Posted 12/18/2023, 5:21:00 PM
Bitcoin Fees Spike to 14-Month High from NFT Craze, Windfall for Miners
- Bitcoin network fees spiked to over $37, the highest since April 2021, due to a surge in popularity of Bitcoin NFTs called Ordinals
- High fees are benefitting publicly listed bitcoin miners and boosting their stock prices, even as BTC price remains range-bound
- Bitcoin miners are generating $63 million daily from fees, quadruple the two-year average, equal to $23 billion annually
- Ordinals inscriptions caused over 1.2 million new NFTs to be created from Friday to Sunday, congesting the network
- Bitcoin developer Luke Dashjr criticized Ordinals for spamming the network and needing a fix, but others see high fees as a windfall