According to the latest analysis data of BitInfoCharts, the average transaction fee of Bitcoin has more than doubled in the past week, while the average transaction fee of Ethereum is declining. Some analysts believe that BitMEX, a large cryptocurrency derivatives exchange, has been approved by the U.S. Department of Justice. And the United States Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused of participating in money laundering may be part of the reason for the increase in Bitcoin transaction fees.
Now, the average cost of processing a Bitcoin transaction—that is, the fee that must be paid to each miner who processes each transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain—has soared to $4, and on September 27, the cost of a Bitcoin transaction The average cost is only $1.50. On the other hand, according to relevant data from BitInfoCharts, the average cost of Ethereum transactions also increased at the beginning of this week, from $2.3 last Sunday (September 27) to 3.6 this Tuesday (September 29). US dollars, an increase of 57%. But then the average transaction fee of Ethereum dropped sharply, and by this Friday (October 2) it had fallen to $2.3.
Generally speaking, when more people start to transfer cryptocurrency, transaction fees will rise because the demand for miners to process cryptocurrency transactions exceeds the supply, so miners increase transaction verification fees. According to the latest data, the average transaction fee of Bitcoin is almost twice that of Ethereum, but it should be noted that Ethereum is not Bitcoin, and Ethereum has recently been known for its high transaction fees.
One of the main reasons for the increase in Ethereum transaction fees is the “DeFi boom” that emerged this summer. In the recent period, investors have injected approximately US$10 billion into the Ethereum network and hope to get from the decentralized financial agreement based on Ethereum. Get some rewards, such as Compound, Aave and Uniswap. On September 2, the average transaction cost of Ethereum was $14 per month, while the average transaction cost of Bitcoin at that time was $4.6.
So why does the average transaction fee of Bitcoin exceed that of Ethereum this week? This may be related to the BitMEX cryptocurrency exchange.
This Thursday (October 1), the US Department of Justice and the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) have filed criminal proceedings against the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange BitMEX and its owner-operator, BitMEX Chief Technology Officer and Co-founder Samuel Reed (Samuel Reed) has been arrested in Massachusetts. The three co-founders of BitMEX, Arthur Hayes, Ben Dellow, and Samuel Reid were accused of operating an unregistered trading platform and also violating the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s anti-money laundering and KYC (know your Customer) regulatory rules. In addition to the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s allegations, the US Department of Justice has also sued Arthur Hayes, Ben Dello, Samuel Reid, and Greg Dwell for violating the US Bank Secrecy Act.
As soon as this incident occurred, a large number of investors began to withdraw cash from BitMEX, which resulted in a large amount of Bitcoin outflows from the exchange. As of the morning of October 3, Beijing time, Crystal Blockchain data showed that in less than 48 hours after BitMEX was prosecuted, more than 45,000 BTC had been transferred from the exchange, and about 2 of the bitcoins flowing out of BitMEX Ten thousand coins were transferred to four cryptocurrency exchanges, OKEx, Huobi, Gemini and Binance. According to the analysis by Lance Morginn, CEO of Blockchain Intelligence Group, regulators may not impose too severe penalties on BitMEX executives. If they guarantee that they will not participate in illegal transactions in the future, the most likely outcome will be Just fine.
BitMEX is currently the world’s fifth largest cryptocurrency derivatives exchange. According to the data released on Twitter by the crypto market indicator website Glassnode, the bitcoins transferred from BitMEX by traders account for about 1% of the total bitcoins in circulation. .
But it should be noted that the average Bitcoin transaction fee did not only start to rise last Thursday (October 1), but has been rising since last Sunday (September 27).
In fact, since the end of August, the average transaction fee of Bitcoin has been much higher than that of Ethereum. For example, on August 27, the average transaction fee for Bitcoin was 4.2 USD, while Ethereum was only 2.4 USD. However, Ethereum transaction fees began to soar in early September. Also according to BitInfoCharts data, the average Ethereum transaction fee reached 14.5 US dollars on September 2, setting the highest average cost of Ethereum transaction fees since 2018. However, due to the subsequent sharp drop in the price of Ethereum-from 487 US dollars to 390 US dollars (a decrease of more than 20%), the transaction fee also fell to 6.1 US dollars, a decrease of 58%.
