I was just trying to swap a coin on-chain a moment ago, but it ended up queuing in the mempool just like the morning rush… You think clicking confirm is the end of it, but really you’re just stuffing a little note into a pile of similar ones and waiting for miners to pick it up. If your Gas is set too low, you’ll have to wait slowly—meanwhile the price keeps sliding away, MEV races ahead, and even if you regret it and want to cancel, you still have to pay another “withdrawal fee.” In plain terms, you’re paying money to buy the front spot in the line.

When the network is congested, the thing I fear most is “getting stuck for half a day and then it fails”—you don’t get the swap done, your exchange never completes, and you still get charged the fees. It makes me so mad I even feel like the K-line of the day’s weather forecast is useless.

By the way, I’ve also been noticing lately that whole setup with social mining and fan tokens—the “attention is mining” thing. It feels like what gets shouted the loudest in the mempool might not be the first one to actually get on board… Anyway, before I place an order, I check once to see whether the network is congested, so I don’t make things harder for myself.