Last night, even transferring 12U made me stare at the mempool for a long time... During congestion, your transaction is actually like waiting in line to buy tickets: first thrown into a pile of "pending," miners/validators prefer to pick those with higher fees first. If you pay less in fees, it slowly gets left behind, and if you're unlucky, you might get pushed to the back for repeated reordering, or even expire/fail outright, wasting some gas. To put it simply, it's not that the chain is broken, but everyone is racing on the same highway.

Recently, I heard news about some regions tightening and loosening taxes and compliance, and when deposit and withdrawal expectations fluctuate, the chain suddenly experiences a "collective rush," and congestion immediately follows. Anyway, I now prefer to wait an extra 30 seconds for small transactions rather than raising fees impulsively when emotions are high. That's how I’ll handle it for now.