quick start

Flashbots Protect RPC allows regular users to easily submit their transactions to the Flashbots Auction by using a custom RPC endpoint in their wallet. Everything should be the same for users, except transactions are sent to the Flashbots builder instead of the public mempool.

Key benefits to using the Flashbots RPC endpoint:

• Frontrunning protection: your transaction will not be seen by hungry sandwich bots in the public mempool.
• No failed transactions: your transaction will only be included if it doesn't include any reverts, so you don't pay for failed transactions.

  Note: your transaction could be uncled, emitted to the mempool, and then included on-chain.

Privacy notice: Flashbots Protect RPC does not track any kind of user information (i.e. IP, location, etc.). No user information is ever stored or even logged.

Key considerations

Before you get started here are a few things to be mindful of:

• You can find the status of your transaction on Etherscan. Etherscan has a nice interface for viewing the status of your transaction from our status API.
• We will try to include your transaction for 6 minutes, after which point it is considered “expired” and will be dropped.
• Transactions under 42,000 gas, such as simple ETH transfers, do not need front-running protection, so they are sent to the public mempool to provide the fastest execution possible.
• Transactions that perform simple actions - such as token approvals or transfers - will also be sent to the public mempool as these do not need frontrunning protection.
• There is a risk that your transactions are included in uncled blocks and then emitted to the public mempool. Please read the uncle bandits article to learn more about uncle bandits and how to mitigate this risk.
• Your transactions can be emitted to the public mempool if you switch RPC endpoints from Flashbots Protect RPC to another RPC while your transactions are pending.

Choosing the right gas price

In most cases sending a transaction through Flashbots Protect RPC should not require a higher gas price than normal. However, in periods of high load, you may want to increase gas prices to ensure your transaction is included in a block quickly. If the network is congested and you need your transaction quickly you could up your max fee to adjust for fluctations in base fee and set your priority fee to be 3 - 5 gwei.

Note also that the money saved from keeping reverts from landing on-chain means you will save money even if you occasionally need to pay higher fees during periods of congestion.

How to use Flashbots Protect RPC in MetaMask

To add Flashbots Protect RPC endpoint follow these steps:

1. Enter your MetaMask and click on your RPC endpoint at the top of your MetaMask. By default it says “Ethereum mainnet.”
2. Click “Custom RPC”
3. Add https://rpc.flashbots.net with a chainID of 1 and currency of ETH.
4. Scroll to the bottom and click “Save”

How to use Flashbots Protect RPC in Metamask (Goerli Test Network)

Follow these steps to add Flashbots Protect RPC endpoint for Goerli:

1. Enter your MetaMask and click on your RPC endpoint at the top of your MetaMask. By default it says “Ethereum mainnet.”
2. Click “Custom RPC”
3. Add https://rpc-goerli.flashbots.net with a chainID of 5 and currency of ETH.
4. Scroll to the bottom and click “Save”

Fixing stuck transactions or fixing nonce errors

In the case that your transaction is stuck in a "pending" state or you have an extremely high nonce, you will need to 'reset' your MetaMask account. This will cause it to update the nonce and transaction history from the network. Don't worry, your funds and keys are safe during this process.

Follow these steps:

1. Click the account icon on the top-right corner of MetaMask.
2. Click "Settings".
3. Click "Advanced".
4. Scroll down and click Reset Account.

In the future we will offer more tooling to cancel transactions.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to the mistX, Nethermind, and MiningDAO teams for their contributions to Flashbots Protect RPC.