Behind the record high price of the currency: the Bitcoin network is severely congested, with more than 100,000 transactions unconfirmed during the peak period

On February 22, the transaction queue in the Bitcoin network, also known as the memory pool (mempool), reached an all-time high. At the peak of trading that day, more than 100,000 transactions were not confirmed, and most people experienced "catastrophic delays."

Bitcoin transaction congestion hits new high

As the price of the currency gradually reaches new highs, the Bitcoin network has also experienced severe transaction congestion. In the past 36 hours, a large number of "backlogs" (that is, unconfirmed transactions) have appeared. As of press time, the number of unconfirmed transactions in the network is about 76,000, and at the peak of congestion, the 108,000笔, quickly breaking the record of 100,000 transactions six hours ago. Of course, users have been complaining about high fees and transaction delays.

Yesterday, Babbitt reported that transaction fees have increased by 1,200% in the past two years. Currently, the transaction fees that can be given priority must be between $0.40 and $0.75. In addition, the Bitcoin network can currently process 3-4 transactions per second, but there are still about 70 Bitcoin fees waiting in line. The last serious congestion occurred on February 2, when 900,000 Bitcoins were waiting in line for confirmation.

On February 2, when the number of unconfirmed transactions continued to increase, Bitcoin developer Lukejr (Luke Dashjr) responded to a netizen’s help post on Reddit (there were 75,000 uncompleted transactions at the time):

Just pay the $5 fee and your transaction will go through smoothly unless you do something stupid.

On January 24, when the network was congested for a while, Lukejr uploaded a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Protocol) to Github, hoping to reduce the block capacity.

Capacity expansion remains a deadlock

The network congestion has also intensified the conflict between the parties with different opinions on the expansion dispute. At present, all parties seem unwilling to compromise on the choice of expansion plan, and the Bitcoin forum is still full of related discussions. Many Bitcoin supporters said that they are patiently waiting for the activation of Segregated Verification (Segwit), but the support rate of miners for this plan is only 26%. Bitcoin Unlimited represents another expansion plan in the community, advocating unlimited block size, and the support rate has reached 20%.

Best choice for sending transactions

From the current situation, in order to complete the transaction smoothly, Bitcoin users should choose the right fee. The current optimal fee can be checked in the 21 company's fee calculator, which is updated every few hours. The current optimal fee is 180 satoshis/byte. A medium-sized transaction is about 226 bytes, and the fee is 40,680 satoshis.

Another way to avoid queuing is Replace-By-Fee (RBF), which is only available to Core client users. With Opt-In RBF, when you send a transaction, the network node already knows that you may adjust the fee for resending. Therefore, most Bitcoin nodes are more accepting of the second transaction and allow this new transaction to jump the queue. In short, RBF will recognize the second transaction with a higher fee, and the first broadcast will be eliminated by the network.

In addition, the transaction accelerator launched by Viabtc can be used to solve the problem of low-fee transaction delays. Users only need to submit a shortened transaction identifier (txids) with a minimum fee of 0.0001BTC/KB to Viabtc's accelerator, and the transaction will be prioritized soon, and the mining pool will add these transactions to the next block. However, the number of transactions submitted in this way is limited to 100 per hour, but this service is completely free. It is reported that other mining pools have also created transaction accelerators, but they provide paid services.

Many bitcoiners are wondering why transaction congestion occurs so frequently? Some people think that it may be someone or an organization that continuously creates spam attacks or sends a large number of low-fee transactions in the network. Others believe that transaction congestion is caused by the rise in the price of the currency. After all, Bitcoin has attracted more and more traders. In any case, network congestion has never been properly resolved, and the number of transactions backlogged in the memory pool remains at the highest level.