Bitcoin's [BTC] average transaction fees soar to 10-month high while ...

Bitcoin and altcoins are perceived quite differently from Bitcoin and its hardforks. The debate here is more tribal, with the debate pitting purported BTC maximalists against Bitcoin Cash [BCH] proponents and others who claim to act according to Satoshi’s Vision.

However, statistics charting out average transaction fees for the king coin and its little brother, Bitcoin Cash, paint a telling tale. In fact, the average transaction fee for Bitcoin has soared to its highest point in over 10 months, while the same metric for Bitcoin Cash does not point to a significant change.According to BitInfoCharts, the average transaction fee for Bitcoin was recently recorded at $2.86. Given that the fees mirror the price of the coin, average transaction fees began to pump in early April when Bitcoin saw its largest daily gain in almost a year. The transaction fee was under $0.50 in March and saw a massive 351 percent hike to reach $2.16.

In the ensuing weeks, as Bitcoin’s price began to stabilize, average fees dropped to under $0.70 once again. On the back of several announcements covering adoption, fundamentals changes, and even FOMO, transaction fees soared from $0.98 on 4 May by 194.48 percent, to reach the press time fee of $2.88.

Despite Bitcoin Cash being the market leader in terms of price gain earlier this week, average transactions fees just saw one short-lived spike. On 18 April, the fee for BCH transactions jumped from $0.0052 by an unforeseen 1282.69 percent to reach $0.0719 in less than 48 hours.

In addition to the above spike, another brief rise was seen on 29 April, when the average fees climbed to $0.0159 from $0.0029. At press time, the average transaction fees for Bitcoin Cash recorded by BitInfoCharts was $0.0058.Recently, a LongHash report dated May 10, 2019 stated that Bitcoin miners earned eight times more in transactions fees, than all other cryptocurrencies listed on Messari.io’s OnChainFX ranking. The report added that these fees would be more of a “key financial incentive” for miners, especially given the BTC halving scheduled for May 2020.