These past couple of days, I’ve been watching those “arbitrage opportunities” that flash by on-chain. To put it bluntly, a lot of the time what you’re seeing is someone paying the transaction fees to themselves—like they’re just buying themselves a coffee. The thing that’s most brutal about a sandwich isn’t the tech; it’s the hesitation in that single second right when you place the order—being taken as liquidity and used to squeeze you. Anyway, before I get the urge to chase the price, I first check how deep the pool is and how wide the slippage is; otherwise, you’re basically volunteering to feed MEV.

My mom even asked me: “Is the ‘yield’ on your chain as stable as U.S. Treasuries?” I could only respond with half a sentence: “Not really…” On-chain yield products are sometimes more like “trading volatility for interest.” Even if RWA gets hyped to the sky, you still have to see who’s actually bearing the risk underneath.

My own approach is pretty timid: if I can place a limit order, I won’t use a market order; if I can do it in batches, I won’t swallow it all in one go. If I really do provide liquidity (LP), I treat it like drinking black coffee—bitterness is normal; don’t expect every sip to be sweet. For now, that’s it.