Lately, I've been noticing that the on-chain data keeps "lagging," and at first I thought my internet was acting up again... But after reviewing, I realized that many times it's not that the chain isn't producing blocks, but that the intermediary indexer/Subgraph is busy chasing blocks and filling in historical data, or that the RPC you're using is rate-limited, returning responses slowly or even dropping requests altogether. To put it simply, the "market" we see is often second-hand data curated by others; when the curator takes a breather, you might get dizzy from the delay.

Now, I usually keep two additional data sources open while monitoring the market: one for exchange transaction data, and another for a simplified version of on-chain explorer/self-hosted node data. Otherwise, it's easy to get misled by delays and false signals. Also, that "yield stacking" scheme of staking rewards has recently been criticized as a copycat scheme, but in fact, the information layer is quite similar to a matryoshka doll: one layer inside another, and when one layer gets blocked, it feels like the whole world has stopped.

What I fear most isn't missing out on opportunities, but making wrong attributions during those few minutes of lag and accidentally clicking on a trade out of frustration.