BTC fees

ETH Fees Surge to All Time High After the Crypto Passed the $1,000 Mark

10/01/2021 by Idelto Editor

After the ether token surged past the $1,000 mark on January 3, the average transaction fee on the network similarly soared to a new all-time high (ATH) of $17.41, some 24 hours later. Although the average fee has since retreated, data on January 8 shows that the latest average fee at $9.79. This figure still well above the $3.56 seen on the first day of the new year.

Resurgent ETH fees

Before the new ATH, the Ethereum network’s previous highest average fee of $12.54 was recorded on September 1, 2020. At that time, some crypto enthusiasts attributed this surge to the decentralized finance (defi) hype. However, as the defi mania began to dissipate, ETH transaction fees gradually dropped.

However, as recent data shows, the network’s transaction fees, which averaged less than $5 for much of Q4 of 2020, have now stayed above $9 for all but two days of January 2021. This return of high fees on the network comes more than a month after ETH’s migration to a proof of stake (POS) consensus mechanism.

Meanwhile, the latest data shows that at the current fee levels, it now costs the same or even less to transact on the BTC network than on the ETH network. To illustrate, in the period during which ETH fees surged to the new ATH, transaction fees on the BTC have remained within the same range. For instance, during the entire Q4 period, fees on the BTC network have only peaked at $13.41 on October 31.

For much of Q4 of 2020, the fees on the Bitcoin network have fluctuated between the October 31 high of $13.41 and $1.44 the lowest average in that period. Similarly, on the BCH network, whose crypto is up by more than 100% since October 1, fees remain less than $0.01 per transaction.

Upgrade to Fix Problem of High Fees

Meanwhile, Kamil Brejcha, Founder at Dexfin offers the possible reason why ETH fees have spiked and how ongoing updates will fix this. Brejcha explains:

“We face high ETH fees because the Ethereum network still relies on miners to be block producers. The current update is called the Beacon chain, which allows depositing Ethereum for staking nodes. These nodes run on their own blockchain, which is not yet part of the mainnet.”

The Dexfin founder also details the upgrading process which starts with the Beacon chain. In 2021, the next Shard chain will follow before the merging of the two in the year 2022 or later. After that, the “transaction speed should improve more, also cutting the gas fee.”

What do you think is causing the fees on the ETH network to go up? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below.

Mempool Clog: Bitcoin Hashrate Drops 40%, Backlog Shows Over 100K Unconfirmed Transactions

29/10/2020 by Idelto Editor

The Bitcoin network hashrate has dropped significantly over the last four days sliding from a high of 161 exahash per second (EH/s) to 90 EH/s on October 27. Today, the Bitcoin hashrate has improved a hair as the network’s security is currently hovering around 100 EH/s. However, the mempool log of unconfirmed transactions has spiked to levels not seen since the 2017 highs.

On Wednesday, October 28, 2020, the Bitcoin (BTC) hashrate is trying to regain what was lost during the last four days. According to statistics, since the October 27 high of 161 EH/s, the network hashrate is down -37.88% at 100 EH/s today. The overall SHA256 hashrate lost more than 40% between the highest point to the lowest metric recorded.

Analysts assume the drop was due to the end of the rainy season in Sichuan China and its been said that miners have been migrating to different regions in the country. The significant drop follows the network’s all-time high when the hashrate spiked to 174 EH/s on October 14, 2020.

The executive from the mining organization Hashr8, Thomas Heller, spoke about the hashrate drop on Twitter on October 26.

“Looking at the top 10 pools, we can see approx 22 EH/s left the Bitcoin network,” Heller tweeted. “Not a precise measure of course, but overlaid with the number of blocks mined per day, we can get a rough idea of the hashrate change. This coming difficulty adjustment is one to look forward to,” the executive added.

Not too long ago, BTC’s mining difficulty dropped from the highest point ever at 19.69T to today’s range of 18.60T. With the hashrate so low, miners may see the difficulty drop even lower making it easier to mine bitcoins.

The next expected difficulty change however is still five days away scheduled for on or around November 2, 2020. Today there are 17 mining pools pointing their hash at the BTC chain. The top mining operation today is F2pool with 17.93 EH/s under the hood. F2pool is followed by Poolin, Btc.com, Antpool, and Binance Pool.

