Bitcoin’s high transaction rate was one of the main reasons crypto enthusiasts started drifting away to altcoins. According to data by bitcoinfees.info, Bitcoin fans can finally rejoice with the transaction fees having a really low transaction fee.
According to the graph above, transaction fees were skyrocketing high in the month of December 2017. For example, December 22nd was seen to record 985 satoshis/byte for the next block. Fees for the next block is described as the fee to having a transaction mined on the next block which is estimated to be 10 minutes. A satoshi is defined as the smallest unit of Bitcoin, equivalent to 0.00000001 BTC.
Blockmanity’s Take
Bitcoin fees depend on the demand of the network, and so shows that the need for Bitcoin has fallen tremendously. It could also mean that Lightning Network expanding is helping in decreasing the number transactions being made on chain. 1ML specifies that a total of 557 BTC is on the Lightning Network with over 5,150 nodes and over 18,500 payment channels.
It must also be noted that technologies such as Segregated Witness, also known as SegWit which was introduced in August 2017 has helped more transactions to be processed on the Bitcoin network.
With low transactions values, people may find Bitcoin suitable again for smaller payments thus moving from cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin which is ideal for microtransactions due to its fees.
It will be interesting to see if Bitcoin remains as a store of value or progresses alongside with being a daily payment mechanism due to its low transaction costs recently.
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