Last night the network was a bit congested, I made a transaction that looked like "once you click, it's gone," but actually it was queuing in the mempool. Miners/validators prioritize picking up higher fees, so if you set a low fee, you can only wait. By the time the price has moved a bit, the transaction finally goes through, or it gets stuck and expires, failing. To put it simply, during congestion, the most frustrating thing isn't paying a little more fee, but thinking you've entered or set a stop-loss, only to find it never executed, and your mindset is directly stolen.

These days, I've been discussing tax increases and tighter compliance in certain regions. I realize that when expectations for deposits and withdrawals tighten, everyone is more eager to "get it done quickly," making the on-chain congestion even worse, and the more crowded it gets, the more anxious people become. Anyway, I now prefer to be "someone who cancels and restarts according to plan," rather than "someone who keeps waiting with pending transactions, praying they'll go through." For now, I'd rather miss out than let uncertain confirmation times delay my decision-making.