Data from bitcoinfees.cash recorded at 12:00 p.m. (EST) on October 28, 2020.

Now because the hashrate dropped and it has coincided with the price of bitcoin (BTC) rising, network fees have jumped considerably. Stats from bitcoinfees.cash indicates the next BTC block fee $8.26 and the current median fee is $5.10 per transaction.

Data from the mempool shows there’s 121,000+ unconfirmed transactions waiting to be confirmed. Of course, the wait times have pushed the transaction fee market up because people are paying higher fees to get their BTC transactions confirmed.

For now, miners will have to be patient and wait out the five days in order for the difficulty to drop lower. It is uncertain how much migration is happening in China right now as far as Sichuan operations are concerned, but most of the hashrate losses stemmed from China-based mining pools.

What do you think about the big hashrate drop during the last four days? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Privacy-Focused Brave Users Can Now Purchase Bitcoin Cash Through Bitcoin.com

25/10/2020 by Idelto Editor

The privacy-centric web browser Brave has partnered with Bitcoin.com in order to give users access to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash from directly inside their browser. The newly added Bitcoin.com widget has been added to the latest Brave software and is now available to users in various countries.

The latest version of the privacy-oriented Brave browser now has a Bitcoin.com widget that allows people to purchase cryptocurrencies like bitcoin cash (BCH). The widget is available to users in select regions such as the EU, UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Russia.
Bitcoin.com’s founder Roger Ver tweeted about the recent partnership on October 21. “Bitcoin.com has partnered with Brave to allow users to buy Bitcoin Cash directly inside their privacy-centric browser,” Ver stated.
According to recent statistics, the privacy-centric Browser has roughly 19.6 million monthly users and around 6.6 million active on a daily basis. Brave’s Bitcoin.com widget follows a number of other popular exchange widgets hosted on the browser.
The new widget announcement was extremely popular on the Reddit forum r/btc, as a great number of BCH fans were pleased with the added accessibility. “This is great news,” explained one BCH proponent. “Been using Brave for almost a year now. I think I’ve made about $50 and have tipped a lot of journalists with it.”

“A lot of people love BCH, and the Bitcoin.com service,” Jonathan Sampson, Senior Developer Relations at Brave said on Twitter. “We want these people to be safe, and secure when they’re using Brave. For this reason, a widget helps to protect their transactions,” he added.
Bitcoin cash (BCH) transactions are lightning-fast and fees are always negligible. According to data on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2020, the next block fee for BCH is $0.0014 and the current median fee is $0.0012. In comparison, bitcoin’s (BTC) next block fee is $4.64 and the current median fee is $2.35.

What do you think about Bitcoin.com’s integration with the privacy-centric Brave browser? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.

The post Privacy-Focused Brave Users Can Now Purchase Bitcoin Cash Through Bitcoin.com appeared first on Bitcoin News.

Cumulative Ethereum Transaction Fees in 2020 Supersede Bitcoin’s by a Long Shot

30/09/2020 by Idelto Editor

This week the research and analysis team Coin Metrics published a report on how decentralized finance (defi) is “fueling Ethereum’s growth.” Meanwhile, the researchers also highlighted that Ethereum’s cumulative transaction fees in 2020 are now over $350 million and more than double the aggregated total of Bitcoin’s network fees.

Coin Metrics researchers and Nate Maddrey published a new report that discusses Ethereum’s defi evolution and the growth the blockchain has seen this year. However, with the new demand Coin Metrics highlights that ETH fees have “changed dramatically” and the authors note “high gas prices are becoming the new norm.”

A few defi project launches contributed to the dramatic rise in network fees including UNI, SUSHI, YAM, and YFI. The trading of the new tokens has been more prevalent on decentralized exchange (dex) platforms and because swaps are onchain this created a fee market. “This can lead to escalating transaction fees as users compete to be first in line for a trade,” the report emphasizes.

“ETH median transaction fee hit a new all-time high of $8.25 on September 2nd following the launch of SUSHI,” the study’s author adds.

