Recently browsing on-chain records, I keep seeing those situations where I clearly clicked to swap, but the transaction price looks like someone stepped on it in advance. Basically, it’s a matter of order sorting—who can jump the queue can take a little more. The biggest impact isn’t from “whale battles” or such drama, but from us small traders who casually open slippage and are too lazy to watch, wanting to save hassle, but end up paying for others’ gas fees.

What’s more embarrassing is that some projects claim to be fair, yet they hand “faster and more stable” to private channels, leaving ordinary users to queue up. Recently, the layered yield from staking and shared security got criticized as “circular,” which I can understand. The underlying order is opaque, and stacking a story of returns on top makes it even more uncertain. Anyway, I’d rather earn less now, go slow with stablecoins, tighten slippage, and not compete for seats on the chain. That’s it for now.