In the race track of cryptocurrency trading, most traders are like blindfolded runners sprinting at full speed — holding what are called "free data sources," which are actually just a severely outdated rearview mirror. You think you've seen the market’s next move clearly, but in reality, what you see is just a phantom from a few seconds ago, already outdated.

By the end of 2025, the speed of on-chain ecosystem evolution has made the word "real-time" extremely luxurious. If you're still relying on public RPC nodes with three-second delays, free candlestick chart tools, or quotes from second- and third-tier news platforms, you're quietly paying for your losses — this bill is called the "information tax," invisible but devastating.

So here’s the question: why, in an era of information explosion, are free data sources devouring traders’ assets?

**The trap of time resolution is the deadliest.** Ethereum and various Layer2 chains have compressed block confirmation times to milliseconds. Free APIs, to save server costs, inevitably aggregate and downsample data. The result? It’s like compressing a 4K movie into a low-resolution video — the broad framework remains, but all the details are wiped out. Large traders’ order placements and cancellations, subtle liquidity imbalances, every breath of the market — these are the real factors that determine your account’s direction.

And at this moment, those MEV bots using paid private nodes have already reacted. While your free viewing board still shows ETH price fluctuations, they’ve already built their sandwich attacks targeting you. What you see as "price discovery" is actually the leftovers left by predators.

**The "reliability gap" of data sources is equally brutal.** Crashes, delays, data breaks on free platforms are not accidental but the inevitable cost of bandwidth and resources. When you rely on them for critical decisions, the risk is no longer in the market but in your data pipeline. Paid node providers are responsible for service quality; but with free ones? When problems occur, it’s just bad luck on your part.

Ironically, saving a little on free data often costs you more in one or two slippage events or missed opportunities — and the loss can be multiple times greater. In this level of market, information is real money.