With Massive Network Congestion, What’s the Value of BTC?

[Aatma]

With Massive Network Congestion, What’s the Value of BTCBTC?

Bitcoin is a global value transmission network with a capital flow of billions or even tens of billions of dollars every day. Against such a value flow, what rules can we find and follow? Today, we are going to observe the status of Bitcoin network from the perspective of onchain transaction fees. In Bitcoin network, users can encourage miners to package their trades into blocks through fee incentives. However, apart from issues concerning extension solution and alternative cryptocurrencies, the objective data about Bitcoin in the previous 3 months has demonstrated a completely different story. The trading volume of Bitcoin, block size and transaction fees in the first quarter of 2019 have all reached an all-time high, indicating that high congestion emerges on Bitcoin network once again. The following chart comes from: https://chain.info/, a website focusing on recording real onchain data, producing relatively concise and visualized data graphs and enabling direct screenshots of data.https://chain.info/


Let's take a closer look at the following graphs from the links
 
Data Source: https://chain.info/chart/closePrice
Data Source: https://chain.info/chart/totalTxNum、

Since March 2019, transactions on Bitcoin network have been on a constant rise, up more than 40 percent compared with the previous quarter. What’ more, the number of transactions on Bitcoin network reached nearly 450,000 on May 2, and the number was almost 300,000 even at its low peak. If such a growth rate persists, the Bitcoin network will remain being congested.
 
Data Source: https://chain.info/chart/totalMinerRevenue
Data Source: https://chain.info/chart/averageBlockSize

As time goes on, we can see that the growth speed of block size has been accelerating all the way, and the minimum of average block size in the past 6 months reached 1.05 MB, leaving little space for users who did not pay a high transaction fee.
 
Data Source: https://chain.info/chart/totalBlockFee

Therefore, the most expensive part that a user in the Bitcoin community may experience right now is the transaction fee. Just a few years ago, it can be said that Bitcoin trading is "free" or "almost free" (the blue area shows the variation trend of the percentage of free Bitcoin trading among all transactions). In the past 3 months, however, the daily average fee for transaction ranges from  0.00006931 to 0.0006768 during peak hours. The average overall transaction fee has witnessed an increase of 155%, with the highest one being 55 USD per transaction. Since 2018, the total transaction fee for Bitcoin has also approached 1 billion USD.
 
Merely from the perspective of network efficiency, Bitcoin has been experiencing such network congestion for quite a long time and users in the Bitcoin community have to pay high handling fees when the price of Bitcoin is high. Wondering whether Satoshi Nakamoto has ever expected of it or not. But now it's high time to contemplate on the real value of Bitcoin. So for those who are still buying BTC, what’s your opinion? Can Bitcoin be really regarded as an asset capable of maintaining value in such a turbulent world?

[sega01]

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me why so many people love BTC when they can use BCH or BSV with much higher transaction rates and it's basically the same thing.

BTC's advantage how just about all fiat<->crypto passes through it. In time, hopefully that will change as it is a real bottleneck.

[avikz]

Therefore, the most expensive part that a user in the Bitcoin community may experience right now is the transaction fee. Just a few years ago, it can be said that Bitcoin trading is "free" or "almost free" (the blue area shows the variation trend of the percentage of free Bitcoin trading among all transactions). In the past 3 months, however, the daily average fee for transaction ranges from  0.00006931 to 0.0006768 during peak hours. The average overall transaction fee has witnessed an increase of 155%, with the highest one being 55 USD per transaction. Since 2018, the total transaction fee for Bitcoin has also approached 1 billion USD.

Number of unconfirmed transactions as per blockchain.

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/unconfirmed-transactions

Around 5000 at the time of posting this link here. Not a very high number!

Now coming to the fees. Please check the below link,
https://bitcoinfees.info/

I don't see the transaction fees are high in any way! It was a real problem back in 2017 when the price increased to an unusual level. But after implementation of Segwit, the fees are kept under the control. See the image below,



What's the point you are trying to establish? Adopt Segwit protocol if you haven't done that yet!

