13 May Bitcoin SV Fees are Less Than a Fraction of 1%
LONDON, May 13, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — The average transaction fee for BTC peaked at $3.19 last Friday. This rise represented a 10-month high for the network the week before the BTC halving. Meanwhile, May 11 saw 1.2 BTC processed at block height 630001—with a transaction fee of close to $100.
A common narrative is that higher fees on BTC do not hurt the community. But invoking a surge in adoption to justify higher fees is deceptive.
The fees are not soaring because of a sudden demand for BTC. The token has little utility, and against the backdrop of a global pandemic, very few new adopters are coming into the ecosystem. The fees are soaring because the mempool is being backed up since developers maintaining the BTC protocol choose to place artificial limits on block sizes.
The BTC fee surge being heralded in news headlines has more in common with ‘price gouging’ or ‘surge pricing’ than it does with signalling a rise in new users. It’s a sign the BTC network reached its…