The Bitcoin daily transaction fee hit all time highs just a few months ago.
On December 23rd, the average daily transaction fee was north of $34 per transaction.
That is absurd!
Unfortunately this happened at a time when all eyes were on bitcoin, it also happened as bitcoin was reaching all time highs around $20k per coin.
Which is also one of the reasons why the fees got so high in the first place.
What's the fee like today?
As of yesterday, the daily transaction fee on bitcoin was down to about $.79 per transaction.
A dramatic 98% drop from the highs seen just a few months prior.
This also marked the lowest transaction fee on bitcoin seen in the last 6 months.
Below is a graph of the median transaction fee over the past 6 months:
(Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/bitcoins-transaction-fee-crisis-is-over-for-now/)
What this means going forward?
It is good news, but it is likely short lived if the price of bitcoin again makes another surge higher like some are anticipating later this year.
Currently there are several new technologies being worked on to help eleviate the problem of high fees.
The first being SegWit, and the second being the Lightning Network.
The second is the most exciting in my opinion as a bitcoin owner as it could possibly take over the entire crypto payments industry.
Implementing the lightning network would offer nearly instant transactions and fees would likely cost fractions of cents.
For now, it looks like those wanting to use cryptocurrency for payment are mostly using better alternatives.
Litcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash are some of the more popular options.
We need to get steem mentioned in there as well so that it can solidify itself as a payment option before bitcoin eventually makes the necessary upgrades to work for payments.
The good news is that it will likely take many months before Lightning is ready and then several more months before it is fully implemented across the network.
Which means...
Steem still has some time to get its foot in the door. :)
Stay informed my friends.
Follow me: @jrcornel
I never considered how much the fee changes. Wow the fee changes faster then the price of bitcoin does.
Lightning network has been tested and it has many security flaws. So it will take a lot of time to come in existence in the real world. Steem is far ahead right now, it just needs promotion and awareness. Steem can change the whole transaction system in cryptos.
Not as strong a proof of security on STEEM network, as on BTC. Not sure I'd want to trust STEEM as a primary currency for daily purchases.
STEEM is gaining a lot of traction in my country. People are starting to get to know STEEM because of the SteemIT platform and ofcourse the 0% TXN fee and the instant transfer speed.
May the gods bless Dan for the STEEM blockchain 🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾
And the only reason it is even showing $0.79 is because many wallets are still locked in at 1000 satoshi/byte so if you were to take those out we are down to $0.01-$0.05
Yes good point. I had seen some transactions in the $.05 range yesterday. Amazing how quickly the fees came down.
STEEM as a currency for exchange is unlikely, without support from steemit leadership that this is a direction they intend to support and move.
Damn, down 98% to 79ct, nice! And then Lightning Network is still to come, great times ahead :-)
I hope BTC will absorb the full market cap of Ripple and render it useless (while it already is exactly that, but people don't seem to get that) ;-)
Haha it just might. That is the thing, there is no guarantee who the winners will be in the space. I originally thought it might be a winner take all, but the more I think about it I think there is room for several different coins in different niches.
True, like almost anywhere in the world we'll very likely see oligopolies in a lot of specific niches :-)
Bout time it came down to a reasonable level. High transaction costs/delays are severely counterproductive.
Yes they are. It was unfortunate they didn't have a better solution in place when bitcoin had its time in the spotlight late last year. Oh well, it will again.
Agreed. Looking forward to that!
This is why i wish there was more Steem pairs so i can circumnavigate these fees, only time will tell how long these BTC fees will stay as low as they are...
Some Reddit and Twitter users had pretty convincing suggestions that Coinbase was responsible for much of the high fees with their unbatched, high volume transactions:
Thanks to the ccommunity putting pressure on Coinbase to move to Segwit, this should keep bitcoin fees down for a while.
Can't wait for lightning.
I hadn't seen this yet. Thanks for sharing! That is interesting indeed. It should also mean that on the next run up, fees shouldn't get nearly as high.
This is good news! Many people hesitate in investing bitcoin because of the fee. It if goes down to a reasonable price, then the more reasonable it is to invest on it.
Bitcoin and the other Cryptocurrencies would not seize to amaze me. All of a sudden bitcoin was at the peak and different persons started rushing in and to my greatest surprise bitcoin is on the floor again.
good news, but it is likely short
Short lived do you mean?
Fees are definitely headed in the right direction to improve adoption but lightning network is needed for scalability. Unfortunately, SegWit is a prerequisite for Lightning and the amount of SegWit transactions has not passed 15-2% yet despite being launched last year. This may change when Coinbase and other wallet providers switch over but it has taken so long that it would be hard to say how long with a Lightning Network roll out take.
Lighting and segwit work in symbiosis.
Dogecoin will save the day. Each DOGE transaction costs just about one Dogecoin and that's about less than one cent.
That is a good point. I would imagine that is why it has been doing so well over the past couple months. Bitcoin's folly is Dogecoin's gain. :)
Cool dogs mining something in the dark :)
I think if the Lightning Network works, a transaction will cost under $ .05!
This is a good decision of bitcoin authority.Day after day huge people involve with bitcoin.So It is more comfortable for a user.
Thanks a lot.
😂 yes, thank you Satoshi
Maybe I am Satoshi user, But not Satoshi.
your post really very important.because i have new joined to steemit few days ago.so,i don,t know properly bitcoin matter.but i read your post this time.i am knowing bitcoin matter.thank u very much for ur good post sharing.. @jrcornel
Good thing that they changed the fee that's the only reason why I bought way more litecoin then bitcoin. I don't have a full bitcoin I wish I did. I agree with you litecoin, ethereum and bitcoin cash are the top cryptos for payment methods.
