Yesterday the blockchain was congested again, just like the morning rush hour, and my transaction got queued in the mempool—queued so long it made me question my life. To put it plainly: when you click confirm, you’re only tossing your “request” into the waiting room. Miners/validators pick the ones with higher fees to go first. If your fee doesn’t keep up, you can only wait—waiting until the price slides away, or even until it expires and fails—paying tuition in wasted fees. The most annoying part is when people see it stuck and start trying to speed it up, speed it up… and the more they crowd in, the more congested and cutthroat it gets.

I’ve also looked at that whole “chain game” setup lately and just felt exhausted by it. The moment inflation kicks in, studios start batch-minting. The coin price does one downward spiral after another—until, in the end, it all comes down to new users getting stuck holding the bag. When the chain gets congested, there are still a bunch of people rushing to bail out, and transaction fees just go straight through the roof… Then, they shout in the group chat: “Hurry up—get in.” At the time, I honestly had the impulse to just quit and uninstall my wallet. But thinking it through, I decided to follow discipline first: don’t chase that one move; set slippage and a maximum fee; and if it gets stuck, cancel the order and try again. One stubborn thought: moving a little slow isn’t embarrassing—messily clicking confirm is what makes you lose money.