After the third Bitcoin halving, the block reward for mining each block dropped from 12.5 to 6.25 BTC. This resulted in a significant rise in transaction fees to incentivize the miners. The average transaction fee went up almost threefold from just over $2 to over $6 within 2 weeks after the havling.
Average Bitcoin Transaction Fee in USD – May 2020
The current levels of transaction fees exceeded the peak of 2019. The network saw a drastic increase in transaction fees in June 2019 due to the high volume of transactions caused by a massive rally in Bitcoin price.
Average Bitcoin Transaction Fee in USD – Past 1 year
These levels are still relatively low compared to the transaction fee in Dec 2017. The average transaction fee hit almost $55 during the peak bull market of 2017 when Bitcoin experienced network congestion due to the unprecedented volume of transactions.
Average Bitcoin Transaction Fee in USD – Past 3 years
Users can set a lower transaction fee within their wallets by changing the recommended defaults, but they run the risk of being ignored by the miners and end up waiting for several hours or even days in some cases for the transaction to go through.
