According to Farside Investors, the mempool exists to model which transactions will get mined and acts as a spam-prevention layer (source: https://twitter.com/FarsideUK/status/1972207671974719623; original statement via BitMEX Research: https://x.com/BitMEXResearch/status/1972207072516214854). For traders, this implies BTC fee levels directly signal inclusion probability and confirmation timing, so monitoring mempool pressure can help set competitive fees and manage settlement risk during execution (source: https://twitter.com/FarsideUK/status/1972207671974719623). When spam-like low-fee floods occur, the mempool’s filtering role concentrates blockspace on transactions most likely to be mined, shifting fee and timing dynamics that affect trade settlement and on-chain arbitrage windows (source: https://x.com/BitMEXResearch/status/1972207072516214854; https://twitter.com/FarsideUK/status/1972207671974719623).