Back when the network was congested, every time I clicked confirm it felt like stuffing a note into the crack under the window: you get it thrown into the mempool to queue first, and miners/validators pick whichever has higher fees first, so your transaction might end up stuck, and keep repeatedly running into “it’s about to expire but hasn’t processed yet.” What’s even more annoying is this—when you’re in a panic and you increase the fee, you’re really just swapping to a more expensive ticket to jump the line; if you don’t raise the fee, you can only watch other people go ahead… And then there are cases where someone in front is doing front-running or sandwiching: you’re clearly just swapping tokens, but the final execution price gets squeezed into something a bit jarring.

Recently, in the group chat, people have been arguing about privacy coins and where the line is for compliant mixing. But I actually feel even more strongly about this: when there’s congestion and uncertainty, don’t expect the on-chain process to follow “the workflow you have in mind.” My approach is pretty straightforward and a bit old-school: split important transactions into smaller pieces, leave room for replacement/cancellation, and don’t rush in all at once just because you’re emotional—let’s do it this way for now.