Front Running Protection – How To Configure MetaMask

We are certain that you have heard of front running. Generally, it means that a programmed bot saw your transaction in the mempool (where transactions are stored before the final settlement and addition into blocks), executed it first before you (think high gas!) and put you at a disadvantage. But, what if you could skip the mempool entirely and relay your transaction directly to the miners, so there was no chance of that happening? Enter Flashbots Protect RPC.

Alchemist has announced a revolutionary new product Flashbots Protect RPC to protect against front running and the best part is that setting it up is really simple and takes no more than 5 minutes! The users enjoy the added advantage of not paying for failed transactions and priority processing in blocks, where they are included. For setting up MetaMask plus Ledger for the safest crypto setup, you can see the below available guide.

Otherwise, just open MetaMask and enter the following custom RPC. Then, save and choose the Flashbots Protect RPC from the network list.

Network Name: Flashbots Protect RPC
New RPC URL: https://rpc.flashbots.net
ChainID: 1
Currency Symbol: ETH

What’s Front Running Though?

Assume that you are planning to buy a certain asset on Uniswap. Since you are feeling FOMO, you increase the slippage limit. So even if the price of the asset goes up in the meantime, you wouldn’t be left with a reverted or failed transaction. When your tx is sent to the mempool, a generalized front running bot notices it. It then decides to extract the value for itself (or its owner by proxy). Later, the bot sends the same transaction with a higher gas fee, buys the asset, inflates its price, and sells back the asset to you. This is just one basic example.