In March 2023, Bitcoin’s average and median-sized fees jumped more than 40% higher after rising 122% in 10 days during the first week of February. The fees have followed the Ordinal inscription trend as more than 662,000 inscriptions reside on the Bitcoin blockchain, and 150 bitcoin worth $4.2 million have been added to fees.
Bitcoin Fees Surge in March, More Than 50,000 Unconfirmed Transactions in the Mempool
As of 2:30 p.m. (ET) on March 31, 2023, according to statistics from mempool.space, there are roughly 54,000 unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions. Bitcoin fees and wait times have increased in March following the network fee increase that occurred during the first week of February.
At that time, due to the demand stemming from Ordinal inscription transactions, fees rose 122% in 10 days. With BTC’s price significantly higher and the Ordinal inscription trend still in full swing, average and median-sized transfer fees have risen since February 8, 2023.
On Friday, March 31, 2023, the lowest fee is 6 satoshis per byte, or $0.24. Low priority is 36 sat/vB or $1.43, medium priority is 41 sat/vB or $1.63, and high priority transaction is 44 sat/vB or $1.75 per transaction, according to mempool.space. Data from bitinfocharts.com shows that the average BTC fee on Friday is $2.40 per transfer, and the median fee is around $0.98 per transaction.
According to data from bitinfocharts.com, on Friday afternoon (ET), the average BTC transaction fee cost 0.000084 BTC or $2.40 per transaction. On February 8, 2023, the average fee was $1.704 per transfer, or 41.17% lower than today’s average BTC fee.
BTC’s median-sized fee rose 42.02% from $0.69 to $0.98 per transaction during the same time frame. Average fees spiked to $4.24 per transaction on March 24, and on the same day, median-sized fees hit $1.37 per transfer.
As of writing, there are more than 662,000 Bitcoin-based Ordinal inscriptions, and some of the fee rise has been attributed to the inscription trend. Presently, 150.2457 BTC in fees has been collected for Ordinal inscriptions.
While BTC fees have been higher, they are still lower than the average and median-sized fees settled on the Ethereum (ETH) network. Currently, the average ETH transaction fee is 0.003 ETH or $5.43 per transfer, and the median-sized ether fee today is 0.0014 ETH or $2.54 per transaction.
While average and median BTC fees range between $0.98 to $2.40 per transaction, some fee payments, at 6 satoshis per byte or $0.24 per transaction, have been making it past the transaction queue.
While block intervals were faster than the ten-minute average prior to the last difficulty change, with an average of nine minutes and 33 seconds during the last 2,016 blocks, they are currently ranging between nine minutes and 50 seconds to ten minutes and 21 seconds.
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Jamie Redman
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