Congestion Woes Ease on Bitcoin Network
The past week has been a busy one for the Bitcoin network. On May 7th, there was a backlog of more than 500,000 unconfirmed transactions, which was a new record. However, as of today, that number is now 263,406. Currently, 184 blocks need to be cleared to process the majority of transactions that are still stuck in the network’s mempool.
The long queue of transactions has finally started to diminish as the bitcoin miners are catching up on some of the backlog. Three days ago, unconfirmed transactions dropped from over 500,000 to less than 50,000 and on May 11, it was just above 300,000. According to the statistics of mempool.io, at that time, transfers with high priority cost $3, whereas transfers with low priority cost $2.23.
The onchain fees have dropped significantly on the Bitcoin blockchain over the last three days. A few days ago, an urgent transaction would have cost you $3. Today, the fee is only $0.83. A medium priority transfer costs $0.79 while a transaction of low priority can cost $0.75. This high priority fee has dropped by 72.33% in the past 72-hours. Additionally, the number of unconfirmed transactions stuck in queue has decreased to 263,406, just over half what it was on May 7.
Lightning Network Capacity Channels Drop
In the five days prior to May 9, there were 413,420 transactions, meaning that 36.28% of the backlog was cleared. The price of Bitcoin has been volatile in recent times. The Lightning Network’s capacity did not improve. The number of BTC that is locked into the Lightning Network dropped to 5,463 BTC from May 5 to today’s capacity of 5,415 BTC on May 14.
The dip shows that approximately $1.28 Million in value has left the Lightning Network on May 8. Lightning Network boasted 73,352 unique channels. However, since then, the number of unique channels has decreased to 71,286. According to mempool.space’s Lightning Network stats, clearnet is home to approximately 5,057 BTC worth of capacity, while 253 BTC are on the usenet. Tor. The capacity on ‘other’ is referred to as “other.”
What do you think about the recent events in the Bitcoin network and Lightning Network’s capacity? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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