Last night I paid my tuition again: I clearly wanted to try with a small position, but ended up sweeping in all at once with a market order, and the slippage directly increased my cost significantly. When it retraced a bit afterward, my mindset started to shift. Honestly, I still didn't respect the depth enough; the order book looked like there was volume, but when I actually threw in a big order, I found it was ridiculously thin, especially when volatility kicked in, and the orders looked as fragile as paper.

Now looking back, I realize that the timing of placing orders is more important than I thought: don’t rush to “execute in one go,” split it into several smaller trades, wait a bit, and let the orders queue up slowly. It’s better to miss out than to be chased by slippage. I was refreshing/retrying several times back then, and the more I did, the more I felt like I was fighting with the matching and sorting process… Recently, some people have also been complaining about miners/validators capturing MEV and unfair ordering, and it does feel like “I make a move and get stuck for a moment.”

That’s all for now. Anyway, my conclusion remains the same: surviving is more valuable than catching that one move.