Bitcoin Network Attacked? Crypto Twitter Reacts
- There are over 488,083 transactions pending in the mempool of Bitcoin (BTC), and the congestion on the blockchain has skyrocketed.
- The transaction fees for the Bitcoin network were also quite high, with people paying above $20 for a single transaction.
- People on crypto Twitter claim that this is the work of an attacker who is using a significant sum of money to cause the congestion.
- The miners are having a blast as they reap all the rewards generated by this sudden congestion and surge in transaction fees.
The world’s biggest blockchain network, the Bitcoin (BTC) Network, has stood the test of time and been here for more than a decade, providing people with cheaper and alternative money transfer systems. Interestingly, the crypto community on social media platform Twitter was filled with various speculations after the transaction fees on the blockchain skyrocketed while the network was congested due to an abundance of backlog transactions. This was viewed by many as an attack on the leading crypto network.
It is important to mention here that there are over 488,083 transactions pending in the mempool of Bitcoin (BTC), according to the data from mempool.space. A memory pool, or mempool, is a list of pending transactions waiting for validation from a node before it is committed to a block on the blockchain by a miner. Usually a transaction stays in the mempool for over 48 hours, but it seems that this time, things might be different.
On the other hand, as per the data from mempool.space, the transaction fees for the Bitcoin network were also quite high. No priority transactions had a fee of 118 sat/vB, while the highest priority transactions had a fee of 445 sat/vB, which comes to around $20. Interestingly, these high metrics suggested that some kind of nefarious behavior was prevalent on the network, and the attacker wanted to push those people who couldn’t handle the surge in transaction fees.
“High transaction fees are the chosen pain point by the attacker, probably to make […] Bitcoin unusable for smaller players,” claimed @proofofjogi on Twitter on Sunday. “We’re in the then-they-fight-you-stage.”
On the other hand, it was penned by prominent Bitcoin supporter Dylan LeClair that high transaction fees can be used to drive up the costs in the short term but in the longer term, this will have no impact. This is because the miners play an important role in the management of the blockchain network.
More importantly, a Twitter user named @Toma_7_32 pointed out that it is the miners that are having a blast from this ‘attack on the Bitcoin Network’ and are reaping the rewards associated with the high transaction fees and the clogging up of the network.
It was also pointed out by the account that the attacker has used a large sum of funds to create a number of shitcoins on the BRC-20 network and cause congestion in the network. However, it will only be a matter of time before his funds dry up, and soon the situation will turn normal. Despite the concerns about the clogging up of the Bitcoin network, the price of the leading cryptocurrency remains firm above $28,000 as investors keep an eye out for the $30K price region.
As reported earlier by Bitnation, Anthony Scaramucci, the person behind the popular global investment firm based in New York City, Skybridge Capital, believes that the crypto winter is over as the leading crypto coin has outperformed the S&P 500 from the beginning of the year to date.
A crypto journalist with over 3 years of experience in DeFi, NFT, metaverse, etc. Parth has worked with major media outlets in the crypto and finance world and has gained experience and expertise in crypto culture after surviving bear and bull markets over the years.
