Solana vs Ethereum MEV Trading: 2025 Performance Guide

31/8/2025
8-minute read

The MEV trading landscape has transformed quite dramatically this year, with Solana finally mounting a proper challenge to Ethereum’s long-standing dominance. If you’re running trading bots or thinking about diving into automated arbitrage, the blockchain you choose can make or break your profitability.

Having spent considerable time analysing transaction costs, execution speeds, and real-world performance across both networks, I’ve discovered some rather compelling differences that could significantly impact your trading returns.

The Numbers That Matter (August 2025)

The contrast between these two networks is rather stark when you look at the fundamentals. Solana transactions cost roughly $0.00025 each, whilst Ethereum will set you back anywhere from $15 to $45 per trade. That’s not a typo—we’re talking about a difference of several orders of magnitude.

The contrast between these two networks is rather stark when you look at the fundamentals. As of September 2025, a standard Solana transaction costs 5,000 lamports (the smallest unit of SOL). With SOL currently trading at about $208.75 (see live price), that’s 0.000005 SOL × $208.75 ≈ $0.00104 per transaction. You can view recent transaction fees in lamports on the Solana Explorer. For comparison, Ethereum will set you back anywhere from $15 to $45 per trade. That’s not a typo—we’re talking about a difference of several orders of magnitude.

As for Ethereum, current gas prices (as of September 2025) are much lower than in previous years. According to the Etherscan Gas Tracker, a simple ETH transfer (21,000 gas) at an average gas price of 1.34 gwei and ETH at $4,407.46 costs about $0.12. More complex actions, such as swaps (356,190 gas), cost between $2.10 and $2.41. You can check live gas prices and fee estimates for various actions directly on Etherscan. This is still significantly higher than Solana, but the gap is not as extreme as it once was.

Block times tell a similar story. Solana processes blocks every 400 milliseconds, compared to Ethereum’s rather leisurely 12-second intervals. For MEV opportunities, this speed difference is absolutely crucial.

In terms of total extractable value, Ethereum still commands the lion’s share with an estimated $180M monthly, whilst Solana processes around $45M. However, the competition on Solana remains considerably lighter, and that’s rapidly changing as more sophisticated players enter the space.

Understanding MEV Trading in 2025

Maximum Extractable Value essentially represents the profit opportunities created by how transactions are ordered within blockchain blocks. Think of it as being first in the queue at a particularly lucrative shop sale—positioning matters enormously.

The most common strategies include arbitrage (exploiting price differences between decentralised exchanges), liquidations (capturing rewards from lending protocols when positions go underwater), and what’s rather euphemistically called “sandwich attacks”—front-running and back-running user transactions for profit. There’s also MEV bundling, where you combine multiple profitable transactions for maximum efficiency.

What’s fascinating is how much the landscape has matured since the early days. We’ve moved far beyond simple arbitrage bots to sophisticated infrastructure involving dedicated block builders, relayers, and entire searcher networks operating on both Ethereum and Solana.

Ethereum: The Established Heavyweight

Ethereum remains the undisputed heavyweight champion of MEV, processing an estimated $180M in extractable value each month as of August 2025. It’s rather like New York—expensive to operate in, but the opportunities are genuinely substantial.

The infrastructure advantages are considerable. Flashbots, MEV-Boost, and numerous relayer options provide genuinely battle-tested infrastructure that’s been refined over years of use. The liquidity is deep across Uniswap V2/V3, Curve, Balancer, and 1inch, offering substantial arbitrage opportunities for those willing to pay the entry fee. Most importantly, the MEV strategies are well-documented with proven profitability tracks.

The current transaction costs are where things get rather expensive. For current gas fee calculations and examples, have a look at the Ethereum Gas Documentation and Etherscan Gas Tracker for real-time costs. You’re typically looking at base fees of 12-25 gwei depending on network congestion, priority fees of 1-10 gwei for MEV inclusion, totalling around $15-45 per transaction in busy periods. Complex arbitrage operations might require 21,000 to 500,000+ gas units.

The main challenge, unsurprisingly, is those transaction costs. Even genuinely profitable arbitrage opportunities can be completely wiped out by high gas fees during busy periods. I’ve seen situations where a typical Uniswap V3 arbitrage opportunity worth $100 profit ends up costing $35 in gas fees during peak times, leaving just $65 net profit—and that’s before considering the risk of failed transactions.

