Can mempool.space still be trusted

[Karl_3000]

The fast confirmation fee right now is 0.2 sat/vbyte but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte which is not true.



There are times that it will be correct but I have seen times that the site is not correct but it is getting to something worse as today's one is very worse.

[Mia Chloe]

The fast confirmation fee right now is 0.02 sat/vbyte but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte which is not true.
There are times that it will be correct but I have seen times that the site is not correct but it is getting to something worse as today's one is very worse.

Well for the record to answer the question your topic asked yeah it still can be trusted it's basically what I use every time to decide what fee is best. Understand that the mempool is just trying to average data and present based on all the recent fee rates of transactions.

You shouldn't expect it to be spot on to every decimal but it's always close. Just because you broadcast with around 0.6 say/vbyte and it gets confirmed literally as fast as 2 sat/ vbyte doesn't mean 0.6 as low or medium priority is wrong. Plus I think you meant 0.2 not 0.02.

[Cookdata]

The fast confirmation fee right now is 0.02 sat/vbyte but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte which is not true.

Your image is showing 0.2 sats and not 0.02 sats which is correct. The transaction fees across many wallets has been further reduced from minimum of 1 sat/vbyte down to 0.1 sat/vbyte, that's because we have nodes that now accept 0.1 sat/vbyte as minimum relay fee.

It's also worth knowing that Mempool.space is not a central node that represents the Bitcoin network, it's just one of the many nodes that relay and propagate transactions like others. What you are seeing is a web visualizer that tells you everything about the node and everything display their is about that node and Bitcoin network. If you should visualize another public node, the details might be different due to their policy rules.

There are times that it will be correct but I have seen times that the site is not correct but it is getting to something worse as today's one is very worse.

The visualizer is always accurate, it shows you exactly what's happening on the network. If the users are paying more fees, expect the fee to rise and if the network is less busy the fee will be less too.

[Karl_3000]

You shouldn't expect it to be spot on to every decimal but it's always close. Just because you broadcast with around 0.6 say/vbyte and it gets confirmed literally as fast as 2 sat/ vbyte doesn't mean 0.6 as low or medium priority is wrong. Plus I think you meant 0.2 not 0.02.

It is very possible that you do not understand me very well, transactions with fee of 0.2 sat/vbyte are getting confirmed in the next block, but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte.

I have seen in many times how the site is very wrong. When the lowest fee was 1 sat/vbyte, the site was excellent but it is getting poor now.

Yes, I mean 0.2 sat/vbyte.

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

First re-read my first message....

The fast confirmation fee right now is 0.02 sat/vbyte but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte which is not true.

How sure are you lol? You could just be lucky your transaction was placed at a lower depth at the point of broadcast relative to other transactions but it doesn't automatically mean that the average on the mempool is wrong. Don't also forget that most node are using a purge fee of 1 sat/vbyte.

We barely have people that manually connect to nodes with lower purge fee and because of this you should expect them to broadcast at a higher fee rate than you with a purge fee of probably 0.1 sat/vbytes. All these contribute to the shifts in mempool.space

[Karl_3000]

It's also worth knowing that Mempool.space is not a central node that represents the Bitcoin network, it's just one of the many nodes that relay and propagate transactions like others. What you are seeing is a web visualizer that tells you everything about the node and everything display their is about that node and Bitcoin network. If you should visualize another public node, the details might be different due to their policy rules.

What kind of node is getting inaccuracy now. The fee for confirmation in the next block is 0.2 sat/vbyte right now. What mempool.space showed is confusing and will make people waste money on fees.

How sure are you lol? You could just be lucky your transaction was placed at a lower depth at the point of broadcast relative to other transactions but it doesn't automatically mean that the average on the mempool is wrong. Don't also forget that most node are using a purge fee of 1 sat/vbyte.

Are you serious with this what you post? The mempool for fast confirmation is 0.2 sat/vbyte and it stayed almost there since many hours ago to days.

It is not about how sure I am, it is fact. Check the mempool and not mempool.space. Everybody can see it.

[Cookdata]

It's also worth knowing that Mempool.space is not a central node that represents the Bitcoin network, it's just one of the many nodes that relay and propagate transactions like others. What you are seeing is a web visualizer that tells you everything about the node and everything display their is about that node and Bitcoin network. If you should visualize another public node, the details might be different due to their policy rules.

