Not trying to spam the thread with posts here guys, but I wanted to bring up the increase in cost of Bitcoin transaction fees over the last year.
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.htmlDec 8th 2016 average transaction fee - $0.26 USD
Dec 8th 2017 average transaction fee - $27.20 USD
Any thoughts on the implications this will have on the industry?
Brandon, your posts are consistently novelle and insightful. I'm always pleased when I see something new from you, and maybe I put more stock in your advice than is wise, only time will tell. Also, you can't take credit for 'spamming' when you bring such variety.
As for the effect of transaction fees becomming unworkable, I posted earlier:
I'm seeing awareness of the fact that you don't need to be a whole coin growing, which is working as an attractor for people who see bitcoin like buying a 'scratchie card' for $5 to see if they'll wind $20 with a vague hop of much more.
The thing that I see stopping a massive generalised public gamble from occurring is that the stakes are automatically raised by the current transaction fees. To make the $20 fee worthwhile, you need to be $100 or more on this new wheel of fortune. But if a fork comes through that successfully drops that transaction fees to keep them under one dollar, I'm expecting a massive price spike as petty investors flood the market.
Of course there's the other effect of businesses refusing to continue accepting bitcoin, like Steam. As I see it there are two likely final outcomes:
1) Bitcoin is no longer used for small or regular transactions and functions more like gold as a storage of value that is difficult and expensive to transform.
or
2) The bitcoin community recognises their current software is significantly decreasing the potential value of their holdings and upgrades their system to something that enables fast and cheap transactions for the foreseeable future. This is just as likely to come in the form of a hard fork.