily fierce. While we are still able to profit, the days are getting tougher.

We designed a new feature called "Suicidal Sniper."

The principle is simple: We noticed that many avid players do not set any buy limit when sniping. Our "Suicidal Sniper" feature will execute an additional unlimited-price buy transaction, followed by an automatic sell four blocks later, harvesting all snipers who entered after us.

While not a game-changing strategy, it's quite easy to earn 50-150 ETH from it.

Later on, as the competition heated up, a guy named 0x887 was faster than everyone else. We spent countless hours upgrading our bot, attempting to customize Ethereum nodes to achieve the fastest sniper speed, testing day in and day out, but we could never surpass this sniper.

Binance Smart Chain Frenzy Season

Fast forward to mid-February 2021. My brother and I moved into the same residence in Dubai—such a joy, as we hadn't lived in the same city for the past six years. We were fully dedicated to sniper trading, constantly seeking new opportunities, and always ready to design and develop new features.

While the competition on Ethereum had become intense, we continued to sniper, with profits still coming in, but we knew this situation wouldn't last forever.

We heard about the strong development of the Binance Smart Chain (BSC) ecosystem, with some tokens showing impressive performance. We decided to heavily invest in BNB, which was priced around $80 at the time—might as well be prepared for future sniping.

Our first BSC snipe was the meme coin BRY on February 16. We were clueless about the sniping patterns and competition on BSC, so it was time to explore.

We invested 200 BNB, sold out within 30 minutes, and made a profit of 800 BNB, equivalent to $80,000. While not as lucrative as Ethereum, it was still quite good, with promising potential.

Our second BSC snipe target was MATTER: Investing 75 BNB, we sold for 2100 BNB. Oh my, a net gain of 2000 BNB! Furthermore, the BNB price showed strong performance, reaching $240 by the end of February. We felt immense potential—the top sniper 0x887 seemed to completely overlook BSC, which was practically free money for us. We had to go all out and snipe all targets.

March is a bountiful month. Token launches on Ethereum are still hot, and we made millions of dollars; meanwhile, the BSC market is on fire. Throughout March, we made a profit of 15,000 BNB, with the highlight being the KPAD deal, where we earned 8,300 BNB.

The memory of my sniper attack on KPAD is still fresh in my mind. It is our largest single-transaction profit to date.

At that time, I was in my apartment in Dubai, knowing that this token's launch was highly anticipated and sure to skyrocket. I was so nervous that I was sweating, even doubting if I could successfully enter the market.

After the project launched, BSCscan was incredibly slow. I logged into Pancakeswap and saw a large amount of KPAD in my wallet—oh my! My focus was heightened instantly, and I was like a obsessed computer geek, starting to sell off in batches. Just selling 1% of my position, I made a significant amount of money. My hands were shaking badly as I executed the sell orders with full concentration, making a $2 million profit within an hour.

Five days later, a meme coin called COOK was set to launch on multiple chains. I told my brother that we should focus our sniper attack on the Huobi Eco Chain (HECO) because the competition there would be minimal. After the token launched on HECO, we invested 550 BNB to buy, then successfully cross-chain transferred to BSC before the trading pair unlocked, sold everything, and made a profit of 3,000 BNB. The feeling was amazing!

By the end of March, BNB's price had risen to $300.

BSC Infrastructure and Optimization

In early April, the market pace slowed down. We took the opportunity to relax and vacation in the Maldives, but upon landing, we heard that several popular meme coins were about to launch on BSC and we needed to be prepared.

We decided to conduct speed tests on BSC. The operational mode of BSC was different from Ethereum: on Ethereum, you need to quickly detect pending add liquidity transactions and then rapidly broadcast your own transactions to other nodes.

However, a few weeks ago, we discovered that transaction ordering in BSC blocks is random. When you detect pending transactions and send a buy transaction, your transaction might get in line before the add liquidity transaction, resulting in a failed transaction.

We deployed 10 nodes on Amazon Web Services (AWS) global nodes, with each node sending 50 transactions, attempting to sniper attack a random test transaction. After completing 20 sets of tests, we analyzed transactions that were in the same block as add liquidity transactions.

