Just now, I swapped a coin on the chain, and that feeling of "queuing" in the mempool came back: the moment you click confirm, the transaction is first thrown into the pending pool, and miners/validators are like choosing takeout orders—they pick the ones with more appealing fees first. So you'll experience: delayed packaging → price/pool status changes → slippage protection triggers and causes failure, wasting some gas; even worse, if someone ahead of you in the same route jumps the gun, the depth you thought you saw instantly thins out, and the transaction price is completely different from what's shown in the screenshot... Anyway, during congestion, I prefer to do less or set the fee to a "not too stingy" level, and try to route through pools with thicker liquidity.

My mom just asked me: If I add more money, can I cut in line? I said... pretty much, but don’t count on it being guaranteed; network hiccups are unpredictable.

By the way, recently the community has been arguing about privacy coins/mixing compliance, and I find it a bit exhausting... technically, it’s just a bunch of transactions queuing in the pool, but everyone’s feelings about “whether it should be visible” are more congested than the network itself. That’s all for now, I’m not messing around tonight.