Popular Crypto Wallet MetaMask Rolls Out 'Smart Transactions' to Combat Ethereum Front-Running

MetaMask, the most popular crypto wallet for Ethereum, is rolling out a new feature this week designed to help users avoid the consequences of maximal extractable value, or MEV

The optional new feature, called Smart Transactions, will allow users to submit transactions to a "virtual mempool" before they are officially cemented on-chain. According to Consensys, the company behind MetaMask, the virtual mempool will protect against certain kinds of MEV strategies, and it will run behind-the-scenes simulations of transactions to help users get lower fees

MEV is extra profit that blockchain operators can extract from users by previewing or re-ordering transactions before they are written to the network, sometimes likened to the unsavory practice of front-running orders in traditional financial markets. MEV has a major impact on how Ethereum operates – boosting prices for users, slowing down transaction speeds, and even causing transactions to fail under certain network conditions

There's $400 million every year that are being wasted on reverting transactions, stuck transactions, and just very obviously predatory MEV front-running and sandwich attacks," Jason Linehan, director of the Special Mechanisms Group division of Consensys, said in an interview

Everyone agrees it's a huge problem," said Linehan. "From a user experience perspective, the idea that you pay for a transaction that does nothing, that's, like, nonsensical."

MetaMask's solution – its virtual mempool – bears some resemblance to a private mempool, which has become an increasingly popular strategy for ensuring transaction privacy and protecting against MEV. It's the platform's first step in a much more ambitious roadmap, which CoinDesk reported on earlier this year, to radically shift how MetaMask routes transactions to Ethereum under the hood

Private mempool services can sometimes raise centralization concerns since they allow middlemen to touch transactions before they are published to Ethereum. Consensys