Just saw people arguing about creator royalties, saying that skimming from the secondary market is to protect artists’ interests—pretty idealistic. But honestly, I’ve been watching the mempool for so long; the market basically can’t maintain fairness through rules. Royalties are fundamentally about an on-chain contract, but many projects launch and directly bypass the royalty mechanism—buyers automatically choose the lowest fee rate; if you don’t, then someone else will.

In the past, I still thought royalties were a good Web3 way to push back against traditional rules. But over time, I slowly understood: in the market, impulse and short-sightedness are the norm. Royalties are more like an idealized shelter—you can’t really expect to rely on buyers’ conscience constrained by code; it’s better to hope that shady teams don’t disappear.

Re-staking and shared security also are the same. You stack a pile of returns on top of each other. Some people call it “matryoshka doll” behavior; I don’t think it’s unfair. It’s increasingly like using rules to fatten up your own people—ordinary players who enter just become the liquidity “denominator.”

At the end of the day, rules are set for people who follow them. That’s it—turn around and see whether the mempool has any cheap buys.