2023-05-08 14:07:59
In just two weeks, the number of unconfirmed transactions on the Bitcoin network tripled: the number of transactions stuck in the mempool rose from 134,000 to over 440,000. At the same time, the transaction fees also shot up, while on April 26th you had to pay ~$1.99 for an order, until now it is ~$19. The transaction completion time also increased significantly, and even Binance suspended transfers for a while.
It will take a long time and it will cost a lot to bring in the backlog
At the time of writing, 440,000 transactions is waiting in the mempool of the Bitcoin network, many users have been stuck for the time being due to the sat/kB costs that have been unleashed in the meantime, and they do not know how long they have to wait for their orders to be fulfilled. Some on Twitter suspect a deliberate attack in the background, but it is much more likely that it is only the newfound popularity of Ordinal inscriptions and BRC20 tokens that is challenging the network: there are currently more than 13,000 BRC20 tokens and 4.17 million Ordinal inscriptions on the network.
For Bitcoin to catch up, approx. 200 blocks would have to be mined, which would take almost a day and a half at a normal pace. In such extreme situations, the network reduces its own burden by raising transaction fees, as a result of which users face fees not seen since mid-2021:
Attack or free market processes?
The topic of overloaded mempool lately is a Twitter users also stirred: some are excited about the surge in activity, others classify the increase in transactions related to Ordinals as a DDoS overload attack.
Bitcoin is not under attack.
The anemic block size increases simply weren’t sufficient to meet demand, and Lightning didn’t see mass adoption.
Quit whining. Either accept that a huge mempool and high fees will be the norm, or properly increase the block size.
— Sam Patt (@SamuelPatt) May 7, 2023
“Bitcoin is not under attack. Anemic attempts to increase the block size were not enough to meet the demand, and the Lightning Network did not reach critical mass. Stop meowing. Either accept that large mempools and high fees will be normal from now on, or increase the block size properly.”
The speculations were further strengthened by the fact that, in view of the situation, Binance stopped BTC withdrawals for a while, but the service was restarted shortly afterwards. Increasing the bitcoin block size on a consensus basis is out of the question, there was an attempt to do so during the 2017 bitcoin fork war, but fortunately it failed miserably, along with bitcoin cash (BCH). Increasing the block size would not solve the problem of runaway mining fees, it would simply increase the size of the Bitcoin blockchain to that of Ethereum.
Surprisingly, the large number of unprocessed transactions has not yet led to a significant increase in Lightning Network users – certainly because of cost and security concerns. However, if the high fees remain, the Lightning network will clearly emerge victorious.
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