Bitcoin experiences a surge in transaction backlogs due to an increase in Ordinal inscriptions, leading to a 4,000% rise in high-priority transaction fees. Details on the current state of the Bitcoin network.
Bitcoin’s transaction backlog has seen a significant resurgence, with a notable increase in Ordinal inscriptions commencing from October 24. As of November 6, 2023, a total of 157,101 transactions await confirmation at a block height of 815,605, marking a substantial increase from October’s low point of 27,210 pending transactions. High-priority fees, which were as low as $0.08, have now risen to $3.38.
The spike in Ordinal inscriptions resulted in November 4 witnessing the second-highest daily total of such entries, with 440,760 additions. November 5 continued this momentum with 403,026 inscriptions.
This flurry of activity within two days pushed the mempool backlog over 166,000 pending transactions by the end of November 5.
The following day, the backlog remained above 157,000, with fees for expedited processing at $3.38 and standard transactions costing $0.49.
The average transaction fee now stands at 0.00011 BTC or $3.71, with a median fee of 0.000061 BTC or $2.12 per transaction. Notably, Bitcoin’s average transaction cost now exceeds that of Ethereum, with high-priority fees seeing a remarkable 4,125% increase from October 3 to November 6, 2023.
