The Mempool getting too fat, is Blockchain under attack? what kind of an attack?

[aliashraf]

What is going on? Exchanges are not the cause. I noticed the total volume of bitcoin exchanged since June 13 is not meaningfully different than previous days but the Mempool size has grown dramatically from a 2-3 average up to 50 yesterday and now 35 now! is it a transaction malleability attack?

I have also checked the Mempool value having the same behavior during last 3-4 days which confirms the malleability attack but there is one other confusing fact: the sat/Bytes transaction fee has dropped in the same period in an inverse trend. It is not in coherence with the above diagnosis.

I mean if it is just a simple malleability attack we should have been witnessing the same transaction fees and the drop implies a simple flooding spam with minimum or zero tr fees.

Who is who?  

Is it possible someone is flooding the network to encourage people to sell their coins in her interest?

[achow101]

It looks like someone may be spamming the network again. The "attacker" is probably just someone who wants to prove a point and is sending many low fee transactions.

[Btcvilla]

Its a spam attack.

[Holliday]

My mempool is fine. Currently less than 500 transactions and less than 500KB.

It's simple, ignore spam and there is no problem.

[pandalion98]

What is going on? Exchanges are not the cause. I noticed the total volume of bitcoin exchanged since June 13 is not meaningfully different than previous days but the Mempool size has grown dramatically from a 2-3 average up to 50 yesterday and now 35 now! is it a transaction malleability attack?

I have also checked the Mempool value having the same behavior during last 3-4 days which confirms the malleability attack but there is one other confusing fact: the sat/Bytes transaction fee has dropped in the same period in an inverse trend. It is not in coherence with the above diagnosis.

I mean if it is just a simple malleability attack we should have been witnessing the same transaction fees and the drop implies a simple flooding spam with minimum or zero tr fees.

Who is who?  

Is it possible someone is flooding the network to encourage people to sell their coins in her interest?

Someone is sending spam transactions, or the bitcoin network is simply busy, or miners aren't chewing through the queue fast enough.

It'll pass.

[Monnt]

Mempool is fine as of now. These attacks, like DDoS attacks, are expensive, resource intensive and cannot be kept up for very long.