Within the Bitcoin ecosystem, transaction fees, that is, the cost of sending Bitcoin, continue to cause disputes as they have shown a rapid increase. According to data from the blockchain data analysis firm BitInfoCharts on December 17, the average transaction fee has risen to about 40 dollars. The recent popularity of Bitcoin Ordinals has caused transaction fees to rise for all ecosystem users, and some analysts believe this situation will be permanent.
At the moment, the cost of sending Bitcoin is just over 37 dollars according to BitInfoCharts data, and this cost has been recorded as the highest average figure seen since April 2021. According to data from another blockchain data analysis platform called mempool.space, the size of the Bitcoin mempool, which is the accumulation of unconfirmed transactions on-chain, is very large. Therefore, even transactions with an extra 2 dollars fee are not gaining priority on-chain. At the time of writing, approximately 350,000 transactions were waiting for confirmation.
While daily on-chain expenditures are becoming increasingly expensive for small investors within the ecosystem, a heated debate continues among Bitcoin advocates. Many people are reacting to the impact of Ordinals on fees, while popular Bitcoin investors see double-digit transaction costs as an important step for the experience.
Users who want to protect themselves in this situation need to adopt Layer-2 solutions, such as the Lightning Network, which is designed especially for mass adoption. Popular analyst Hodlonaut made the following statements on December 16: “Fees are currently artificially and temporarily high due to JPEG nonsense, but this is nothing more than a preview of the future. Scaling does not happen on Layer-1.”
Hodlonaut continued, arguing that demanding low fees for Layer 1 transactions is not only ignorance but also feeds an attack on Bitcoin. This reflects the structure of Bitcoin as a network that gains value over time through competitive proof of work. Keeping fees low is a contradictory situation and does not determine value, as shown by Bitcoin network forks that specifically target offering this benefit. Referring to Bitcoin Cash, Hodlonaut said: “If they’re in a position where they can’t move funds in five years, why should it be critical to include someone with fees under 1 dollar on Layer-1? Just go to Bitcoin Cash or another centralized pipe dream.”