The bitcoin price reached new all-time highs on a regular basis this year, but some have pointed to the congestion currently found on the Bitcoin network as a sign that the system will be unable to scale to more users over the long term.
According to BitInfoCharts, the median Bitcoin transaction fee on December 30 was $16.04, and there were a few days where it was more than $30 per day earlier in the month.
These high fees — or the prediction that fees would eventually go much higher — are what led to the creation of Bitcoin Cash, which is a Bitcoin fork that was created over the summer around the same time that the Segregated Witness improvement was locked-in on the Bitcoin network. Bitcoin Cash features a larger block size limit, which increases the supply of block space, but it is also a completely different cryptocurrency network that does not have the level of liquidity or network effects seen in bitcoin.
Litecoin is another cryptocurrency that has long been marketed as a cheaper alternative to Bitcoin. It’s creator originally referred to Litecoin as the silver to bitcoin’s gold.
So why has the bitcoin price continued to rise in the face of less reliable transaction confirmation times and skyrocketing fees when these cheaper alternatives are available?
The Cost of Getting Into Bitcoin as a Store of Value is Still Low
While the use of bitcoin as a medium of exchange was often hyped as the killer use case in the early days of the project’s development (it’s even discussed in the opening section of the whitepaper), the asset has evolved to become viewed more of a store of value — not that the two use cases are mutually exclusive.
Source: https://www.forbes.com
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