OKX Admits Testing ‘Collection Program’ as Bitcoin Fees Skyrocket
After OKX acknowledged testing a new application on the Bitcoin network, the average transaction fee rose to approximately $50.
The average transaction cost on the Bitcoin network increased to $52 on Friday, according to data from mempool.space. This means that in order to create a single block on the network, miners must be paid over 5.4 BTC, or around $400,000.
The unexpected increase in transaction costs on the Bitcoin network seems to be the result of the cryptocurrency exchange OKX.
OKX's Chinese account swiftly responded to inquiries on X, reaffirming that the exchange was responsible for the most recent increase. They claimed that OKX had stopped “testing a collection program,” which it had been “testing.”
It still needs to be clarified exactly how OKX changed the landscape of Bitcoin network fees as of the time of publication. According to Web3 analyst @1999_eth, there's a chance the exchange used a faulty script.
Whatever the reason, the event has affected the entire network, and as of the time of writing, over 330,000 transactions are delayed. Congestion on the Bitcoin network usually spikes during heavy transaction volume or significant events in the cryptocurrency market.
For example, in 2017, when Bitcoin surged to $20,000, there were over 180,000 unconfirmed transactions in the mempool, which resulted in several-day delays for users waiting for their transactions to be processed.
