Last night the on-chain network was a bit congested. I was already planning to top up my LP, but when I sent the transaction it was like waiting in line in the mempool to buy bubble tea: first it just hangs there, then others bump up the gas price to jump the queue—if you don’t, you end up waiting slowly, and after waiting too long you might get squeezed in the middle while the whole thing gets repeatedly tested. In the end, it’s either a failure and a refund, or you get filled at a worse price.

Later, I realized the thing that makes me most anxious isn’t whether prices are going up or down—it’s those few minutes of “why hasn’t it been confirmed yet”…

Recently, new L1/L2 chains have been rolling out incentives to pull TVL. A lot of long-time users are complaining about the whole “mine–withdraw–sell” process. For my part, I’m just a bit more佛: during congestion, either split it into smaller batches, or simply wait until the chain clears. You can save a little on fees, and keep your mindset together too.