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Applying the assumptions of traditional finance to the radically different infrastructure of crypto markets is risky business. On February 16, 2022, an Ethereum user we will call 0x61 (based on her address) appears to have noticed a profit opportunity. Since the beginning of February, the price of ETH1 (the native token of the Ethereum blockchain) had recovered somewhat from a prior drop, and 0x61 likely decided that the recovery wouldn't last much longer. 0x61 used the decentralized exchange Uniswap V2 to sell 79 ETH, then worth around $250,000, in exchange for DAI (roughly put, 1 DAI corresponds to 1 dollar), and logged off perhaps feeling content about the day's work. 2 Little did 0x61 know that others were watching in the" dark forest" 3 of Ethereum's public" mempool," 4 where submitted transactions sit waiting to be executed by being built into blocks and recorded on the blockchain. It is only once the …