Case-study report

USDC/USDT stablecoin sandwich case study

A public, source-backed route-quality autopsy for a stablecoin swap that became a viral MEV example. The point is not outrage; it is the missing decision record: route, pool, size, slippage context, detector output, and caveats.

Source postEtherscan txMethodology
USDC sent
$220,806.39
affected tx transfer amount
USDT received
$5,273.00
2.39% of par
Stable-unit shortfall
$215,533.39
vs 1:1 stablecoin baseline
Report conclusion

The transaction is real; the detector state is deliberately caveated.

Public logs show the affected wallet sent $220,806.39 USDC into the Uniswap V3 USDC/USDT 0.01% pool and received $5,273.00 USDT. The same block contains the canonical front / affected / back swap geometry. Routescore treats this as a detector candidate at the 0.65 spoofable-evidence cap, not as a high-confidence production signal.

Claim status

What is verified

Token-transfer fact

The affected tx sent 220,806.389669 USDC into the pool and received 5,272.998058 USDT.

Verified
Sandwich geometry

The same block and same pool show front swap, affected swap, and back swap in canonical order.

Supported
Detector state

Routescore detector-only evidence caps at 0.65 until external evidence is attached.

Candidate
Trust contract

What this report can and cannot claim

Source Cached
Coverage
Ethereum mainnet, Uniswap V3 USDC/USDT 0.01% pool, one confirmed block, public token transfers, and public swap logs.
Freshness
Historical case study from block 22029771. The data is final and reproducible, but this page is not a live monitoring view.
Source status
Cached — Served from a recent cached read, not a fresh fetch.
Confidence
Detector-only candidate at 0.65. High-confidence status requires an external label, bundle source, or reserve-price-impact oracle.
Methodology version
sandwich-detector v0.4.4 · case-study pool universe
Excluded risks
Private mempool visibilityCEX execution comparisonExecution adviceCounterfactual router outcome

Commercial neutrality. Routescore does not take payment, commissions, fees, or referral rebates from any protocol, router, relay, or venue to influence these results. Rankings reflect modeled route quality only.

Modeled, point-in-time decision support — not execution instructions, a quote, or investment advice.

Swap bracket

Same block, same pool

Log 21
Front swap
0xde5aa0c1521d97a48496f10bb8aff364e490c8fc3a4f5d9d587538f15d80cd36
18,648,272.457608 in · 17,581,366.029733 out
Log 24
Affected swap
0xee9fcd2b9996e96b642cb4cda47fc140f98fdaf07ee02657743d4bfcc4670106
220,806.389669 in · 5,272.998058 out
Log 32
Back swap
0x3e72f3ad09d87149ce372e5f35eeb8012fed05f52bef45fb85fdacc0057a943c
18,600,117.682374 out · 17,321,265.264345 in
On-chain facts

Reproducible inputs

ChainEthereum mainnet
Block22029771
Block timestamp2025-03-12 09:04:11 UTC
PoolUniswap V3 USDC/USDT 0.01%
Pool address0x3416cf6c708da44db2624d63ea0aaef7113527c6
Victim tx0xee9fcd2b9996e96b642cb4cda47fc140f98fdaf07ee02657743d4bfcc4670106
Detector stateCandidate at 0.65 confidence
Route-quality lesson

A quote is not a reviewable record.

Stablecoin pairs can still produce catastrophic execution when route, pool, size, slippage context, and public-order-flow exposure are not visible together. Routescore is built around that record: read-only, caveated, source-backed decision support before users move size.

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