Just now, I got the itch again to chase that kind of setup—green turning red—but I forced myself to stop for two minutes. What did I even get: some new information, or am I just getting swept up emotionally and impulsively adjusting my position? To put it plainly, most of the time it’s the latter.

I used to be pretty stubborn. I’d blurt out things like, “I only look at on-chain,” scrolling through the mempool the way you scroll through your feed, and when it was packed full, I’d start imagining liftoff. Later, I realized on-chain can deceive you too: in the same wave you’ve got MEV, reordering, and bots jostling each other—just because it’s lively doesn’t mean it’s an opportunity.

Recently, everyone’s been complaining that validators are earning too comfortably and that ordering isn’t fair. I watch all of it like a show, and yet I’m also uneasy: don’t mistake someone else’s extractable value for your own signal.

Now I’ve added a rule for myself: if I can’t clearly explain “how this piece of information ends up affecting the price,” then I admit it’s just emotion. I’ll cut my position in half first, and treat the rest as a lesson learned. That’s it for now.