As per CryptoQuant, the average fee per transaction has surged, surpassing $16 and culminating at $29 on May 9

Increased fees and an accumulation of transactions are affecting the Bitcoin network, and this is because of a popular new “token” standard, as per a CryptoQuant expert.

Axel Adler Jr, an analyst with the crypto data company, elucidated on May 9 that BRC-20 memecoin minting on the bitcoin blockchain is causing the jump in block space demand.

He added: Unlike traditional token standards, like Ethereum’s ERC-20, BRC-20 does not use smart contracts and functions only with wallets supporting the Bitcoin blockchain.

As per CryptoQuant, the average fee per transaction has surged, surpassing $16 and culminating at $29 on May 9.

Likewise, data from Bitinfocharts reported a rise in the average transaction fees, seeing a surge to $31 on May 8 as against nearly $19 the day earlier.

On May 8, the total fees per block temporarily surpassed the block subsidy reward of 6.25 bitcoin for the first time since 2017.

On May 9, Bitinfochart data showed a fresh all-time high on the seven-day moving average for the number of Bitcoin transactions, reaching a top of 534k.

Although, the figure could actually be higher, with Bitinfocharts showing two higher levels over 600k daily transactions this month using raw values. On May 9, it recorded 598k bitcoin blockchain transactions.

Blockchain.com has also established that the average transactions per block are at an all-time high of 3,778 as well.

As per Mempool Space, there are 400k unconfirmed transactions pending on the network at present, therefore the backlog is not clearing, which is keeping transaction prices higher.

On May 9, the total market capitalization of BRC-20 tokens exceeded $1bln, as per Cointelegraph.

The issue has got so bad that Bitcoin core developers are considering taking action against BRC-20 tokens and Ordinals, which they consider as network spam.

Moreover, the number of ordinal inscriptions has nearly doubled, going from 2.5mln to 4.78mln in just over a week.

It is all good news for miners, however, as profitability, or hash price, has soared 66 per cent since the onset of the month.