What kind of node is getting inaccuracy now. The fee for confirmation in the next block is 0.2 sat/vbyte right now. What mempool.space showed is confusing and will make people waste money on fees.

The fee is not stable, you can see 0.2sats/vbyte and used that for your transaction and the next minute you broadcast it to the network, you see transaction surge from other people with over paid fees and it jump to 4 sats/vbyte. Most often, these people that fight for block confirmation don't care about the fees to include their transactions to the next block.

If you are not in rush and can wait, you can wait until the fee drop and your transaction will get mine as quick as possible but like I said, it's not stable. There are days your transaction might get stuck for days before the fee dropped, that's why it's encouraged to use RBF enabled for your transaction to bump the fee later if after waiting for long time.

[hosemary]

It is very possible that you do not understand me very well, transactions with fee of 0.2 sat/vbyte are getting confirmed in the next block, but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte.

This is not true.
Here are the last 10 blocks.



As you can see in the above image, in 7 out of these 10 blocks, miners didn't include transactions paying less than 1 sat/vbyte as fee. In the last block, the minimum fee rate was 3 sat/vbyte.

[Mia Chloe]

It is not about how sure I am, it is fact. Check the mempool and not mempool.space. Everybody can see it.

Lol it seems you don't understand what AVERAGE means. For the record these two images below came from the mempool just now as part of most recent transactions and replacements.
       
Well let me break this down for you as much as I can. if from the image on the right you make a transaction with fee rates of 0.2 sats do you think because it got confirmed with the others above that fee rate it will automatically make the mempool drop de fee rate for fastest transaction to 0.2 sats/vbyte?

The mempool will still give you an average of around 2.88 from my calculations that's if we are assuming no other bigger transactions come in. Because you are using 0.2 sat/vbyte doesn't stop people from using 8 sat/vbytes regardless.

[bitmover]

The fast confirmation fee right now is 0.2 sat/vbyte but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte which is not true.



There are times that it will be correct but I have seen times that the site is not correct but it is getting to something worse as today's one is very worse.

You cropped the information about the fees. You can see in the next blocks to be mined, at the top of each of them



Mempool is a still a great tool to visualize which fee to use and how long it will take to confirm.

[rat03gopoh]

In the image you captured, I don't see 0.2sat/vB as the fee for "high priority," but rather for "no priority." Are you referring to the fee recommendations elsewhere, such as your wallet, when setting up the transaction?
I don't know how you're reading this site, but mempool.space is still accurate, and the visualization is impressive.

[hosemary]

In the image you captured, I don't see 0.2sat/vB as the fee for "high priority," but rather for "no priority."

You didn't understand OP correctly. Karl_3000 didn't say the high priortiy fee on mempool.space is 0.2 sat/vbyte.
Karl_3000 believes that 0.2 sat/vbyte is now enough for getting confirmation in the next block, but mempool.space is suggesting more fees.

[FinneysTrueVision]

It is very possible that you do not understand me very well, transactions with fee of 0.2 sat/vbyte are getting confirmed in the next block, but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte.

I have seen in many times how the site is very wrong. When the lowest fee was 1 sat/vbyte, the site was excellent but it is getting poor now.

Yes, I mean 0.2 sat/vbyte.

You are basing this on the fees from previous blocks, which were indeed low, but that was more of an anomaly due to a few blocks having confirmed faster than the 10 minute average time. At the time you took your screenshot, it had already been 11 minutes since the last block was mined and fees had returned to normal levels. The fee estimate that was shown on the site was correct when considering the state of the mempool in that moment. If you had sent a transaction with a 0.2 sat/vbyte fee, it would have taken more than an hour to get confirmed.

[PX-Z]

Even if mempool.space shows 2–3 sat/vbyte as moderate to priority, a 0.2 sat/vbyte transaction can still get confirmed because mempool conditions change quickly, miners don't strictly follow that chart its just an estimate, and transaction size matters.
Yes 0.2 sat/vb can go through but dont expect it will work like that always. Even with this, mempool.space is still a great tool to use as fee reference and guide, and many more usage.

[rat03gopoh]

In the image you captured, I don't see 0.2sat/vB as the fee for "high priority," but rather for "no priority."

You didn't understand OP correctly. Karl_3000 didn't say the high priortiy fee on mempool.space is 0.2 sat/vbyte.
Karl_3000 believes that 0.2 sat/vbyte is now enough for getting confirmation in the next block, but mempool.space is suggesting more fees.

