Onchain Bitcoin Fees in 2024: A Closer Look at Transaction Costs and Delays

Data gathered over the last 36 days reveals that the Bitcoin network’s average transfer fee has consistently exceeded the $3.68 mark, while costs for median-sized transactions have not dipped below the $1.67 threshold. As of Feb. 6, 2024, insights from Bitcoin’s transaction queue highlight a significant backlog of 221,799 transactions awaiting confirmation.

Bitcoin Transfer Fee Insights From the First Five Weeks of 2024

Although network transaction fees in 2024 are still substantial, they haven’t reached the peaks observed in mid-December 2023, the latest data from Tuesday suggests. For example, on Dec. 17, 2023, the peak average transaction fee soared to $37.67 per BTC transfer. The initial five weeks of 2024 have seen the average fee stabilize at $9.39 per transaction across all 36 days.

2024’s peak day for Bitcoin’s network transaction fees occurred on Jan. 2, marking the average transfer cost at $17.32 per transaction. Additionally, data indicates that the lowest average fee in 2024 fell to $3.68 per transaction on Jan. 28. Average-sized bitcoin fees, determined by dividing the total transaction fees within 24 hours by the transaction count, give an overall sense of cost but may be influenced by significantly high or low fees.

In contrast, median-sized bitcoin fees, identifying the central value in a dataset of daily transaction fees when sorted, provide a more precise gauge of the typical expense for users, bypassing the distortion from outliers. Therefore, while average fees might imply elevated costs due to exceptional values, median fees more accurately reflect the transaction costs most users incur.

For 2024, the average median BTC fee per transaction stands at $4.02, with Jan. 14 witnessing the highest fee day at $10.28 per transfer. The day with the lowest median-sized fee was Jan. 27, dropping to $1.67 per transaction. Currently, the fee rate for high-priority transactions at 9:00 a.m. Eastern Time (ET) on Feb. 6, 2024, is between 18-29 satoshis per virtual byte. According to Mempool.space metrics, the mempool (Bitcoin’s transaction queue) is congested with 221,799 pending transactions.

In the last week, the average transaction fee was roughly $8.40 per transfer. The week’s highest fee day took place on Saturday, Feb. 3, with an average cost of $14.86, while the lowest fee day was on Jan. 30, plunging to $4.27 per transfer.