Throughout the past week, the Bitcoin blockchain has successfully confirmed over 187,000 unconfirmed transactions, as shown by recent statistics. This has not only reduced a significant portion of the congestion but also led to a decrease in onchain fees within the same period.
Bitcoin Fees and Unconfirmed Transactions Slide Lower
Although Bitcoin’s backlog of transactions remains above 145,000, data indicates that miners have managed to clear more than half of the congestion during this week. Archived information from mempool.space reveals that on June 27, 2023, a total of 332,508 pending transactions awaited confirmation.
Additionally, a high-priority onchain fee would cost users $1.29 per transaction, with 194 blocks needed to be mined to clear 100% of the backlog. With today’s backlog consisting of 145,240 transfers still pending, only 94 blocks must be mined to alleviate congestion.
As of July 5, 2023, data demonstrates that a high-priority transaction fee is now $0.77 per transfer. Metrics also indicate that daily onchain transaction confirmations range between 309,000 and 445,000. Current block times are faster than the previous ten-minute average at eight minutes and 40 seconds.
Over the last week, data from bitinfocharts.com reflects a decline from an average of $2.73 per transaction to a current average of 0.000062 BTC or $1.87 per transaction. This represents a drop of 31% in average onchain fees during this time frame.
Median-sized fees have also decreased from $1.06 to 0.000025 BTC or $0.77 per transaction. In the meantime, the Ordinal inscription trend persists as inscriptions approach 15 million; approximately 14,834,677 inscriptions are linked to the Bitcoin blockchain at this time.
Are these recent improvements in Bitcoin’s transaction confirmation and fee reduction indicative of a long-term solution to scalability challenges, or are they just temporary relief? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.