MEV & anti copy-trade
Most defenses race the bots. Cowl removes the bait instead. If there is nothing to see, there is nothing to front-run and nothing to copy.
Front-running
A sandwich attack needs your pending trade in view: the bot reads your order in the mempool, buys ahead of you, and sells into your fill. Cowl trades never enter a public mempool — the order is a ZK proof, not a readable intent. There is no pending trade to jump.
Copy-trading
Wallet-watchers do not attack you; they mirror you. They see a sharp address enter, copy the buy, and ride your edge until it is arbitraged away. Because your entries live in shielded state and land on stealth addresses, there is no address to follow and no entry to copy.
Why “private” beats “fast”
Private-mempool relays, commit-reveal schemes, and fair-ordering all try to win a race against adversaries who are faster and better funded than you. Invisibility ends the race. The attack surface is not narrowed — it is gone.
| Threat | Needs to see | Under Cowl |
|---|---|---|
| Sandwich / front-run | Your pending order | No public order exists |
| Copy-trading | Your entries and address | Entries shielded, address stealth |
| Liquidation hunting | Your position and size | Size never on the tape |