I usually say "watch the chain," but I recently realized I can also be easily fooled by "delayed on-chain data"… slow node synchronization, flaky RPC, outdated indexers—what you see as your balance/transaction history might be a few minutes old. Basically, you think you're monitoring live data, but you're actually watching a replay.

These days, isn't there someone complaining again about miners/validators earning more and MEV unfairly front-running transactions? I didn't really feel much about it until I was watching a wallet that suddenly "had no activity," and when I switched to a different RPC and refreshed, the funds had already been transferred… kind of awkward. Anyway, I've gotten used to this: if something seems off, withdraw first, then check multiple sources (different RPCs, cross-reference with the browser). Don't put too much trust in the data on your screen.