After a period of high congestion, bitcoin miners have finally reduced the backlog of transactions. According to Bitcoin.com News, unconfirmed transactions have dropped from over 500,000 on May 7 to just above 300,000 on May 11. This indicates the beginning of the congestion-clearing process.
Reduced Fees
Statistics from mempool.io show that onchain fees on the Bitcoin blockchain have significantly subsided over the past three days. A high-priority transaction, which would have cost $3 a few days ago, now costs $0.83. Medium-priority and low-priority transactions are now priced at $0.79 and $0.75, respectively. This represents a significant improvement, with high-priority onchain fees decreasing by 72.33% in the past 72 hours.
Lightning Network Capacity
Although the reduction in the transaction backlog has led to lower fees, the capacity of the Lightning Network has not improved. In fact, the number of BTC locked into the Lightning Network has decreased from 5,463 BTC on May 5 to 5,415 BTC on May 14, indicating that roughly $1.28 million in value left the Lightning Network amid the transaction backlog chaos. The number of unique channels on the Lightning Network has also decreased from 73,352 to 71,286. The remaining Lightning Network capacity is identified as “other.”
Despite the recent decrease in congestion and fees, it is important to keep an eye on the capacity and performance of the Lightning Network. As the popularity of bitcoin continues to grow, it is crucial to have a reliable and efficient network to handle the increasing number of transactions.
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