Last night, the network was congested again. Even a regular transfer feels like waiting in line in the mempool to buy bubble tea: first squeeze in, then a bunch of people paying extra to cut in line; if you don’t add more, you just wait patiently, until miners/packagers see whose "tip" looks more appealing and scoop it up first. Even worse, you think you've sent it out, but in reality, it's just stuck in the pool, repeatedly looked at and then put back... In the end, it either times out or you cancel and resend, wasting some extra fees.

Recently, the community arguing about privacy coins and compliance with mixing also follows this logic: some want to "just wait in line and don’t bother me," while others shout "the queue must be real-name verified or you can’t join." Basically, during congestion, the first to be sacrificed are always small transactions from ordinary people, while project teams can always squeeze to the front. Anyway, I’m holding back on moving funds now during congestion—prefer to be late than to compete with bots for urgency.