Lately, people have been talking about sandwiches, arbitrage, and all that again. I’ve been listening for a bit and it’s starting to feel a little… numb. You think you’ve stumbled on an opportunity, you click “swap,” and it may end up being you paying “toll fees” to someone else. Especially when those new L1/L2 projects roll out incentives and TVL is climbing through the roof—the on-chain activity gets even hotter. And it’s not without reason that old users complain about “mining, buyback-and-sell,” because when traffic comes in, the ones who get fed first are often not ordinary people.

But lately, I’ve learned to “wait”—wait for confirmation, wait for the callback/pullback, and wait until I’ve figured everything out before I act. To be frank, I’d rather make a little less than let myself get carried away by emotion and treat all the costs—slippage, gas, and getting trapped/being squeezed out—as if they don’t matter. Positions are like potted plants: prune them more slowly, and at least you won’t cut the roots off in one go.