The problem of high fees and long transaction times has been bothering Bitcoin users for a long time. It turns out that Coinbase is party responsible for clogging mempool, the space for unconfirmed transactions in the Bitcoin network.
Several Twitter users have found that the transaction confirmation time in mempool is correlated with the error that occurred on Coinbase. The exchange office informed about the discontinuance of BTC transfers. The break lasted about two hours. After the resumption of the operation, CivEkonom proved via Twitter that Coinbase's sole business is able to fill up the mempool effectively, so the time of the transaction is dramatically increasing.
CivEkonom and many other users who have connected to this topic have asked for CoWit implementation by Coinbase in order to improve the functionality of the platform and load off the mempool.
In response, CEO Coinbase, Brian Armstrong, said that Coinbase will be working on the introduction of SegWit on its platform, as well as other streamlining solutions.
In order to better illustrate the essence of the problem, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the North American Bitcoin Conference has stopped selling tickets for cryptocurrencies. The reason for this decision, of course, was too much network overload. This forced the need to buy the last pool of tickets for this event using traditional payment methods.
This is one example of an ocean of problems that arise due to the long processing of transactions and high fees for their implementation. The situation of Bitcoin as a means of payment may soon become really dramatic. That is why it is so important to look for new solutions in terms of scalability. Many people see a breakthrough in the Lightning Network, but we will have to wait for the overall implementation of this solution.