Rook Rook, formally known as KeeperDao, is a protocol that ai | Crypto Great | Bitcoin | DeFi
Rook
Rook, formally known as KeeperDao, is a protocol that aims to make transactions on Ethereum safer, cheaper, and more dependable.
One of the biggest problems Rook is solving is miner extractable value (MEV). Remember, miners on Ethereum process transactions by organizing them within blocks, and in return they charge users gas fees. However, automated bots can manipulate this system by front running trades and profiting off price discrepancies, which costs human users.
It’s a serious problem. According to MEV-Explore, MEV has cost users across all blockchains over $600 million.
Thanks to the public nature of blockchains, we can see how the Rook protocol helps protect traders from MEV by looking at the transactions of a “whale” trader – an anonymous user who was trading millions of dollars’ worth of crypto.
On May 1, this whale was looking to convert a large amount of ETH into BTC. They first used a protocol called 1inch, which taps into multiple DEXs to find its users the best prices on trades.
The whale attempted to swap 4,300 ETH (about $12 million) in exchange for BTC on 1inch. However, this investor soon fell prey to MEV, thanks to automated bots. These bots offered the miner higher gas fees to process their transactions before the whale’s. And in that time, the token prices changed drastically enough that the bots profited while the whale lost value. As a result, the whale lost $250,000 of their $12 million order to price discrepancies.
A couple hours later, this whale submitted similar trades on Rook that yielded much better results. In total, it swapped about $80 million worth of ETH for BTC and didn’t lose any of it to MEV bots. That’s because Rook veils pending transactions, which means bots can’t see them and can’t front-run the trades.
The whale also received rebates in the form of ROOK tokens that equaled about $60,000. By protecting its users from the pitfalls of blockchains such as MEV, and offering benefits for using its platform, Rook will continue attracting the attention of large traders looking to get the best deals on their orders. This will massively benefit the protocol, and its ROOK token, over time.
