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Bitcoin Transaction Fees Surges 590 Percent – Here’s What Can Help it Save
Author: Qadir AK Jul 30, 2020 9:51
Qadir AK 
Author
Qadir Ak is the founder of Coinpedia. He has over a decade of experience writing about technology and has been covering the blockchain and cryptocurrency space since 2010. He has also interviewed a few prominent experts within the cryptocurrency space.
With the increase in the Bitcoin price, the transaction fees also have touched the skies by jumping nearly 590 percent
Some reports suggest that the transaction fees could have been saved if new technologies would have been adopted within time.
Exchanges come forward to make use of the technology to cut the transaction fees.
Is Bitcoin Cash Better Than Bitcoin?
In recent days, bitcoin had a bullish rally which soared prices above 11000 at the time of recording. The transaction fees of bitcoin also rose to heights with an increase in nearly 590 percent.
Bitcoin Cash proponents Roger Ver couldn’t wait a moment to criticize Bitcoin and appreciate how Bitcoin Bitcoin cash could be a better option than Bitcoin. He tweeted that Bitcoin Cash works similar to cash but bitcoin does not. However, his opinion didn’t go well with the other users. Some of the Bitcoin proponents on Twitter said that BCH does not work when its price is volatile.
On the other hand, the closest competitor of Bitcoin, Ethereum’s transaction fees has also surged. The transaction fees have risen about 180 percent this month.
Previously, the transaction fees of Bitcoin had risen soon after the halving event that occurred in May 2020. The average bitcoin fee was recorded at a two-year high of around $6.60, however, it dropped later.
You may also read – Bitcoin at $200 Billion Market Cap Ruling the Market
Could the Transaction Fees Have Been Saved?
A report from Veriphi suggests that almost half a billion of transaction fees on the cryptocurrencies could have been saved, if the exchanges or the service providers had adapted to the new technologies.
The technologies like transaction batching and SegWit, if implemented by the companies, could have saved nearly $500 million. The transaction batching wherein the transactions are processed in batches instead of processing a single transaction at a time would have saved, 21,139.97 BTC worth of $195 million from January 2012 to June 2020
On the other hand, SegWit, a technology that allows more space for transactions per block would have set aside 36,685.72 BTC worth of $339 million in 3 years from August 2017 to June 2020.
Transaction batching and SegWit were officially released in 2012 and 2017 respectively.
Exchanges to Implement New Technology
In March 2020, san Francisco based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase revealed in a blog post that the exchange is all set to roll out Bitcoin transaction batching to reduce the load on the bitcoin blockchain. Similarly, another cryptocurrency exchange Kraken also has adapted to new technology a couple of years back.
In a nutshell, technologies have always saved some form of energy and their is a need for adapting it as and when required. The soaring transaction fees of Bitcoin has led to finding various other options to reduce it. Hence, transaction batching and segwit which are available can be used to lower the transaction fees to some extent.
