Last night, the chain got congested and I got an itch again, so I went to stare at the mempool—watching my transaction queue up like ordering bubble tea: first you broadcast it, then a bunch of nodes “see” it, and then it starts getting used for price comparisons, cut in line, or even “clipped” a bit… To put it plainly, you think that once you click confirm it’s over, but actually you’re tossing your intent into the market, where everyone can watch how much of a tip you’re offering.

What I hate most is that when the network is congested, even if you bump your gas, you may not get picked up immediately. And the route could be changed on the fly—slippage can go from “I can accept this” to “I’m being taught a lesson.” Recently, the testnet incentive scheme has been even more obvious: a bunch of people farm points betting on whether the main net will actually issue tokens. Once the on-chain noise kicks in, even a normal person’s single swap can end up being queued for half a day.

For a moment I really wanted to quit and uninstall my wallet… but I still held back. I switched to smaller amounts in batches and avoided the popular pools—I'd rather be a bit slow than deliver the meal to the snatchers/“clippers.” Anyway, I don’t believe in superstition; I’ll reproduce it first.