Bitcoin Outperforms Ethereum in Daily Fees
Bitcoin’s daily fees surpass Ethereum’s for the first time in three months. On November 16, Bitcoin users paid $11,630,638 in fees, while Ethereum users paid $8,445,997.
The rise in fees is a positive sign for miners, who can rely on them as a source of income Bitcoin has been attracting attention in the crypto space in recent weeks, as investors expect a Bitcoin Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) to be approved soon. Bitcoin’s upward trend and stability above the impressive $35k level have reinforced the bullish outlook on the cryptocurrency.
Meanwhile, a surprising shift in its daily fees has made headlines. On November 16, 2023, Bitcoin overtook Ethereum in daily fees for the first time in three months. According to CryptoFees, Bitcoin’s fees soared last day, reaching $11,630,638. In contrast, Ethereum’s fees dropped from their three-month peak of $12,793,684 on November 9 to $8,445,997.
Although Bitcoin’s fees have fallen from the previous day’s high, reaching around $8.85 million, they have remained higher than Ethereum’s fees, which are at $6.87 million. Since November 1, Bitcoin’s daily fees have shown a significant positive trend. Notably, the current spike in Bitcoin’s fees represents a yearly increase of more than 700% and a monthly increase of 1000%.
Bitcoin Fees The sharp increase in Bitcoin’s fees comes at a critical time, as miners have complained about 2023 as one of the least profitable years. Moreover, with the upcoming Bitcoin Halving, scheduled for the first quarter of 2024, which will reduce the block reward from 6.25 BTC to 3.125 BTC, the fee hike is a welcome development.
As the transaction fees increase, the network becomes more attractive for miners, who compete to validate transactions and earn rewards. This, in turn, enhances the security and decentralization of the network, making it more resilient to attacks and censorship.
However, high fees also pose a challenge for users, who have to pay more to use the network and its services. This can affect the adoption and usability of the network, especially for small or frequent transactions. Therefore, finding a balance between fees and usability is a key issue for both Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Both networks are also exploring ways to improve their scalability and efficiency, which could lower the fees and increase the throughput. For Bitcoin, some of the proposed solutions include the Lightning Network, a second-layer protocol that enables fast and cheap off-chain transactions, and Taproot, a soft fork that would improve the privacy and flexibility of smart contracts. For Ethereum, some of the proposed solutions include layer-2 protocols, such as Optimistic Rollups and ZK-Rollups, which enable off-chain computation and verification, and EIP-1559, a proposal that would change the fee market and burn a portion of the fees.
