Bitcoin Transaction Fees Are Soaring, This Is the Cause

Liputan6.com, Jakarta The ongoing trading hype of memecoins like Pepe Coin (PEPE) has triggered unintended consequences for Bitcoin pushing its transaction fees to their highest in years.

Reporting from Cointelegraph, Wednesday (10/5/2023), Bitcoin transaction fees soared in early May, reaching a two-year high, according to data from Crypto Fees.

On May 3, the total amount of fees paid on the Bitcoin blockchain reached USD 3.5 million or the equivalent of IDR 51.6 billion (assuming exchange rate of IDR 14,758 per US dollar), a jump of around 400 percent from the end of April.

The Bitcoin blockchain isn’t the only blockchain affected by the ongoing memecoin hype. Transaction fees on the Ethereum blockchain have also skyrocketed to new highs in recent months.

Other Causes

The recent increase in BTC transaction fees was also due to a spike in Bitcoin activity involving BRC-20 transactions. According to data from Galaxy Research, 50 percent of all Bitcoin transactions on May 2 were related to BRC-20 transactions.

Modeled after Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard, BRC-20 is an experimental token standard that allows users to issue and transfer exchangeable tokens on the Bitcoin blockchain. The standard was introduced in March 2023 by an on-chain analyst under the pseudonym known as Domo.