Today, I see a bunch of transactions queued up in the mempool—it really feels like rush hour on the subway: you hit send and you’re only in the waiting area, then you still have to see who the miner/validator will pick up first. When things get congested, it’s even more obvious—set the gas too low and it just keeps hanging, set it too high and you’re worried you’ll impulsively end up overpaying like an easy target… In any case, I usually wait for a few confirmations until the rhythm stabilizes before deciding whether to resend or speed it up.

Recently, I’ve also been hearing that in some regions, taxes and compliance are being tightened and relaxed in turn. As soon as expectations for deposits and withdrawals change, the chain follows the mood and crowding/pressure shows up in the on-chain sentiment too—the “sudden pile-up” feeling in the mempool is especially noticeable.

What I fear most isn’t slowness, it’s disorder. If it’s just slow, I can wait—but if it gets chaotic, you don’t even know whether you’re standing in line or getting cut in front of. For now, I’d rather be half a step behind than rush around blindly.