Latest data: Bitcoin's average transaction fee continues to rise, currently about 7 times that of Ethereum

Data shows that as of the 28th of this month, the average transaction fee of Bitcoin reached US$11.673, setting a new high for the year (the average transaction fee on the 27th was US$10.198, up 190.5% from US$3.51 on the 25th), and is currently about 7 times the average transaction fee of Ethereum.

At the same time, Bitcoin network congestion has intensified. According to BTC.com data, the number of unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions currently exceeds 120,000. As of around 9:00 today, the average computing power of the entire network in the past seven days has fallen to 116.89 EH/s.

The price of Bitcoin continues to rise, while the continuous decline in mining hashrate has become the main reason for network congestion and soaring transaction fees. The decline in Bitcoin hashrate is related to the end of the flood season in Sichuan. According to Bitcoin mining blogger Thomas Heller, "BTC mining hashrate dropped by about 22 EH/s on October 26, and the day before was the end of the season." He believes that the end of the rainy season in Sichuan has caused a large number of miners to migrate to other areas.

The entry of institutional investors has become the driving force for the rise in Bitcoin prices. Since October, Grayscale has been increasing its holdings of Bitcoin. As of the 28th, the company's total BTC holdings have reached 473,861 (about US$6.44 billion). In addition, Microstrategy (a Nasdaq-listed company and one of the world's largest independent listed business intelligence software providers) and Square (a payment giant) are both buying large amounts of Bitcoin. Square announced earlier this month that it had bought $50 million in Bitcoin, while Microstrategy said the company purchased 38,023 Bitcoins in Q3 and plans to continue buying Bitcoin.

Apart from macro market factors, the end of the flood season has also led to an increase in mining costs, which is also pushing up the price of Bitcoin. Shang Silin, president of Mars Cloud Mining, pointed out that "mining is an important dimension of Bitcoin value judgment. The dry season of Bitcoin has caused the mining cost to quickly rise from US$8,500 to around US$12,000, which has also become a factor in promoting the surge in BTC prices. In addition, overseas institutions have absorbed funds and directly deployed mining, buying almost all of China's new mining machines. These have become the underlying factors for the rise in the price of the currency."

According to the data from Coco Financial Platform, the current price of Bitcoin has reached $13,500, up 25% from $10,777 at the beginning of the month. Although BTC fell rapidly during this period, the price soon showed a rebound trend.

As of press time, BTC is quoted at $13,570, up 0.97% in 24 hours. (Mars Finance)