Recently, I was chatting with a friend about MEV and builders, and I found that a lot of people think this is way too far removed from them. But to put it plainly: blocks aren’t something that just fall from the sky—someone (a builder) uses bundles to package and put them on-chain. Retail users don’t need to know how to write code to front-run, but they do need to understand that in a “gas war,” you’re being cut to the front of the line and sandwiched. It’s not because your hands are slow—it’s because someone intercepts you on-chain ahead of time.

Last week I came across a chain gaming project, and its tokenomics collapsed in a truly brutal way. The inflation rate was almost on par with a printing press, studio scripts were sweeping the market, the token price spiraled downward, and retail investors were still fantasizing about a “rebound next month.” It’s pretty heartbreaking—something that’s clearly evident from the data still has to be experienced as a loss before people believe it.

Anyway, this is my own habit: when a new project comes out, first check whether the community is basically all studios, whether the inflation is being pinned down and can’t be effectively eased, and whether builders have a monopoly on transaction ordering rights. If you know these, you can at least avoid being fooled as a “liquidity plant” a few times. Side quests—do more of them and you’ll be able to steer clear of more traps.