Bitcoin Startup Satflow Targets 'Mempool Sniping' in New Token-Trading Rival to Magic Eden
2024-10-23

Satflow, a Bitcoin infrastructure firm focused on the Ordinals and Runes ecosystems, has introduced a decentralized exchange (DEX) for professional traders – positioned as a less-expensive alternative to the popular NFT marketplace Magic Eden.
In a press release shared with CoinDesk, Satflow said that its fees initially will be 0%, claiming they would be a couple percentage points lower than Magic Eden's.
The new DEX's aim is to eliminate the practice of mempool sniping, which is when users exploit the time lag in which a transaction is waiting to be added to a Bitcoin block. Under the blockchain's design, the "mempool" is the queue where transactions sit waiting to be added to new blocks by Bitcoin miners.
Snipers essentially hijack these transactions by removing them from the waiting room, then add them back in with their own signature and a higher fee attached, so that the transactions get chosen by Bitcoin miners first for inclusion in the next block.
There is a greater opportunity for this practice on Bitcoin than other blockchains because of the 10-minute window before a transaction is added to a new block and thus confirmed. The issue is further exacerbated in the Ordinals and Runes ecosystems, when new assets may be prone to rapid price swings.
Therefore, developers have turned their attention to purpose-building exchanges to meet this challenge. Non-fungible token NFTUSD marketplace MagicEden has attempted to tackle this by mandating three transactions: one for the seller, one for the buyer and one to unify them.
Satflow trades also involve three transactions, which make them "unsnipable in mempool," one of the project's founders Robert Clarke told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.
"Both Satflow and other exchanges will still process 'legacy' trades that can be sniped, but we're expecting the market to shift quickly over to secure-purchase and other non-snipable trades," he added.
"Existing DEXs have built their experience that feels more oriented for Etherem or Solana, but trading on Bitcoin is unique in that you need to build from a mempool-first perspective," Satflow said in an announcement on Wednesday.
Satflow, which recently raised $7.5 million in seed funding, is aiming its DEX at high-volume traders who are seeking a more efficient experience when dealing with Ordinals or Runes.