MEV (Maximum Extractable Value or previously Miners Extractable Value) on the higher level is a problem of data integrity. When miners and bot operators manipulate transaction ordering during the block formation (include, exclude, and change the order of transactions in a block). By extracting MEV miners can extract additional value apart from standard fees and block rewards of Ethereum network. Currently a large amount of MEV is extracted by bots, which can be classified in two categories: benign and malicious MEV. Total amount of extracted MEV since Jan 1, 2020 until today from Ethereum's is more than 1,132 billion. $379 million sandwich attack and $623 million (lower bound) arbitrage and liquidator bots. Additionally NFT MEV (roughly 75 million) and different kinds of liquidity sniping, etc (roughly 50 million). Problem of MEV is inherent to all smart contract based blockchains.

There are two types of MEV: benign and malicious MEV. Benign MEV - when the main criteria for its extraction is to be first to capture it, without prior knowledge about pending transactions in Mempool. MEV extraction opportunity is created from change in the state of the market. MEV extracted by Arbitrators, liquidators and miners can be classified as benign MEV. Malicious MEV - is created from malicious exploitation of information about mempool`s pending transactions in order to gain profit, on the expense of unsuspected crypto traders and investors. MEV extracted by Sandwicher and generalized Frontrunner bots can be classified as malicious MEV.

MEV on Ethereum has exploded with the rapid development of Defi - fueled on the one hand by the profit motive of bot operators, who fight with users and among each other in order to capture profitable MEV opportunities, and on the other hand by the profit motive of miners, who are validating and including in a block only those transactions, which are offering highest fees. We deeply believe that lack of awareness of the crypto community about these complicated and sophisticated strategies of MEV extraction is a big problem, which has to be solved. Although the exact number of malicious MEV is hard to determine, we can say that it is quite a big number, considering that the total USD amount only for sandwich attacks in 2021 is more than $379 million, which is the sum of 856.23K attack cases.

Activity of bots and their gas wars flood Ethereum's network with transactions, slow down the performance and increase fees for ordinary users, which in the end creates unfavorable conditions for network usage. Worst possible form of Mev extraction - time bandit attacks is a direct threat to Ethereum consensus stability. In a pursuit to capture profitable Mev opportunities, miner with sufficient mining power can initiate a time bandit attack, reorganize a few blocks and extract profits from Mev, thus destabilizing consensus and creating existential risks for ethereum network.

The goal of the collection is to bring more transparency to Ethereum Dark Forest, which is a notoriously dangerous place with multiple actors, wild incentives, power dynamics and sophisticated strategies. We believe that greater awareness and knowledge of the problem will be beneficial for the protection of the crypto community and will serve as a catalyst for creating solutions to democratize MEV space and make it more sustainable.

Each NFT in the collection represents a real-life event of the MEV extraction, conducted by five different races of bots and miners, that happened in 2021. There is a huge amount of data about Mev extraction, thus we decide to divide the Darkforestbots collection into five independent collections: Sandwicher bots, front-running bots, arbitrage bots, liquidation bots and miners. First we will launch a collection that will represent 396 Sandwicher bots and 7400 attack cases, in total of 7796 uniquely genreated NFTs. The first collection will soon be followed by 4 more, highlighting different forms of MEV extraction.