I’ve recently stared at certain pools for the third time, spotting traces of “queue jumping.” Put simply, with the whole MEV/ordering setup, the first ones to get hit aren’t whales—they’re the small orders from people who think a quick tap will execute at the price they see. You think you’re trading with the market, but in reality you’re racing against a whole crowd of faster players. Slippage, failure fees, and inexplicable moments where you get “sandwiched” are all slowly being taken out of your pocket.

Especially lately, memes and celebrity call-outs have been getting hot again. Newcomers rush in to chase attention as attention cycles, and in the end they find the execution price is way off from what they imagined… “Don’t take the last baton,” as the old hands say, sounds a bit old-fashioned, but it’s pretty solid. In any case, I care more about how fast liquidity retreats and the density of abnormal trades—once it gets crowded, I step back one pace and watch the show. Whether I profit or not is another question; don’t treat yourself like a charity donor.