Lower Bitcoin Fees – One of Those Good News/Bad News Things
Lower Bitcoin fees comes as good news for people who use Bitcoin to buy houses, cars and pizzas and all the rest but bad news for Bitcoin miners like me. That’s because my Bitcoin mining income — excluding changes in Bitcoin market values – is down by 50%. Bitcoin miners not only mint new Bitcoin but we also validate Bitcoin transactions. When we have lower Bitcoin fees we make less money.
When it comes to lower Bitcoin fees my loss as a Bitcoin miner is your gain if you’re a Bitcoin investor or consumer. The average cost of sending a Bitcoin transaction is cheaper than it’s been in about 18 months – from the $20s now down to under $5. This is just another example that Bitcoin has more than one unpredictable behavioral factor.
Why do we have lower Bitcoin fees? Long story short; there are roughly half as many Bitcoin transactions now as there was just two months ago. In December, there were roughly 400,000 transactions per day. Present day there are only about 200,000, according to data from Blockchain.info. When transaction volume drops by 50% lower Bitcoin fees naturally follows.
So why are Bitcoin transactions down by half in just two months? Part of it could be attributed to people who were frustrated by high Bitcoin fees which led them to altcoins. That said there is reason to believe that Bitcoin volume overall – trading volume included – is down after Bitcoin reached an all-time high of nearly $20,000 followed by a plummet that made absolutely everybody in the cryptocoin sector nervous to say the least.
Lower Bitcoin fees help to bring the Bitcoin picture itself into clearer focus. Bitcoin is maturing and leveling out and all the related factors are falling in line as the granddaddy of cryptocurrency itself comes of age.
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