On Twitter, the Coin Metric’s team published a chart that shows Ethereum network fees this year are double the size of BTC’s 2020 fees. “Ethereum Total Transaction Fees during 2020 are now over $350m and more than twice Bitcoin’s,” the team’s Twitter account wrote. “By comparison, this time last year, cumulative Bitcoin Transaction Fees were $135M and Ethereum Transaction Fees were $27M,” the researchers added.

The report says that distributed ledger network fees are a “double-edged sword.” Essentially users are paying higher fees but miners are gathering all the revenue and in turn, the hashrate has increased exponentially. “As a result, Ethereum’s hash rate is climbing towards all-time highs— This is a good sign for Ethereum, as network security is critical for the long-term health and success of the blockchain.”

Although, the researchers underline that higher gas fees can make the ETH chain “prohibitively expensive” for a certain fraction of users. This can tip the scales for Ethereum whales who can swap large sums of tokens while smaller players could face a barrier to entry. “Ethereum’s median transfer value has increased to hundreds of dollars since the rise of defi, signalling that the network is shifting towards larger players,” the report points out.

What do you think about Ethereum fees growing double the size of Bitcoin’s network fees in 2020? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Crypto Networks Stress Tested During Bitcoin’s Wild Week

14/03/2020 by Idelto Editor

Crypto valuations haven’t been the only casualties of this week’s market crash; crypto networks have also felt the strain. As onchain activity has ramped up in response to the market slump, fees have soared and the mempool filled on the BTC and ETH chains. Other crypto networks have operated smoothly, however, despite the pandemonium.

Also read: Market Update: Cryptocurrency Market Cap Sheds $90B, Margin Calls Spike, Futures Slide

Mempool Fills on Bitcoin’s Most Volatile Day in a Year

As bitcoin lost 50% of its value on Black Thursday, traders rushed to move coins out of cold storage and swap them for stablecoins on crypto exchanges. The increased network activity fueled a surge in BTC and ETH fees, which were significantly higher than usual on March 12-13.

On Thursday, gas prices passed $3.70 on Ethereum, while Bitcoin’s mempool was backed up with enough transactions to fill over 30 blocks. The congestion on both networks has since abated, with ETH gas prices back to just over 2 cents and the mempool down from 120,000 unconfirmed transactions on its March 12 peak to the daily average of 70,000 at press time. BTC fees, meanwhile, which rose to 75 sats/byte for 1-2 block inclusion on March 13, are down to ~60sats/byte, which is still more than double their weekly average.

Bitcoin Cash and Dogecoin Networks Keep Ticking Over

Fees on Bitcoin Cash have remained low all week, despite the increase in exchange inflows and outflows. At press time, the BCH network is 1,420x cheaper than BTC when transaction fees are compared in USD. Over 18,000 BCH transactions were sent on March 12, rising to 20K the following day as the markets began to heat up.

Dogecoin has had a good week, holding up well as most other cryptos were shedding 50%. Dogecoin’s increased trade volume appears to have been in response to rising BTC and ETH fees, prompting traders to use DOGE to transfer value between exchanges, as was the case in 2017 when the crypto market was making violent moves in the opposite direction. On March 10, DOGE peaked at 33K onchain transactions, and has recorded 29K transactions in the last 24 hours, with a median fee of just $0.00168.

When the median fee for transacting on all measurable crypto networks is compared, BTC is the most expensive, at $0.117, followed by Lisk ($0.0836) and then Ethereum ($0.0409). Bitcoin Cash ($0.000831) and Dogecoin ($0.00169) are two of the cheapest according to Messari. The cheapest networks of all to transact on are the relatively centralized chains that do not utilize Proof of Work: Stellar ($0.000000385) and Ripple ($0.00000183). Panic selling was not the sort of mass adoption that crypto proponents had in mind. It has nevertheless proven a good test of how crypto networks hold up when the going gets tough.

Where do you see the markets going from here? Do you think traders have been using dogecoin to transfer value between exchanges? Let us know in the comments section below.

Disclaimer: Price articles and market updates are intended for informational purposes only and should not be considered as trading advice. Neither Bitcoin.com nor the author is responsible for any losses or gains, as the ultimate decision to conduct a trade is made by the reader. Always remember that only those in possession of the private keys are in control of the “money.”

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see what’s happening in the industry.

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