Why Are Bitcoin Fees Increasing?
Transaction fees just hit their highest level in 12 months and are still rising — what’s going on?
For the last few weeks it’s been all about the halving. Pretty much everyone in the world of crypto was focused on it, with live streams, webinars and even parties reminiscent of New Year’s events for the moment the block height ticked over to 630,000.
And then, just like New Year’s itself, we find ourselves on the other side and nothing, at least to most people, seems any different. The Bitcoin network itself didn’t even bat an eyelid and simply carried on with the task in hand — processing transactions in 10-minute blocks — but behind the scenes miners are still doing the same work as before, but now with only half the pay.
I’ve already written about the likely effects for of this both before and immediately after the halving so I won’t repeat them here, but even while these scenarios, or variations therefore, play out in real life, something else was also happening that had been lost in the noise of halving; the transaction fees for Bitcoin had unexpectedly started rising.
How Do the Fees Work Again?
Most people know that when you send bitcoin to someone or pay a bill, a small charge is added to the…
