MEV protection

When you stake or unstake on a subnet, your order moves through a pool and shifts its price. A bot can watch for a large order, place its own just ahead of it, and leave you with a worse price. This is called MEV.

Two protections exist. The first is a slippage limit, which sets the worst price you will accept. A tight limit is usually enough to discourage a bot.

The second is MEV Shield. It encrypts your order so bots cannot read it, then processes it in the next block. It takes an extra signature, which some wallets handle for you.

Small orders are rarely worth a bot's effort, and root staking has no price impact to exploit. Protection matters most for large orders into subnet pools, so it is worth setting a limit whenever the order is big.