I used to be a bit paranoid—always thinking, “I only look at on-chain,” and treating whatever narratives other people were shouting about as background noise. Recently, after getting into how block builders do it, and how bundles get shoved into blocks, I realized retail investors don’t actually need to study it like a thesis. Just knowing what’s “good enough” is enough. The transactions you send don’t necessarily go straight into a miner’s hands—there are people packaging things, front-running, or sandwiching you in the middle, especially when you chase a hot topic and, with a slip of the hand, you click/set it with high slippage. At that point, you’re basically giving others room to put on a show.

So my standard for myself is pretty simple—and kind of “plain” too: don’t randomly authorize auto-trading or AI Agent permissions from unknown sources (the more mystical the pitch, the more panicked I get). If there’s a reliable front end, don’t force yourself to hand-craft it. For large amounts, try to split them up and don’t rush when the network is congested. And if I keep seeing my execution price get “wiped” by just a small amount, I know I might be lining up against someone else’s bundle. Plainly put: understanding that “someone is lining up in the front and back with you” is enough. The rest… I don’t need to be a block builder myself. That’s it for now.