Recently, I saw a bunch of new L1/L2 incentives to boost TVL, and old users are complaining "mining, selling," which made me think of the simplest sentence in options: who is the time value really eating away at?

The buyer is actually "renting" volatility; whether the direction is right or not is secondary. The hardest part is waiting for that one moment before the deadline. If you haven't waited for anything? Time erodes the premium every day, and you might wake up to find it worth even less. The seller, on the other hand, is just collecting the premium, feeling like they've received "time rent." As long as they don't encounter a big move that breaks through, they can keep dragging it out and eventually profit—basically, most of the time, the market isn't that exciting.

So many people think sellers are stable, but they're actually bearing tail risk; buyers see quick losses, but what they're most afraid of isn't the market move itself, but anxiety. Anyway, I personally care more about whether this "incentive market" can actually bring out volatility before my expiration date, or else it's just making time work for me.