Bitcoin Transaction Fees Fall 91%, Back to Pre-Halving Levels
- Fluctuations in transaction fees have not necessarily correlated with price movements on the Bitcoin network.


Over the past several days, falling transaction fees have coincided with a small slump in the price of Bitcoin: on Thursday, June 11th, Bitcoin briefly reached as high as $9,930; at press time, that figure was just $9,160.
However, Bitcoin’s price and the amount paid off in transaction fees have not always correlated throughout the past several months; when Bitcoin transaction fees were at their highest on May 20th, the price of Bitcoin was roughly $9,685; as transaction fees were falling on June 2nd, several weeks later, the price briefly rose above $10,100.
Fees started to notably increase several weeks before the halving occurred. On April 28th, the average fee was $0.66; by May 1st, that figure had nearly quintupled to $2.84.
What caused the uptick in fees?
On the Bitcoin network, transaction fees typically increase when the network is experiencing periods of heavy usage; because the Bitcoin network can only process between 3.3 and 7 transactions per second, a backlog of transactions can easily form during periods of high trading volume.
Therefore, it’s no coincidence that as Bitcoin’s fees increased, Bitcoin’s ‘mempool size’--which is the aggregate size of transactions waiting to be confirmed--also skyrocketed during the periods when Bitcoin’s transaction fees were at their highest.

Ryan Watkins, who works as a research analyst in Messari crypto, pointed out on Twitter that while fees have continued to fall on the Bitcoin network, there was a prolonged spike in the price of transactions on the Ethereum Ethereum Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Read this Term network, bringing fees on Ethereum above Bitcoin’s for several days.
Ethereum scaling solutions will be critical in how this trend develops.
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) June 9, 2020
Last week Tether announced its launch on OMG Network, a layer 2 scaling solution.
USDT's move to OMG Network could relieve pressure on the Ethereum blockchain and reduce fees.https://t.co/iyAUnp0gxV
“While Ethereum fees have previously surpassed Bitcoin fees multiple times in the past, most instances were just momentary spikes, “ a report from Messari reads. “The last time Ethereum fees were above Bitcoin fees on a sustained basis was mid-2018, during the tail end of the ICO craze.”

Over the past several days, falling transaction fees have coincided with a small slump in the price of Bitcoin: on Thursday, June 11th, Bitcoin briefly reached as high as $9,930; at press time, that figure was just $9,160.
However, Bitcoin’s price and the amount paid off in transaction fees have not always correlated throughout the past several months; when Bitcoin transaction fees were at their highest on May 20th, the price of Bitcoin was roughly $9,685; as transaction fees were falling on June 2nd, several weeks later, the price briefly rose above $10,100.
Fees started to notably increase several weeks before the halving occurred. On April 28th, the average fee was $0.66; by May 1st, that figure had nearly quintupled to $2.84.
What caused the uptick in fees?
On the Bitcoin network, transaction fees typically increase when the network is experiencing periods of heavy usage; because the Bitcoin network can only process between 3.3 and 7 transactions per second, a backlog of transactions can easily form during periods of high trading volume.
Therefore, it’s no coincidence that as Bitcoin’s fees increased, Bitcoin’s ‘mempool size’--which is the aggregate size of transactions waiting to be confirmed--also skyrocketed during the periods when Bitcoin’s transaction fees were at their highest.

Ryan Watkins, who works as a research analyst in Messari crypto, pointed out on Twitter that while fees have continued to fall on the Bitcoin network, there was a prolonged spike in the price of transactions on the Ethereum Ethereum Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Ethereum is an open source, blockchain-based distributed computing platform and operating system featuring smart contract functionality. Created in 2014, Ethereum now stands as the second largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the time of writing.As a decentralized cryptocurrency network and software platform, Ethereum represents the most prominent altcoin. Ethereum also enables the creation Distributed Applications, or dapps. Understanding EthereumEthereum boasts its own programming language, called Turing Complete, which is used to build the dapps. Dapps run on a peer-to-peer (P2P0 network of virtual machines. These can be just about anything and are optimized to run on Smart Contracts. Smart Contracts are pieces of code that execute a predetermined set of actions once a certain set of criteria are met. The Ethereum network’s native currency is called Ether, or ETH. ETH tokens can be used to pay for things inside of dapps or to receive payouts from smart contracts. They can also be traded off of the Ethereum network inside of cryptocurrency exchanges or OTC trading platforms. For most of its lifetime, Ethereum has remained as the second-largest and most popular cryptocurrency in terms of its market cap. It was briefly outpaced by Bitcoin Cash near the end of 2017.Ethereum’s origin dates back to late 2013 when crypto researcher and programmer Vitalik Buterin proposed its utility.Its development was subsequently funded by an online crowdsale that took place in the middle of 2014 before going live in July 2015. At its inception, Ethereum went live with 72 million coins minted, accounting for approximately 65 percent of its total circulating supply as of May 2020.Like other cryptos, Ethereum has had a checkered past, resulting in splits. Back in 2016, an exploited vulnerability in The DAO project's smart contract software caused the theft of $50 million worth of ether.As a result, Ethereum was split into two separate blockchains – a newer and separate version became known as Ethereum (ETH), while the original chain continued to be known as Ethereum Classic (ETC). Read this Term network, bringing fees on Ethereum above Bitcoin’s for several days.
Ethereum scaling solutions will be critical in how this trend develops.
— Ryan Watkins (@RyanWatkins_) June 9, 2020
Last week Tether announced its launch on OMG Network, a layer 2 scaling solution.
USDT's move to OMG Network could relieve pressure on the Ethereum blockchain and reduce fees.https://t.co/iyAUnp0gxV
“While Ethereum fees have previously surpassed Bitcoin fees multiple times in the past, most instances were just momentary spikes, “ a report from Messari reads. “The last time Ethereum fees were above Bitcoin fees on a sustained basis was mid-2018, during the tail end of the ICO craze.”