Bitcoin’s Transaction Backlog Nears End as Ordinal Inscriptions Decrease
It has been an intriguing four months since Bitcoin’s mempool was last empty, and with the recent decline in Ordinal inscriptions this month, the backlog now stands at only 27,210 unconfirmed transactions.
Decline in Unconfirmed Transactions
A little over two weeks ago, there were over 500,000 unconfirmed transactions in Bitcoin’s mempool. However, a significant decrease in Ordinal inscription minting three days ago led to a reduction in unconfirmed transactions to 153,000.
Today, on October 3, 2023, the situation has greatly improved. Miners have further reduced the number of unconfirmed transactions to 27,210, indicating that the backlog may soon be resolved. In April 2023, the mempool was last in this less congested state, and it was followed by a substantial increase in Ordinal inscriptions.
Total Inscriptions and Block Confirmation
This week, the total inscriptions on the Bitcoin blockchain have surpassed 35 million. However, the momentum has slowed down significantly. Daily inscriptions have not exceeded the 100K mark as reported earlier this week.
On October 1, approximately 87,180 inscriptions were added to the distributed ledger. The following day saw a further decrease to 50,176 inscriptions. With miners working through the backlog of unconfirmed transactions, only 21 blocks are now needed to clear the pending transactions.
Expected Resolution and Transaction Fees
If the current pace continues and inscription numbers remain low, it is possible that the backlog of unconfirmed transactions will be cleared within the next day or so. According to mempool.space, a modest fee of $0.08 per transaction is enough to expedite the transfer into a mined block.
Additionally, Bitinfocharts.com shows that the median transaction fee for Bitcoin is 0.000036 BTC or $0.995 per transfer. The recent data indicates that the average block time is eight minutes and approximately 35 seconds. The network’s difficulty has also increased by 0.35% to 57.32 trillion in the past 41 blocks.
Hot Take: Bitcoin’s Transaction Backlog May Soon Be Resolved
The recent decline in Ordinal inscriptions and the significant reduction in unconfirmed transactions indicate that Bitcoin’s transaction backlog may soon come to an end. With miners diligently working through the pending transactions, it is expected that the backlog will be cleared within the next day or so. This improvement in transaction confirmation times is a positive development for Bitcoin users, who can now expect faster and more efficient transfers on the blockchain.
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