Last night I wanted to make a quick move on a small on-chain pool, but as soon as the gas price shot up, I felt something was off: at the exact same second I confirmed, someone else executed the trade as if they had a VIP pass first. My order either slipped way beyond acceptable slippage or failed outright, and I still got charged fees... Basically, this is on-chain front-running. Call it MEV or fair ordering, whatever—usually, the ones getting hurt are the retail traders who are slow or not aggressive enough.

Recently, everyone’s been complaining that miners/validators are earning more and more from “queue-jumping fees.” I watched and chuckled, but after a while, it still hurt. Then I got scared and stared at those strange on-chain signals for a long time. In the end, I decided: if I don’t understand it, I won’t touch it. Don’t ask—my risk control tools besides being sarcastic also include “cancel orders.” That’s all for now.