What is front-running and how can it affect my trades?

Front-running is when a transaction is reordered in the mempool so someone can beat you to the price and profit, causing worse fills. In my testing, even small trades can be sandwiched during high volatility. Mitigate with MEV-boost/private bundles, limit-like orders, tighter slippage, and trading in calmer periods.

I keep a tight slippage cap and use private relays; quick wins: watch mempool activity and avoid market orders on big moves.

In my experience, front-running is a real risk in crypto trades. It happens when someone observes your pending order and jumps ahead to profit, often by paying a higher gas price to get their transaction confirmed first. I learned this the hard way after placing a sizable buy on a popular DEX during a sudden price move. Within minutes, I watched the price sweep up, and my entry got sandwiched, leaving me with a worse average than predicted. The lesson: execution quality matters as much as the price. To reduce impact, I started being mindful of slippage, avoided aggressive market orders in choppy markets, and experimented with private relays and MEV-boost bundles to obscure my intent. Still, complete avoidance isn’t realistic.