[pooya87]

and the minimum of average block size in the past 6 months reached 1.05 MB, leaving little space for users who did not pay a high transaction fee.

what "congestion" are you talking about? for the past 6 months there were only rare cases of big spikes in the number of unconfirmed transactions that didn't last that long either. and the minimum fees users could pay to get their transactions mined in the next block has been mostly between 1 and 3 satoshi per bytes which is the bare minimum!
there were however many who "overpaid"

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me why so many people love BTC when they can use BCH or BSV with much higher transaction rates and it's basically the same thing.

it makes perfect sense. the reason is the same reason as why bitcoin was created in first place while other options like PayPal and banks,... and a ton of other centralized options existed.

[Broly46]

Transaction fee is only 0.0001 btc or around USD 1, which is the far fetch to the peak during 2017, I was paying US 60 for one off send.

[TimeBits]

Transaction fee is only 0.0001 btc or around USD 1, which is the far fetch to the peak during 2017, I was paying US 60 for one off send.

It would be better if some of that fee was used to start the bitcoin society, rather than just paying miners.

[mk4]

Transaction fee is only 0.0001 btc or around USD 1, which is the far fetch to the peak during 2017, I was paying US 60 for one off send.

As a person that actually uses his bitcoin a bit frequently to pay for stuff online, I really don't remember the last time I paid for a $1 fee. The most expensive that I remember is like $.50, which I intentionally overpaid because the transaction was very urgent.

[Kakmakr]

If you really want low fees, then switch to the Lightning Network for smaller transactions. I see a future where all micro transactions will be done on the Lightning Network and this will help to alleviate all congestion that there might have been. SegWit transactions are very cheap, but the old legacy BTC is still relatively expensive. <I had to transfer BTC from a old legacy Bitcoin address a while ago and it was very expensive for something that did not take a lot of bytes in a Block> 

I think once you get used to super low SegWit and Lightning Network fees, you get a shock when you have to transfer coins from those old legacy BTC addresses. 

[7788bitcoin]

As time goes on, we can see that the growth speed of block size has been accelerating all the way, and the minimum of average block size in the past 6 months reached 1.05 MB, leaving little space for users who did not pay a high transaction fee.
 
Therefore, the most expensive part that a user in the Bitcoin community may experience right now is the transaction fee. Just a few years ago, it can be said that Bitcoin trading is "free" or "almost free"

It is true that when i started with bitcoin i never used to bother about the transaction fees and it was negligible in respect to the price of bitcoin, but now the price is well over 1000% from those valuation we had few years back, but if you are not having any emergency you can still send the coins at lower valuations, i made a transaction today with just 0.02 USD and to be exact i just inputted 189 Satoshi for fun and it went through in 2.5 hours. So right now there is no issue with the transaction speed   .

[mk4]

If you really want low fees, then switch to the Lightning Network for smaller transactions.

While I hope we'd gain LN adoption in the future, it's still not adopted though. Most services that accepts bitcoin doesn't accept LN transactions yet so I don't think it's something that we can already suggest people to use.

[timerland]

Back a year ago when the price hit 20k and the network was really congested, I started using this website for a way to find out about my transactions and how fast they would confirm. I'd recommend people to use it as well, it shows a lot of interesting information about bitcoin transactions, confirmation times, fees, etc - https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

This is some interesting statistics though, but I wouldn't say it's massive congestion right now. I'm paying 1-2 dollars a transaction when this time last year I'd be paying over 60 dollars for microtransactions.

If you want low fees though, use segwit and the lightning network. Only technology good enough for micro transactions.

[Red-Apple]

Transaction fee is only 0.0001 btc or around USD 1, which is the far fetch to the peak during 2017, I was paying US 60 for one off send.

you must be making giant transactions with lots of inputs. maybe faucet farming results? because for normal users the transactions they make are usually smaller than that (in byte size) so they will always pay a lot less.
in other words if you have 1 to 3 transaction outputs to spend you won't be paying anything higher than a couple of cents.

with 3 legacy inputs -> 500 satoshi
with 3 SegWit inputs -> 380 satoshi

so if you are paying 10000 satoshi for transactions then you are overpaying by 1900%

[gentlemand]

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me why so many people love BTC when they can use BCH or BSV with much higher transaction rates and it's basically the same thing.

