Thread by @0xBinji

#ETHCC talk: Tales from MEV Land by @libevm

TLDR: a regular coder becomes an MEV extraordinaire.

LibEVM associates with the left curve (humble man), he believes that if he can be an MEV Searcher; so can you. Don't let this inflate your ego anon, Lib is just humble and he's worked hard (but with effort, you can be a searcher too).

He starts talking about DAI for a solid 5 minutes..he says in 2020:
- Sometimes DAI would go over $1, making for some juicy arbitrage opportunities.
- 110% Collateralization; Maker made it so you can mint 100 DAI with 110USDC. Soon enough a gov vote changed it to 101%

When DAI changed from 110% (110 USDC to redeem 100 DAI) to 101% Collateralization (101 USDC to redeem 100 DAI) there was a great arbitrage oppurtunity.

Essentially 9% was cut off and people could conduct arbs on curve.finance. You could trade 1DAI for 1.02 USDC.

Lib used this strategy to create a printing machine that could rival Powells;

If DAI on open market > 1.01 USDC
1. Flashloan 100 DAI, swap to 102 USDC on Curve
2. Collateralize 101 USDC, mint 100 DAI on MKR
3. Repay loan, profit 1 USDC.

Add more 000000s and it becomes yuuge!

So how does one get started?

You've gotta pick long-tail vs short tail. Long tails are high in margin but come rarely, short tails are more frequent but smaller in margin (arbitrage).

Figure out your strengths:

- Infrastructure?
- Code Efficiency?
- Recon?

Find a team (2-3 people) and go for it.

Rest of my thread got deleted rip but anyway; my favorite part of this talk was this youtube comment: