Dawn vs Cove Speed Test

When I compared the best cross-chain memecoin bots, Dawn and Cove were the two I kept coming back to. Both run on one balance across every chain they support, both use Privy wallets, and both charge the same 1% on Solana. Dawn finished ahead on speed in that test, but I was recording finishing order by eye, and the two were close enough that I wanted a cleaner answer.

So I ran a stricter head-to-head: the same $1 trade, sent through Dawn and Cove at the same moment, three buys and three sells, and instead of trusting a stopwatch I let the blockchain say which one it confirmed first.

I had both bots open side by side in two browser windows, with a reference clock across the top of the screen. For each round I sent the same $1 USDC order for the same token into both bots at the same moment, then sold the position the same way about 45 seconds later. Round 1 was on JEANPHIL, rounds 2 and 3 on PAID, between the evening of 13 October and the morning of 14 October 2026 (UTC). Both bots traded against the same PumpSwap pool.

The clock is only there so you can see on the recording that both orders went out together. The measurement itself comes from the chain:

• Blocks are the stopwatch. Solana records trades in blocks, one after another, about every 0.22 seconds. Each block has a number that only goes up.
• Lower block number means confirmed first. If Dawn's trade is in block …268 and Cove's is in block …272, Dawn's was confirmed four blocks, roughly 0.87 seconds, earlier.
• Block time comes from the test itself. The first and last transactions are 227,390 blocks and 49,490 seconds apart, which works out to 0.2176 seconds a block. That is the number every figure in seconds below uses.

Rounds 1 and 2, recorded live. Dawn is on the left, Cove on the right, the clock across the top. Under each clip are the two transactions from that round, so you can check what you just watched.

Buy 1 · DawnBuy 1 · CoveSell 1 · DawnSell 1 · Cove

Buy 2 · DawnBuy 2 · CoveSell 2 · DawnSell 2 · Cove

Each row is one pair of orders sent together. The block numbers are shortened to their last three digits here; the full numbers and links are further down.

For each of the six trades, the Solana block Dawn's transaction and Cove's transaction were confirmed in, the gap in blocks, and that gap in seconds

Trade	Dawn	Cove	Blocks between	Gap	Dawn faster by
Buy 1JEANPHIL	…268block 456,566,268	…272block 456,566,272		4 blocks	0.87 s
Sell 1JEANPHIL	…482block 456,566,482	…484block 456,566,484		2 blocks	0.44 s
Buy 2PAID	…534block 456,791,534	…537block 456,791,537		3 blocks	0.65 s
Sell 2PAID	…743block 456,791,743	…745block 456,791,745		2 blocks	0.44 s
Buy 3PAID	…421block 456,793,421	…426block 456,793,426		5 blocks	1.09 s
Sell 3PAID	…655block 456,793,655	…658block 456,793,658		3 blocks	0.65 s
Overall Dawn first in 6 of 6. The gaps add up to 19 blocks, 3.17 per trade, which at 0.2176 s a block is 0.69 s on average. Smallest gap 0.44 s, biggest 1.09 s.

The gap was never smaller than two blocks and never bigger than five. The sells were the closest races, both at two blocks. The widest was Buy 3, where Cove's order took five more blocks to land than Dawn's.

All twelve transactions, with the block each one was confirmed in and a link to it on Solscan. Open any pair and compare the two block numbers. I also re-checked every one of these against Solana mainnet before publishing: each transaction sits in the block listed here, and none of them failed.

Every transaction in the test: the bot that sent it, the block it was confirmed in, the time, and a link to it on Solscan

Bot	Block	Time (UTC)	Transaction
Buy 1JEANPHIL·13 October 2026Dawn first by 4 blocks· 0.87 s
Dawn	456,566,268	20:02:00 UTC	2w4mLf…BttTSolscan
Cove	456,566,272	20:02:00 UTC	5dJms2…RMn7Solscan
Sell 1JEANPHIL·13 October 2026Dawn first by 2 blocks· 0.44 s
Dawn	456,566,482	20:02:45 UTC	5fQ3CA…xx58Solscan
Cove	456,566,484	20:02:45 UTC	2QgH1j…oCgQSolscan
Buy 2PAID·14 October 2026Dawn first by 3 blocks· 0.65 s
Dawn	456,791,534	09:39:10 UTC	q22R56…4L52Solscan
Cove	456,791,537	09:39:11 UTC	TZ9MCA…SDhbSolscan
Sell 2PAID·14 October 2026Dawn first by 2 blocks· 0.44 s
Dawn	456,791,743	09:39:55 UTC	4Kdgng…YH2ASolscan
Cove	456,791,745	09:39:55 UTC	5MfCgx…t5z6Solscan
Buy 3PAID·14 October 2026Dawn first by 5 blocks· 1.09 s
Dawn	456,793,421	09:46:00 UTC	3ogZco…2EBzSolscan
Cove	456,793,426	09:46:01 UTC	3H7ecK…NRLZSolscan
Sell 3PAID·14 October 2026Dawn first by 3 blocks· 0.65 s
Dawn	456,793,655	09:46:50 UTC	3oaQPi…xza3Solscan
Cove	456,793,658	09:46:50 UTC	4memS1…4WhfSolscan

Six trades, six earlier blocks for Dawn. The gap ranged from 0.44 to 1.09 seconds and averaged 0.69, and every number is on the chain for anyone to check.

I rated Dawn 10/10 and Cove 8/10 for speed in the cross-chain comparison, and this test backs that up with something better than my eyes. If raw speed on Solana is what you care about, Dawn is the one of the two I'd use, and I have switched my own daily trading to it.