Erm, apart from the staggeringly incompetent development, totally centralised mining, crap liquidity, overwhelming disinterest from investment pros, and numerous hard forks that have often created several chains by mistake.

It doesn't matter about capacity. They're both empty chains and for good reason.

[ralle14]

Despite the growth in average block size we still have times where the network isn't congested. It only becomes expensive when people start using a service and they force everyone to pay a fix fee that is very high than the recommended.

I think once you get used to super low SegWit and Lightning Network fees, you get a shock when you have to transfer coins from those old legacy BTC addresses. 

I've been using segwit for most of my transactions recently and wasn't shock with the fees recommended when I went back to using my legacy temporarily. I was still able to use low fees, the network not being congested at that time was probably the main reason for it.

[Slow death]

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me why so many people love BTC when they can use BCH or BSV with much higher transaction rates and it's basically the same thing.

I'll summarize for you why it makes sense to use BTC than to use these other shitcoins, look at this:

[ANN] Bitcoin Cash - Pro on-chain scaling - Cheaper fees

this thread has 924 pages, and 90% of the posts are fanatic, there is no healthy debate, just fanaticism

[ANN] [BSV] [Bitcoin SV] Original Satoshi Vision

This thread has 54 pages and 90% of the posts are fanatic and look at this:



do not accept contrary ideas

what’s your opinion? Can Bitcoin be really regarded as an asset capable of maintaining value in such a turbulent world?

Technology is evolving every day, and of course bitcoin won't be stuck in time and will improve even more over time.

[dzoni]

Ethereum has been processing more transactions than BTC since July 2017 and has on average 20x smaller fees   I hope this changes soon...

[Lucius]

Did anyone notice that OP is posted his link 7 times? It is not about network congestion or value of BTC, but about promoting his site with some mumbo jumbo nonsense how high fees can affect on BTC price. And all that is based on 2017 big pump when people are become crazy about getting rich quick, and going all in BTC.

I doubt we will see something like that in near future, and situation is far better now then 2 years ago with SegWit and fact that we should see big exchanges start to use batched transactions, which will certainly help to reduce network congestion.

[gentlemand]

I doubt we will see something like that in near future, and situation is far better now then 2 years ago with SegWit and fact that we should see big exchanges start to use batched transactions, which will certainly help to reduce network congestion.

No Bitmain spamming is as big a difference between now and then. Maybe they'll go back to it but they might be too broke or indifferent to try it again.

All the same we need to see some proper mania to know how effective the tweaks in usage have been. Everything since late 2017 has been an occasional blip, not sustained pressure. If there's to be another explosion it's safe to assume there'll be many more people getting manic so the benefits may be gobbled up rapidly.

[imstillthebest]

Doesn't make a lot of sense to me why so many people love BTC when they can use BCH or BSV with much higher transaction rates

they love btc simply because its profitable  . btc price is higher than those coins that you stated above , this is why we can earn more if we invest more in btc  . bch and bsv are altcoins and alts are known to have a less fees when compare to btc because thier value is slight lower than btc  but alts are good in terms of transactions  because they arent congested  .

Re: With Massive Network Congestion, What’s the Value of BTC?

it depends on the spam  .  some spam transactions with a verry low amount/fee  . it can cause congestion but this wont affect the value of bitcoin  .

[dothebeats]

Network congestion is not really a common occurrence now that SegWit and the Lightning Network is deployed. Just a few weeks ago, we have had some form of buildup within the mempool that was cleared within a few hours. Also right now, I can still send a 1 sat/byte transaction and still get it confirmed within the next 2-3 hours but then that number may vary wildly due to the nature of bitcoin transactions and whether or not a pool is kind enough to include my transactions in their block. Anyway as time goes on, there would be a lot more efficient and cost-effective solutions for this non-existent (for the mean time) scaling problem that everyone uses to belittle bitcoin and point people towards its lesser forks.