Last night I sent a gas fee that was too low—watching it sit in the mempool in line for almost two hours was painfully real, like a worker waiting for the elevator. During peak hours, it’s a true cross-section of everyone on-chain—some people spam tips to cut in line, some just give up on the spot, and others resubmit over and over until the whole network is basically watching what’s happening in their wallet. To put it plainly, at times like this, emotion indicators feel more real than prices: the funding fee rate jumps, social media is full of complaints, and the fear-and-greed gauge swings directly toward greed. Lately I keep seeing takes that social mining and fan tokens are “attention equals mining,” but I’m honestly a bit skeptical. Can attention really be quantified into computing power, or is it just another mask for recruiting more heads? Anyway, since I only trust on-chain data, I’ll first check the mempool congestion index before deciding anything.