Bitcoin Median Transaction Fees Now the Lowest Since 2011

In August 2017, the Bitcoin community split as BTC struggled with high transaction fees and slow transfer times.

With its increasing popularity, BTC saw slow transaction times and high fees, reducing the usability of the coin and widespread adoption.

The fees have been at an all-time low since 2011 due to the soft fork Segregated Witness as well as the increased use of The Lightning Network.

The system enables instant transactions between participating nodes, and despite its infancy, it is developing quickly.

At the beginning of 2018, the transaction fee rate was 453.57 sats/byte, but in early April, the median BTC transaction fee dropped to under 10 satoshis per byte before rising to almost 40 sats by the end of April.

Info the median fee sits below 10 sats/byte sitting at 8.43 sats/byte as of May 29, 2018.

Median fees are viewed as a more useful metric for cryptocurrencies rather than considering average transaction fees.

Median figures are generally much more informative for data like fees or transaction value since the data is normally extremely skewed, hence the addition.

With high fees and slow transaction times this seemed unattainable and in practice, it could only be used as investments or for big-ticket purchases.

If the downward slope of median transaction fees continues, cryptocurrencies will be more accessible and functional in our everyday lives.