Crypto Networks Stress Tested During Bitcoin’s Wild Week

The increased network activity fueled a surge in BTC and ETH fees, which were significantly higher than usual on March 12-13. The congestion on both networks has since abated, with ETH gas prices back to just over 2 cents and the mempool down from 120,000 unconfirmed transactions on its March 12 peak to the daily average of 70,000 at press time.

At press time, the BCH network is 1,420x cheaper than BTC when transaction fees are compared in USD. Dogecoin’s increased trade volume appears to have been in response to rising BTC and ETH fees, prompting traders to use DOGE to transfer value between exchanges, as was the case in 2017 when the crypto market was making violent moves in the opposite direction.

Timeline of Bitcoin, Bitcoin-cash, Dogecoin, Ethereum