Just queued up in the mempool again and started questioning life... Do you think clicking "Send" is the end of it? No, first you enter the waiting room, and miners/packagers see if your tip is enough; if not, they keep holding it, and sometimes someone who pays more cuts in line behind you. The funniest part is that my transaction shows nonce=17 and has been pending forever, while nonce=18 behind it is marked "unavailable"—like waiting in line to buy bubble tea, if the person in front doesn’t move, you can’t move either.

When congestion hits, I usually first check the gas trend and how many transactions are packed into the block. If needed, I add a little tip or just cancel/replace (send a 0 with the same nonce to myself), to avoid staying up all night with a shattered mood. Anyway, it’s no wonder I’m called Gas Fee Allergic...

By the way, I want to complain about those on-chain data tools and tagging systems recently. Being called laggy or potentially misleading is pretty normal, right? You see the “Smart Money Tag” hype outside, but their transactions might still be queued in the mempool and not settled yet. By the time you catch up, the next batch has already left. That’s all for now; today I got blocked so badly my scalp is numb.