In this liquidity environment, the current market is essentially a zero-sum game of hardware competition, whether it's high-frequency trading or MEV, retail investors are always being exploited.

Recently, I studied something new: a project led by @a16z and @1kxnetwork called Pod (@poddotnetwork). Their highlight is a batch auction mechanism that allows everyone to trade at the same price, completely eliminating hardware advantages and shifting the outcome back to retail investors' judgment of the price.
Here, retail investors can trade 24/7 on core global assets like NASDAQ, S&P 500, gold, and NVDA, with high performance and complete fairness. Currently, the project is in the waitlist phase, which is the only way to gain early access to the testnet and mainnet.
However, there are no such good things in the world. Most market maker algorithms are based on continuous auction designs; they are accustomed to managing risk through high-frequency order placement and cancellation amid volatility. Pod’s mechanism requires market makers to rewrite their underlying algorithms. If initial liquidity providers are insufficient, this unified trading price may deviate from mainstream market prices, leading to slippage risk for users.
Moreover, some big players might inject huge orders in the last millisecond before the window closes to change the transaction price. Although Pod has algorithms to prevent this, I think the complexity of this game far exceeds that of traditional order books.
Overall, though, there is innovation. The rules for retail participation are simple: deposit USDC on Arbitrum (funds are always available) and invite friends. The ranking is determined by fund weight and the number of referrals. The earlier you participate, the higher your weight, and potentially the higher your future returns.