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134986 txs, Bitcoin, Bitinfocharts.com, block times, Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, Fees, market, Mempool, mining, Network Congestion, price spike, transaction prioritization, unconfirmed transactions
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Amid the buzz surrounding bitcoin’s recent price surge, a significant number of transactions are currently clogging the mempool. At the time of writing, 134,986 unconfirmed transactions are awaiting confirmation, and block times remain above the usual ten-minute limit.
On Wednesday morning, Bitcoin.com News revealed the decline in Bitcoin’s global hash rate over the past 24 hours, currently hovering just above 300 exahashes per second (EH/s). Meanwhile, block intervals have slowed down and surpassed the ten minute average, with the last block taking a total of ten minutes and 50 seconds to validate.
Although bitcoin’s price initially surged past the $30,000 mark earlier today, by 4:00 PM Eastern Time (ET) on April 26, 2023, its value had retreated to a low of $27,242. Since then, the price managed to bounce back above the $28K zone. Currently, the mempool is packed with transactions, waiting for their turn to be confirmed.
Essentially, the Bitcoin network’s mempool acts as a repository for unconfirmed transactions that need to be incorporated into the next block of the blockchain. Each transaction in the mempool comes with its own unique transaction ID, fee and other relevant information. Since miners prioritize transactions that offer higher fees, users tend to compete by offering increased fees to speed up the confirmation of their transactions.
As of 4:30 PM ET Wednesday, data obtained from the online portal mempool.space reported 134,986 unconfirmed transactions. Meanwhile, transaction fees vary, with a non-priority transaction costing 2 sat/vB or $0.08 per transaction, a low-priority transaction setting users back 29 sat/vB or $1.15 per transfer, and a high-priority transaction currently priced at 35 sat/vB or $1.38 per transfer.
Bitinfocharts.com provides additional data indicating that the average fee for transactions today is 0.000072 BTC or $1.99 per transaction. The same site also reveals a median fee of 0.000035 BTC or $0.97 per transaction.
What do you think could be the reason for the sudden increase in bitcoin transactions? Share your thoughts on this topic in the comments section below.
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