Today I was stupid enough to do this to myself: I placed an order that I wanted to “fast in, fast out,” but the slippage swallowed everything, the fills were choppy, and in the end my cost was higher than expected—by a lot. When I look back, it wasn’t that the market was too wild; it was that I ignored the depth. I saw the price jump a couple of times and panicked, and once my hand was shaky I pushed a market order in—my whole timing was ruined.

If only I’d first taken ten more seconds to check the pool/order book, split it into two or three orders, and confirmed more slowly—better to be slightly slower than to accidentally end up supplying liquidity because of my own actions. By the way, recently everyone’s been watching big on-chain transfers and odd movements in exchange hot and cold wallets and shouting that “smart money is coming.” I’m kind of numb to it now… Just because money is moving doesn’t mean the direction is right. Most of the time, it’s simply that other people’s execution is steadier than yours. Either way—set a proper slippage limit first, and don’t let your emotions sign their name for you.