The past couple of days, the network has been a bit congested, so I casually checked the mempool (just as a waiting hall for transactions). When you click confirm, it's actually just a "sign-up"; the nodes first hold onto it and see how much tip you give. If it's too low, you'll stay in line, or even get pushed to the back; as the queue moves, the base fee changes, and your originally calculated cost can fluctuate. What's more frustrating is that some transactions are time-sensitive, like liquidations or grabbing quota. If you wait too long, your slippage might increase or the transaction might fail outright, but you still have to pay the gas fee—it's pretty annoying.

Seeing the group arguing again about whether the extreme funding rates are reversing or just continuing to bubble, I actually care more about a small thing: whether your on-chain actions can "arrive on time." During congestion, I prefer to be conservative—maybe do two fewer steps, set the gas closer to the current percentile, or just wait for a block or two, to avoid getting emotionally worked up and being educated by the queue... Let's talk about it next time.