New in Ledger Live™: Take Control Over Transaction Security with In-App MEV Protection 

Protect Your Value with MEV Protection for Ledger Live Transactions

Maximal extractable value (MEV) – or miner extractable value – is a strategy that miners and network validators use to gain additional value on top of their network rewards and transaction fees. Block producers do this by deliberately including, omitting, or reordering transactions during block creation, capturing value through arbitrage, and manipulating transaction fees. MEV bots are central to this strategy, monitoring DEX transactions and instantly executing trades to take advantage of arbitrage opportunities.

While some MEV is a natural part of blockchains and can create additional incentives for block producers, too much MEV, particularly when done by non-block producers, extracts value from the network while raising the cost of transactions for participants. In 2023, MEV extracted from the Ethereum blockchain surpassed $600M.

There are a few ways that bad actors can use MEV to gain profits at users’ expense:

Front-running – This practice involves an MEV actor inserting a trade before an upcoming transaction in order to take advantage of price action caused by the target transaction. One estimate from 2023 pegged the daily value lost to front-running on Ethereum at around $12M.

Back-running – A back-run trade occurs when an MEV actor places their own trade immediately after a target transaction to capitalize on price action.

Sandwich attack – A sandwich attack entails organizing transactions to happen both before and after a target transaction. The MEV actor then gains from the slippage of the target transaction. On a single day – December 1, 2024 – sandwich attacks affected 35.5% of blocks on the Binance Smart Chain, impacting more than $1.5B worth of trades across 43,300 transactions.

To help Ledger users guard against transaction value lost to MEV, Ledger Live has integrated MEV protection by Blink. This includes an option within the app’s settings, allowing you to easily enable or disable MEV protection. Users will also find an MEV Protection Indicator added to transactions, providing users with clear visibility on whether their transactions are secure from MEV attacks.

How To Enable MEV Protection in Ledger Live

To enable MEV protection, navigate to the general settings in Ledger Live. From there you can enable and disable the setting for all applicable blockchains, or select only the blockchains you want. For more information, check out this help center article. 

Ledger Live: Secure Your Crypto Transactions

Ledger Live provides users with a seamless gateway for buying, swapping, and trading crypto while keeping their assets safe with their Ledger device. From MEV protection, to clear signing for transactions, Ledger Live has all the tools you need to execute trades, securely and free from compromise.