Sent about $100usd worth of bitcoin yesterday.... The fee was $0.11usd....
Crazy compared to just a month or two ago man!
Great info bro. you have no idea how glad i am about the LOW transaction fees on bitcoin cos it did cost me quite some huge sum of money last year when i was trying to do some transactions. So am mighty GLAD..
Thanks for this cryptocurrency news update providing... i appreciate this bitcoin. keep it up resteemit
Thanks for share your post.
Really nice.
good news, we hope the end of this month the steem price is even better, like the past month, thank you for sharing
Really those rates should be fixed and not tied to the price of the moment. Since each time you raise your price your transaction rates will also rise while the other criptomonedas are being much more profitable in that regard. Good article thanks for sharing.
How long do you think it will last, until tomorrow? :D
Doesn’t steem already has this features?
I saw you mentioned steem should be taken into consideration, I think the same. Especially because apart from free and instant transactions, it can handle bigger volumes more easily compared to those other crypto sites
What actually dictates the price of the transaction fee? Is it related to traffic on the blockchain or the price of BTC/USD or something else?
but unfortunately I always experience losses from the end of 2017 until the day, even today is also worse, I today losses that I bear already 4 million rupiah ,, because I bought TEN but it's gone three times the price of my buy....
It would be best if we had companies where we could buy from Steem, that would raise its value. These are great news and I believe we will achieve by the end of the year that Steem will be at the top 5.
am glad the changed the fee, now i can buy more bitcoin ... thanks for the info
Ok, dumb, blond question coming in..
But wouldn't it be much better if transaction costs are a set % of said transaction?
great to see progress with btc and its fee.
hopefully with lightning network and segwit wallet, btc will be used more widely... but don't think most hodlers will budge with their holdings.
as for payments, i've been using gdax to bypass fees after converting fiat into coinbase.
I'd been thinking that Bitcoin was non-viable for real use due to the fees and transaction times. Makes me wonder why it has that much value. Smells too much like tulips to me :) Other coins are more practical
pleasing & captivating!
I doubt that Lightning is going to save it. Eventually, the Bitcoin block chain bottleneck will show itself again when transactions really start to scale. I also heard they're trying to do the same thing to Ethereum.
The underlying ledger system will always limit throughput. It's kind of like adding a turbo to a one liter engine. Yes, you get more power, bit you still have engine 1.0 doing the work. They need to build it from the ground up to do it right.
EOS, Bitshares and Ripple, to name a few, are made to scale. Bitcoin is the first mover to be sure, but it won't be able to scale by design. Eventually, it will succumb to better technologies.
It still doesn't mean that it won't remain a store of value even when it definitely loses it lure as a means of micro payments due to scaling issues.
Even as a store of value, I'm not really sure Bitcoin can hold on to better than 40% market share or its lead in price, indefinitely. There are now more than 1500 cryptocurrencies and the odds are pretty good one of them will overtake BTC.
I note that of all the currencies in the top 10, it seems like Ethereum held onto its value the best relative to the height of the rally (or bubble) in December. It would seem then, based on that, that ETH is, for the moment a better store of value.
I'm also very concerned about how every exchange has a BTC pair for all of their altcoins, but not all altcoins have another pair. BTC is there as a trading pair for every single altcoin on every exchange. I think this condition alone lends tremendous price support to BTC that is unearned in my opinion.
Once markets develop the processing power and the willingness to add another two, three or four trading pairs to every other altcoin, BTC will see its fortunes diminish. Perhaps then, we can finally put to rest the problem of having all other coins move with BTC in price.
I understand your point. But losing it's title still doesn't mean that it'll become a dead project
This is good news on the one hand and as you point out interesting news on the other. Perhaps it is a good time for currencies like Steem to show their worth. The currency is already the most active, if it could become a core currency it would be great for us and its value. this next six months will be critical for Bitcoin and the marketplace to begin to gain some traction and move away from all of the manipulation and flash selling. This way we can shake out some of the scams and bad apples and really begin to fly. Thanks for the great post as always.
This is game changing news. The only thing holding Bitcoin back at this point has been the slow transactions and huge fees. If people are able to do all they want with Bitcoin then this might render so many of the others useless. Bitcoin jumping up a saying Whooooo.... I'm not old and archaic, I'm just getting started.
Yes that's good news about BTC transaction fees. Steem with zero transaction fees is hard to beat... if you have a Steem wallet. Now we just need to get Steem on Coinbase so people can buy it up!
Steem needs to come to more exchanges and some exchanges even have problems withdrawing/depositing Steem like Poloniex:
https://www.poloniex.com/exchange#btc_steem
Wondering why some exchange dont lower their BTC fees too...
Because BTC is a trading pair for every altcoin and the exchanges like it that way.
very useful information, thanks for update information kripto, hopefully future use comfortable using bitcoin.
It would be nice to see the same graph of cost together with transaction volume. I know that people have been grouping transactions to keep costs down but I think people avoided using bitcoin lately if they could due to the costs and transaction times. I know that I switched to Ether during this period since that is an alternate that could be bought from coinbase as an on ramp.
it is interesting and good news. Will be not necesary to change BTC for LTC and send it to exchange and again change it for BTC -:))) Many interesting projects in cryptoworld guys. Interesting times ahead.....
My gosh, I remember paying those ridiculous fees a few months ago. It stung to see how much it cost me just to transfer BTC around. I hope it continues to stay low, although I think that there are some better alternatives out there.
very good info, thx for the analysis :)
About time :)
very good news hopefully also the speed has improved, although with the LN test that is what they are looking for