Solana: The Fast-Moving Challenger

Solana’s MEV ecosystem has matured remarkably quickly, now processing an estimated $45M monthly in extractable value. What’s particularly interesting is how different the playing field feels compared to Ethereum.

The advantages are rather compelling. Transaction costs remain at roughly $0.0002 per transaction regardless of complexity, which is frankly revolutionary when you’re used to Ethereum’s fees. Those 400-millisecond block times enable high-frequency strategies that simply aren’t viable elsewhere. Perhaps most importantly, there’s considerably less competition from sophisticated MEV searchers compared to Ethereum, though this is changing rapidly.

The Jito integration provides native MEV infrastructure built directly into the network, which is rather elegant. Popular Solana exchanges for MEV work include Jupiter (the largest aggregator with substantial arbitrage opportunities), Raydium (an AMM with consistent volume for sandwich attacks), Orca (offering concentrated liquidity pools similar to Uniswap V3), and Serum (whose order book model creates rather unique MEV patterns).

For implementation details, Solana MEV bots typically use the Jito MEV client for transaction bundling and priority. If you’re looking to get started, the Jito Documentation provides up-to-date guides and code examples, along with the Solana Priority Fees Guide and the Solana Cookbook for transaction handling patterns.

Getting Your Infrastructure Sorted

Setting up MEV trading infrastructure requires rather different approaches depending on your chosen network.

For Ethereum, you’ll want detailed setup instructions and code examples from the Flashbots Documentation (see the Ethers.js Provider Library for code), and the MEV-Boost Setup Guide. Infrastructure costs typically run $200-500 monthly for reliable RPC access, 2-5% of extracted value for MEV relay fees, and $50-200 monthly for server costs with low-latency execution.

Solana implementation guides and examples are available through the Jito Documentation, Jito Searcher Examples, and Solana Developer Guides. The costs are considerably lower: $50-150 monthly for RPC endpoints, 5-10% of extracted value for Jito tips, and $20-50 monthly for servers (lower latency requirements help here).

Managing the Risks

MEV trading carries substantial risks that you’d be foolish to ignore. Failed transactions are particularly painful—always test strategies thoroughly on testnets first, as failed MEV attempts still cost gas on Ethereum. Competition from other bots can front-run your transactions, so using priority fees strategically becomes essential. Slippage on large arbitrage trades can move prices unfavourably, making it crucial to calculate maximum profitable trade sizes beforehand.

Each network presents specific challenges. On Ethereum, gas fee volatility can eliminate profits instantly, network congestion causes delays during high-activity periods, and MEV auctions can drive costs up significantly. Solana has its own quirks: network instability during high load (though this is much less frequent in 2025), smaller arbitrage opportunities requiring higher frequency execution, and rapid ecosystem changes that can affect bot strategies overnight.

What’s Coming Next

Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, both networks have interesting developments brewing.

Ethereum continues building on the Dencun upgrade’s blob space improvements, which should help with transaction costs. The MEV market is becoming increasingly competitive, which may reduce individual profits but also drives innovation. Layer 2 networks like Arbitrum, Optimism, Base, and Polygon are creating entirely new MEV opportunities with their own unique characteristics.

Solana’s evolution looks particularly promising. The Firedancer validator client should significantly increase network capacity, whilst enhanced Jito features will provide more sophisticated MEV bundling capabilities. Perhaps most significantly, institutional adoption is bringing larger players into the Solana MEV space, which will undoubtedly change the competitive landscape.

Making Your Choice

The decision between Solana and Ethereum ultimately comes down to your trading style and risk appetite.

Solana makes sense if you prefer high-frequency, lower-value trades where transaction cost efficiency is absolutely paramount. You’ll need to be comfortable with newer, evolving infrastructure, but you’ll benefit from entering a less competitive environment whilst it’s still developing.

Ethereum remains compelling if you can execute larger, more profitable individual trades and have sufficient capital to absorb those gas costs. The tooling is genuinely mature, the infrastructure is battle-tested, and the MEV strategies have proven track records.

Increasingly, successful MEV operators are taking a hybrid approach, running bots on both networks and optimising strategies for each platform’s particular strengths. This diversifies risk whilst maximising opportunities across the broader DeFi ecosystem—rather sensible, really.

MEV Bots & Uniswap Arbitrage: Sandwich Attacks in DeFi