Kripto

Bitcoin Now Costs Like Ethereum in Payments: Q2 2024 Data Says

On-chain data shows Bitcoin blockchain users had to pay the same amount as Ethereum this past quarter.

Bitcoin Users Paid $440 Million in Transactions Last Quarter

As market intelligence platform IntoTheBlock revealed in a new post on X, Bitcoin registered a sharp jump in transaction fees this past quarter. “Performance fees” here naturally refers to the amount senders on the blockchain must attach to their transfers as compensation for the verifiers.

The amount of money in a network is usually a reflection of the activity that takes place in it. During high traffic periods, users have no choice but to pay higher fees if they want their transfers to go through in a reasonable amount of time.

This is because the network has only a limited capacity to handle transactions. Therefore, verifiers naturally prefer to put the transfer with the highest amount first in the next block.

As users compete for first move, payouts can explode. In times of activity for small chains, however, the senders have no incentive to go for any higher payments, so their value remains low.

Below the infographic shared by IntoTheBlock shows how the total amount of money compared between Bitcoin and Ethereum in the second quarter of this year.

Looks like the fees has been almost the same for the two networks recently | Source: IntoTheBlock on X

As seen above, the Bitcoin network saw total transaction fees of around $440 million over the past three months. This represents a growth of about 61% over the previous quarter.

While payouts have jumped significantly for BTC, this has not been the case for ETH. It would appear that Ethereum users have paid 63% less fees in this window compared to the last quarter.

Payments in ETH were previously much higher than in BTC, giving the network a reputation for being expensive. With this drop, however, the amount of money paid on the network dropped to $441 million, which is just one million dollars more than what the original cryptocurrency saw.

Now, what causes these conditions? In the case of Bitcoin, the introduction of the Runes protocol back in April is the main driver behind the growth. This protocol, which allows users to create decentralized tokens on the network, quickly gained popularity and increased BTC transaction activity.

As for Ethereum’s decline, the analytics company notes that transactions have shifted to Layer 2 solutions this time. A Layer 2 blockchain is built on top of the core network to improve workflow.

While both ETH and BTC are seeing relatively high transaction fees, Litecoin (LTC) has continued to be the cheapest network recently, as IntoTheBlock shared in a post response.

Ethereum vs Bitcoin vs Litecoin

The data for the average transaction fees on the various top cryptocurrency networks | Source: IntoTheBlock on X

BTC price

Bitcoin has not been able to recover significantly from its recent decline, as its price is still trading around $60,800.

Bitcoin price chart

The price of the coin appears to have been moving sideways over the last few days | Source: BTCUSD on TradingView

Featured image from Dall-E, IntoTheBlock.com, chart from TradingView.com


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