Bitcoin Trading Volumes Nearing 2017 High, Transaction Fees Also On The Rise

As per the latest report by Diar.co, the transaction volumes of Bitcoin is nearing its 2017 high, and the SegWit protocol which was implemented back in August 2017 has been working well for the BTC network. Although the transaction fee has spiked more than 250% since December 2017 since the number of users and volumes have increased accordingly as well. The report reads,

On-chain volume still heavily used for ramping on and off exchanges has been the main culprit as traders look for an opportunity with the price of Bitcoin rising 43% during April resulting in full blocks, But SegWit, the scalability solution that addresses the issue has also hit a high with the percentage of blocks using the mechanism averaging 35% alleviating fee pressures. 2018 average SegWit usage was only 26% and only 11% at Bitcoin’s peak highlighting the continued adoption by major players.

SegWit protocol was introduced to fight congestion on the network, and since 2017 implementation the protocol has helped in keeping the transaction fee in check. This was achieved because SegWit protocol helps the network to increase the amount of data that can be saved on a block.

The price of Bitcoin is up by 50% from its December bottom and the trading volumes are on the rise too, with all these factors taken into consideration, the next bull run is not that far fetched. Many analysts suggest that the next bull run would arrive sooner than many thinks. One such noted Bitcoin trader Willy Woo recently tweeted,

We also need price to be validated with on-chain volume mooning from here. We’ll likely get that confirmation soon in the next 4-8 wks

During the last bull run in 2017, many have complained about the slower speeds of transactions and higher transaction fee, but with SegWit into the picture this time around and off-chain solution like the Lightning network, many believe the transactions would be much faster and cheaper when compared to 2017.

SegWit protocol currently accounts for around 41% of all the transactions currently and it surely has helped in cutting the transaction fee to a great extent. Recently, an unknown Bitcoin whale transferred 40,000 BTC from one address to another using SegWit protocol address, which resulted in a mere 57 cents in transaction fee.