‘Bitcoin Not Attacked:’ BTC Maxis Eliminates Fear of DoS Attacks

Concern over a potential Denial of Service (DoS) “attack” on the network was expressed on Crypto Twitter over the weekend due to a sudden increase in Bitcoin transaction fees of $28,376 and unconfirmed transactions.

Several Bitcoin analysts and commentators have allayed this anxiety among their followers. According to BitInfoCharts, the average transaction fee for Bitcoin is currently $19.20, or 0.00068 BTC. The transaction backlog at the time of writing, according to Mempool Space, is 459,341.

In fact the total cost per block temporarily exceeded the block subsidy reward of 6.25 BTC on May 7 due to increased network demand. The 6.25 BTC fixed block subsidy for the proof-of-work mining algorithm halves every four years. However, this amount could be exceeded if something out of the ordinary occurs that blocks a surge in space requests, leading to higher transaction costs.

According to business analysts, this is the first instance since 2017. One block has a cost of 6.76 Bitcoins, and block 788695 has a cost of 6.7 Bitcoins. Mempool Space Explorer reveals that activity has since moderated somewhat and that costs have once again fallen below block rewards. Processing the following block is expected to cost 4.51 BTC.

The increase in Ordinal inscriptions has been blamed for the spike in activity and demand for block space. On May 7, Taproot was used in a record-breaking 75% of all Bitcoin on-chain transactions, according to analytics firm Glassnode.

According to some at Crypto Twitter, the recent crash may have been caused by a DoS (denial of service) attack on the Bitcoin network. Analysts specializing in Bitcoin are quick to note that demand is to blame rather than planned attacks. Bitcoin mempool finally saw some use, and maxis framed it as a DoS attack on the network, “0xfoobar” alerted its 130,000 followers. The easiest scenarios, such as “Bitcoin is getting popular, and people are willing to pay to use it,” are not even considered by them.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, suspended Bitcoin transactions again on May 8 due to the “large volume of pending transactions.” In the previous 12 hours, Binance had suspended BTC transactions twice.