Last night I got carried away and tested a trade—my slippage was so bad it left me at a loss. I’d originally wanted to skim a bit of yield from a liquidity pool, but I was too quick to place the order; the depth wasn’t enough, and the execution price ended up almost two percentage points higher than I’d expected… So, do you think this is a problem with the chain, or that I’m just not good? Probably both.

Later, I went back over it. In fact, it’s the same as the recent new L1s and L2s that use incentives to drive TVL—things look like they’re pumping hard from the data, but when it’s time to actually act, active addresses and net inflows can’t keep up. It’s basically a “mine, withdraw, then sell” kind of rhythm. No matter how good the liquidity looks, if your order timing goes off, you’ll still get burned.

Sometimes I also struggle with whether to trust the K-line charts or trust on-chain data. Anyway, I’ve learned my lesson now: I’ll check the depth before placing an order. I’d rather be half a beat late than be impulsive.