Today I saw that kind of “coincidental transfer” on the blockchain again: A just received a transfer, and immediately sent it to B—the timing is perfectly matched, and the group starts spinning conspiracy theories… I even thought at first that it was big players secretly washing the activity, but after tracing the path, it turns out that most of it is: aggregator/route contracts helping you split the order, a cross-chain bridge acting as the relay, and then funds being consolidated into the exchange’s hot wallets—so in the end it just looks like someone is matching trades. In other words, it’s “the toolchain is too long,” not “people are too good at acting.”

That said, the income of miners/validators and MEV have been getting criticized again lately, and I can understand that too. With ordering being opaque, retail investors are even more likely to take these timing coincidences as being targeted. Anyway, when I look at transfers now, I first break them down into “who signed, who actually benefits, whether any intermediate contract is earning the spread,” and then decide whether to follow along; even watering succulents requires dividing them into pots—otherwise one pot can smother the whole lot… For now, that’s it.