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When April 2023 came, the number of pending transactions in the Bitcoin (BTC) network began to increase noticeably and reached its peak in May, the following month. After that, Bitcoin investors encountered an increase in transaction fees when they wanted to make transactions.
Bitcoin Transaction Numbers
Since then, as the Bitcoin network struggled with a high congestion, the expected transaction time and costs for sending BTC had started to increase.
However, this situation did not last long. About six months later, things started to change in the last week of September. Data from a Bitcoin node on October 3rd showed that the number of pending transactions on the network had reached its lowest level in 6 months. Although these figures seemed low, they were 20 times higher compared to the worst periods seen during the year.
Bitcoin and Lightning Network
It is known that the number of transactions on the Bitcoin network is limited compared to its competitors. An increase in pending transactions on the network can also bring along an increase in the demand for existing blocks, which can lead users who want to make transactions to pay higher transaction fees in order to receive early confirmation.
According to the data shared by BitInfoCharts, this effect was strongly felt on May 8th and reflected the first peak of pending transactions to users who wanted to make transactions. During this process, the average fees per transaction rose to $31. Interestingly, after this increase, the fees per transaction fell below $5. In addition, users started to move their BTC investments to Lightning Network (LN) for off-chain transactions in order to avoid the congestion on the Bitcoin network.
The monthly statistics below for the Lightning Network have been taken from Amboss as of the time of writing. Remarkably, it can be seen that a total of 4,667 channels were closed last month. In the same period, 1,033 nodes were also closed. However, when measured in BTC, the capacity of the Lightning Network increased by 1.64%. As a result of this increase, an additional 80 Bitcoin appeared to be available for use.
