The Bitcoin daily transaction fee hit all time highs just a few months ago.
On December 23rd, the average daily transaction fee was north of $34 per transaction.
That is absurd!
Unfortunately this happened at a time when all eyes were on bitcoin, it also happened as bitcoin was reaching all time highs around $20k per coin.
Which is also one of the reasons why the fees got so high in the first place.
What's the fee like today?
As of yesterday, the daily transaction fee on bitcoin was down to about $.79 per transaction.
A dramatic 98% drop from the highs seen just a few months prior.
This also marked the lowest transaction fee on bitcoin seen in the last 6 months.
Below is a graph of the median transaction fee over the past 6 months:
(Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/02/bitcoins-transaction-fee-crisis-is-over-for-now/)
What this means going forward?
It is good news, but it is likely short lived if the price of bitcoin again makes another surge higher like some are anticipating later this year.
Currently there are several new technologies being worked on to help eleviate the problem of high fees.
The first being SegWit, and the second being the Lightning Network.
The second is the most exciting in my opinion as a bitcoin owner as it could possibly take over the entire crypto payments industry.
Implementing the lightning network would offer nearly instant transactions and fees would likely cost fractions of cents.
For now, it looks like those wanting to use cryptocurrency for payment are mostly using better alternatives.
Litcoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash are some of the more popular options.
We need to get steem mentioned in there as well so that it can solidify itself as a payment option before bitcoin eventually makes the necessary upgrades to work for payments.
The good news is that it will likely take many months before Lightning is ready and then several more months before it is fully implemented across the network.
Which means...
Steem still has some time to get its foot in the door. :)
Stay informed my friends.
