I just reviewed my trading records and came across a particularly frustrating loss: I clearly planned to buy in batches, but I got too impatient, and with slippage maxed out, I ended up hitting that extremely thin layer of market depth above... Basically, I was in a rush, saw green candles and wanted to buy the dip, and before I could place a limit order and wait for it to fill, I impulsively entered a market order.

Looking back, it’s nothing too complicated: when the liquidity isn’t deep enough, don’t expect “setting a slippage” to save you; slippage just tells you how much you could lose, not that it makes losing more comfortable. The timing of your orders is also crucial—especially during periods when everyone’s watching (like around recent mainnet upgrades of popular chains, where everyone’s speculating whether projects will migrate or not), liquidity can be very choppy, and the transaction prices can drift wildly. Anyway, I now prefer to slow down, split my orders into smaller parts, watch the capital flow for a few minutes before acting—my wallet isn’t a wish pond, rushing in just means paying tuition fees.