Lately everyone’s been talking about sandwiches and arbitrage. To be honest, do you really think you’re picking up a bargain? More often than not, you’re just helping other people cover the transaction fees… especially if you place a market order with pretty large slippage—those few seconds on-chain really don’t negotiate with you. Arbitrage itself isn’t inherently wrong; the market needs someone to smooth out the price gap, but for ordinary people, the way they take part is basically “getting used”: when the execution price flickers, you still tell yourself it’s just normal market volatility.

And on top of that, lately the staking unlocks and token unlock calendar are being brought up every day to scare people—once anxiety hits, it’s even easier to mindlessly chase and wildly cut positions, warming up MEV. Anyway, my approach right now is pretty old-school: if you can use limit orders, use limit orders; if you need to, split your orders. Don’t hard-chase when liquidity is thin. If you really want to play on-chain opportunities, first calculate the worst-case execution price and the loss you can actually stomach—otherwise, the “opportunity” you see is very likely just someone else’s ATM.