I have a friend who asked me the other day whether an on-chain “cutting in line” really counts as stealing. In that MEV setup, arbitration bots front-run trades—you can see the execution price slip a bit; really, someone just jumped ahead. Put simply: in real life, cutting in line makes you want to curse, while on-chain, everyone only thinks it’s a sign of good technical skill.

I don’t know whether it’s a case of a bystander’s perspective, but I feel that when a crowd is pushing through and inflating bubbles, the easiest people to get squeezed are the ones at the very back. You see the funding rate go to extremes, and everyone is still shouting about whether it will reverse or keep squeezing—but I actually think that at this point, the cost of waiting in line has already grown so high that you shouldn’t be standing at the tail end. Anyway, I’ve been too lazy to move lately—I'll first see how those who cut in line end up.