This is where I'm confused. If he hadn't cropped the image from the block queue, I might have said something different. He captured the last block mined at 945963 (4hrs ago), when the fee was ~0 sat/vB. Under those conditions (I assume), the recommended "high priority" mempool fee was probably be around 0.2 sat/vB before the next mined block suddenly jumps to ~4 sat/vB.

[ABCbits]

OP present his argument poorly, so it's not surprising some member got confused and give reply that appear unrelated. Anyway, i still trust mempool.space to give somewhat accurate fee rate suggestion.

It is very possible that you do not understand me very well, transactions with fee of 0.2 sat/vbyte are getting confirmed in the next block, but mempool.space is showing 2 to 3 sat/vbyte.

This is not true.
Here are the last 10 blocks.



As you can see in the above image, in 7 out of these 10 blocks, miners didn't include transactions paying less than 1 sat/vbyte as fee. In the last block, the minimum fee rate was 3 sat/vbyte.

I already know at least 3 pools exclude TX with fee rate below 1 sat/vB last year[1], so it's not surprising they still doing same practice. But it seems SECPOOL and Foundry USA also doing it these days.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5565739.msg66063663#msg66063663

[nc50lc]

There are times that it will be correct but I have seen times that the site is not correct but it is getting to something worse as today's one is very worse.

Here's their "minimum fee rate to fastest fee rate" estimation code for reference.
fee-api.ts: github.com/mempool/mempool/blob/3c9745be2f492ffb03649332871cc9dabd323152/backend/src/api/fee-api.ts

TL;DR: Their recommendations aren't estimated fee rates based from the mined blocks' transaction fees nor a combination like Bitcoin Core's estimate.
It's based from their own fee estimation algorithm which uses their, let's say: "projected Blocks" (pBlocks) and their nodes' mempool.
So, when you see 3sat/vB as priority, it simply means that the projected block is already filled with transactions close to <3sat/vB fees.
Most of the time, it's more accurate than other estimations (talking about overpaying result of ETA)
And it's even more susceptible to recommend a lower fee rate than what's needed if the next block took longer to get mined than the average.

For example, I've scrolled through the pBlocks and blocks to get to the blocks shown in your screenshot and the next block actually reached 4sat/vB average with 3sat/vB lowest.

(I've added a green like to visualize where the line between pBlocks and Blocks was)

[Karl_3000]

OP present his argument poorly, so it's not surprising some member got confused and give reply that appear unrelated. Anyway, i still trust mempool.space to give somewhat accurate fee rate suggestion.

This is true, I made two different transactions. One was a day before yesterday and the other was yesterday and both transactions were confirmed fast was the reason but mempool.space was giving high fee and this has not been the first time which makes me to not depend on the fee it suggested most time. I used 0.2 sat/vbyte in both transactions and both got confirmed fast. If I used mempool.space yesterday, I would have paid 15 times higher fee but I used 0.2 sat/vbyte.

Right now I am seeing 1.2 sat/vbyte but it is 2 sat/vbyte on mempool.space. Back to 0.2 sat/vbyte but mempool.space is suggesting 1 sat/vbyte. I will prefer to use 0.2 sat/vbyte and wait even if it takes 2 to 3 hours or more time.

[hosemary]

I already know at least 3 pools exclude TX with fee rate below 1 sat/vB last year[1], so it's not surprising they still doing same practice. But it seems SECPOOL and Foundry USA also doing it these days.

SECPOOL and Foundry USA both accept transactions paying less than 1 sat/vbyte as fee.
See blocks 945991 and 946010. They were mined by SECPOOL and Foundry USA respectively and are full of transactions with fee rates less than 1 sat/vbyte.

[LoyceV]

Since I was mentioned by OP in a (now deleted) post, I'll answer: mempool.space works great as an estimate, but you need to know how to use it. It's good to realize every fee estimate is based on past transactions and blocks, while the fee you actually need depends on future blocks and transactions. The next block can take 2 hours, and someone can broadcast thousands of transactions with higher fee than yours right after you send yours. Recommended fees are just an estimate, and depending on your needs you can get a higher certainty by paying more, or a lower fee by accepting the possibility to wait longer for confirmations.

You may want to read [Apr 2026]Mempool empty, Consolidate your small inputs @0.15 sat/vbyte for years of discussion on how to pay the lowest possible transaction fees.