I just made another stupid mistake… the trade I originally thought would “net a small profit and then run” directly failed + I ended up paying more gas. Looking back, it was pretty amateurish: I set the slippage too tight, the pool depth was thin, and I stubbornly chased confirmation during those few seconds of volatility. To put it plainly, my order timing was wrong. When I saw a whole bunch of similar orders coming in from the mempool in the same direction, I still thought, “If I’m quick enough, it’ll be fine,” but I ended up getting wedged in the middle and stuck there for half a day.

I can also understand why everyone’s been complaining lately that validators are getting more and more lucrative, and about MEV and sorting fairness. The experience is: you think you’re trading with the market, but actually you’re trading with the queue, priorities, and people who run better than you. Anyway, I don’t believe in the self-soothing idea of “set a slippage and everything will be fine” anymore… from now on, I’d rather split my orders, offset a few amounts, or just wait until the depth is better before placing. That’s it for now.