The blockchain is congested again today—I even sent a regular transfer and it queued in the mempool to the point of making me question life… Basically, your transaction gets tossed into a “waiting room” first, and then miners/validators selectively choose which ones to include in the block. If the fee isn’t high enough, it just keeps getting left hanging, and it can even get cut in line by later transactions. What’s even more annoying is that sometimes it looks like it’s about to be included in the next block, but halfway through it gets bumped off, and in the end you can only manually add a higher fee or just wait for it to expire.

Recently everyone’s been complaining about validator income, MEV, and unfair ordering, and I get it. I mean, I’m only trying to transfer some coins safely—why do I have to guess who will be “looked after first”?

Anyway, I need to be reminded: when the network is congested, don’t panic. Don’t randomly click “accelerate” in a rush. First, verify the address, the amount, and the authorization. Better to be slower than to dig yourself into a hole.