Recently, people have been complaining again that validators/miners have gotten fed too well, and that MEV treats retail users like cash machines… I think we should hold off on rushing to blame; first, figure out exactly who you’re trusting when you make a single cross-chain transfer.

IBC-style message passing sounds very “legitimate,” but when you actually click to do a cross-chain transfer: you need to trust the source chain’s consensus + finality; trust the destination chain’s light client/proof verification logic; trust that the relayer(relayer) won’t act maliciously (at least don’t get you stuck); trust that the channel/client state isn’t updated incorrectly; and also trust that, when the target chain executes that transaction, it won’t have its ordering messed with into something chaotic.

In plain terms, cross-chain isn’t about “whether there’s a bridge,” but about “how much the trust surface area is exposed.”

I’m more like someone who looks at a component checklist than someone who gets swept up by a hot narrative.

That’s it for now.