During the morning rush hour commute, I checked the chain, and the mempool started queuing again… When the network is congested, your transaction is actually pretty similar to cutting in line at a highway on-ramp: first it gets pushed into a bunch of pending “waiting rooms,” and miners/packagers pick out the ones that pay small tips first; the rest just slowly wait—until they expire, get replaced, or you cancel and resend it yourself. The worst part is thinking, “It’s sent out = it’ll be confirmed soon,” only to have it stuck halfway through, with the price/status changing—then slippage and MEV become the kinds of chances that are easy for others to swoop in and pick up.

These past two days, with cross-chain bridge thefts and oracle errors, everyone in the group has been saying, “Wait for confirmation.” Basically, they’re afraid that when their transaction gets stuck, the situation on-chain has already turned hostile. I personally would rather do two fewer transactions right now, and focus on thinking through the gas, the expiration time, and batching/order placement first… In any case, strategy is like a parachute—first make sure you can land safely.