Every time I see on-chain stuff like “it’s just a small token swap, but the slippage gets chewed up—way too much,” I think of sandwiches and arbitrage: you think you’re snagging an opportunity, but you might just be handing someone else a more expensive fee. Put simply, a lot of the time what you’re seeing isn’t really a price spread—it’s that someone else is faster, better, and gets to the front of the line.

Why do I get an itch to act? It’s probably that “I get it, I can do it too” kind of illusion… especially when new L1/L2 incentives drop and TVL rockets, and the group starts chanting “get in early and you’ll be eating the meat.” That’s when I’m even more likely to lose my cool. Then a veteran user drops a single line—“mine, sell”—and in an instant, I’m pulled back to reality: the excitement belongs to someone else, and the wear and tear is yours.

So now I try to only do trades I can explain clearly: keep the route short, keep the amount small, check the trade execution distribution and the pool depth—otherwise it really starts to feel like I’m just working for someone else. Anyway, only when the tide goes out can you see clearly who’s swimming and who’s just picking up the wallets.