In this episode, I'm joined by Devan Non, Ape Dev, and Jiran for a fascinating discussion all about NFT MEV. MEV, or Maximum Extractable Value, is the value that can be extracted from block production in excess of block rewards and transaction fees. Two of today's guests, Devan Non and Ape Dev, are a professional MEV searcher team. They observe the mempool to find arbitrage opportunities that they can act upon for profit. In this very special episode of Web3 Galaxy Brain, they reveal their techniques for NFT MEV and explain why they've decided to return to fungible MEV. Blockchain sleuth and etherscan expert Jiran lends his domain expertise to deepen this exploration of the NFT MEV landscape.

It's extremely rare to hear MEV operators discuss their techniques. I was especially grateful for the opportunity to speak with today's guests. I hope you enjoy the show.

Hosted by @nnnnicholas

Produced by @0xmatthewb and @0xbrileigh

Topics Discussed

Flashbots
Risks as an MEV operator and overall strategy
Flashmint
DrBurry
Cool Cats
NFTx
Killer GF NFT by Zeronis
OpenSea market making
Mevcollector
Chainstride
Flashmint, an order book for mint passes
Wintermute
Paradigm - A Guide to Designing Effective NFT Launches
Superplastic: Supergucci
Worm_emoji
Mark Zuckerberg’s Sister Sings Crypto
Drifter

Chapters

00:01:35 What is MEV

00:03:47 MEV scene

00:04:50 MEV risk and strategy

00:07:30 Arbitrage opportunities on marketplaces

00:09:30 Botting hyped drops

00:14:26 Flashmint, the difference between MEV and trading

00:18:20 Types of botting at different stages of an NFT project pipeline

00:21:21 Devan Non saving gas and flashbots

00:27:00 Manipulating the market

00:29:24 Tools for MEV

00:34:10 What is Flashmint

00:40:54 Market making

00:49:25 Devan Non’s favourite NFTs

00:55:05 MEV on other chains

00:55:46 Ape Dev and Devan Non working in Ethereum before MEV

01:00:52 MEV culture

01:10:30 Drifter

The Mighty Challenge Thursday January 15th 2026