I squatted in the mempool all afternoon—the gas fees were like an auction. I watched, right in front of my eyes, as my own transaction got stuck for almost half an hour, only for it to be snatched away by a bot sandwich at the end. Honestly, I was so furious my blood pressure shot up.

To be real, when the chain is congested, your transaction is like lining up to buy milk tea: people cut in front of you, and people jump the line behind you. If your reaction time isn’t fast enough, you’ll get targeted by bots. Lately, the group chat has been arguing again about the compliance boundaries for privacy coins and mixers. To be honest, I’m really annoyed. It’s great to just do technology in the lab—why does everything have to spill over into the outside world?

Anyway, my strategy right now is: look at group chats less, don’t follow trends to start fights, block the sources of the noise, and focus on on-chain data and slippage protection. Noise reduction? One sentence: don’t trust empty talk—just look at the chain.