Draw the following conclusions:

1. The best-performing nodes are located in Northern Virginia, Frankfurt, and sometimes the Tokyo node also performs well;

2. The first 5-15 transactions sent by a single node are most likely to successfully enter the target block;

3. Configuring the highest-spec servers on Amazon Web Services (AWS) allows more transactions to successfully enter the target block.

For subsequent sniper trades, we have set up infrastructure on BSC consisting of 150-200 nodes, with each node sending 10 transactions.

Running this infrastructure on AWS costs between $40,000 and $60,000 per month.

For my brother, operating this infrastructure is quite a challenge - he has to individually start nodes on 150 terminals. Keep in mind, we have no employees; everything has to be done by ourselves, just my brother and me.

We have a huge advantage on BSC: on the one hand, we have rich experience on Ethereum, and on the other hand, we are willing to invest funds in infrastructure, setting a high barrier for small snipers.

The Memecoin Era on BSC

Now we are fully focused on BSC, sometimes conducting 6 sniper attacks in a day, with almost no time for a normal life, our minds filled with sniper memecoins. We are always racing against time, spending most of our time preparing for new sniper trades, with hardly any time to optimize equipment.

I remember many sniper experiences, especially the one with PINKM (Pinkmoon) - due to buying limits, we conducted a sniper attack with 120 wallets and made a profit of $3 million within two hours. The next day, I bought a Lamborghini Aventador SV sports car.

In May 2021, two Launchpads on BSC began to gain popularity, where anyone could perform launch transactions. My brother was the first to design and develop a smart contract that could complete the token launch and purchase in the same transaction.

Looking back now, this may seem ordinary, but at that time, no one had done it this way. I remember one week when the projects on these two Launchpads were extremely hot, and we almost sniped all the tokens launched. We made a six-figure profit every day for a whole week. One evening, my friends and I were dining at Nammos restaurant, and my brother messaged me to snipe a project. When I got home, our profits had increased by another $1 million.

At the end of the month, the market heat on BSC began to cool down, and we decided to sell most of our holdings when the BNB price was around $450.

There will be a few more sniper opportunities in June, but the market overall feels quite weak.

The end of this sniper era is actually a relief for us — we were exhausted and really needed a break.

All summer long, we have been traveling around, and we can finally enjoy life.

A Stroke of Luck

In August 2021, while we were enjoying our summer vacation and not heavily involved in the cryptocurrency market, just doing some basic operations, we stumbled upon a wallet that had been blacklisted and still held EVN tokens that we had not been able to sell previously.

At that time, EVN's price skyrocketed, and the tokens in just that one wallet were worth around $1 million (excluding slippage, as shown on Etherscan) — and we had over 20 blacklisted wallets.

We first tried to sell $200 worth of tokens on Uniswap, and it was successful. We thought, "Wow, maybe we can sell a small amount from each wallet and make a few thousand dollars."

We tried selling from the same wallet again, and this time we made $2,000. We were stunned, feeling like this afternoon might bring in a big reward.

Next, we tried once more, this time selling all the tokens in that wallet: ending up with 233 ETH (originally purchased for only 2.5 ETH).

Adrenaline rushing, we quickly checked all the blacklisted wallets and sold on Uniswap as fast as possible. Some wallets were still blacklisted, while others had the restrictions lifted — we had no idea why. We were selling like crazy, watching millions of dollars pouring in as if we were printing money.

For 15 minutes straight, we sold all the tokens we could find and then transferred all the funds to a cold wallet. What was expected to be a profit of $2-3 million turned into a $6 million gain in that summer afternoon.

Until now, we have no idea what happened or why these wallets were unrestricted.

This month, when ETH price broke $3,000, we sold a large amount of ETH earned through sniper at a profit — we felt it was time to lock in gains and achieve financial freedom.

Epilogue

That year might have been the craziest year for us so far. Starting with only $40,000 in funding, with zero understanding of the underlying logic of blockchain, and not a clue about Solidity.

Eventually, we sniped over 200 different meme coins on more than 10 different chains. To go through all of this with my brother has been the greatest blessing.

Those rollercoaster emotions and adrenaline-pumping experiences are hard to put into words.

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