The average value of the fees per transaction on the Bitcoin network rose to USD 10.19. The number of unconfirmed transactions has been increasing since October 25th.
The Bitcoin mempool shows an increasing trend of unconfirmed transactions. The temporary memory of the network, which stores transactions pending confirmation, indicates that the network is now 102 MB in size and has more than 77 blocks waiting.
The increase in the number of unconfirmed transactions began on October 25th, according to data from Blockchain.com. They went from 3,164 pending transactions to 129,492 on October 27th. This figure decreased, but it resumed growth again the next day and is becoming increasingly high.
At the time of writing this article, more than 152,192 transactions are still awaiting confirmation on the Bitcoin network, according to data from mempool.space.
This has also led to an increase in the amount of the fees that users must pay for sending transactions in Bitcoin. The high number of operations indicates a level of congestion that causes a longer average confirmation time.
This situation is evident in the current statistics of the mempool when it indicates that users have even paid more than 7,000 sat/byte. During this congested period, that represents around USD 150 in fees.
While the fees of the last four blocks average are between 200 to 300 sat/byte (between USD 5 and USD 6), there are still 77 blocks on hold.
Concerning miners’ profits and their relationship to total fees, 30% of the total block reward derives from fees (with the current issuance of 6.5 BTC per block). At the time of writing this article, the most recent data show a total fee of 3.11 BTC (USD 40,505) in the next block to confirm.
According to Buy Bitcoin Worldwide, the estimated fee for a transaction to confirm on October 27th was about USD 7.6 for SegWit addresses and USD 10.7 for Legacy addresses. The difference between the prices for transactions sent from SegWit and Legacy addresses is due to their apparent weight on the network.
On average, fees reached a high of USD 10.19 on October 27th, according to bitinfocharts.com. This amount far exceeds the high that occurred on October 22nd, when average fees were USD 6.36.
These have been the transactions with the highest fees this year and the highest value since late 2017. This year, there have been other significant increases after the Bitcoin halving, which occurred in May. Other highs in fee payments took place previously: May 20th (USD 6.64), August 6th (USD 6.47), August 18th (USD 5.56), and September 4th ( USD 5.41).
The most recent increase in the number of transactions paying high fees coincides with the growth of the price of BTC. The pioneering cryptocurrency recently managed to break the USD 13,000 barrier.
In the last week, the price of the foremost cryptocurrency in the market has increased significantly, going from USD 11,800 to almost USD 14,000. This increase represents an advance of more than 10%, according to data from Live Coin Watch.
By Alexander Salazar
