Overview As of roughly 07:00 UTC on October 13, with the chain at block 971,119, moving bitcoin on-chain costs almost nothing. The recommended fee endpoint at mempool.space puts the next-block tier atOverview As of roughly 07:00 UTC on October 13, with the chain at block 971,119, moving bitcoin on-chain costs almost nothing. The recommended fee endpoint at mempool.space puts the next-block tier at
Bitcoin Fee Tracker & Guide: Understanding Mempool, sat/vB, and Real Transaction Costs
Overview
As of roughly 07:00 UTC on October 13, with the chain at block 971,119, moving bitcoin on-chain costs almost nothing. The recommended fee endpoint at mempool.space puts the next-block tier at 6 sat/vB, the half-hour tier at 5, the hour tier at 4, the economy tier at 2 and the floor at 1. A standard single-input, two-output native SegWit payment occupies about 140.75 vB, so the fastest tier works out to roughly 844 satoshis, or under $0.70 with BTC near $83,368.
The number that misleads people sits elsewhere. The mempool endpoint shows 80,498 unconfirmed transactions totalling about 39.1 million vB, which is 39 blocks of backlog and more than six hours of work at a ten-minute block interval. Yet those transactions carry only about 0.058 BTC in fees between them, an average of 0.148 sat/vB across the entire pool, and the top bucket of the fee histogram reaches only about 2.12 sat/vB. The backlog consists almost entirely of transactions that are barely bidding. They are not competing with you for block space, and they are not congestion in any meaningful sense. Reading the unconfirmed count as a congestion signal is the most common mistake made when checking on-chain fees.
Key Takeaways
Fees sit near historic lows. The fastest tier is 6 sat/vB and the economy tier is 2. YCharts' average transaction fee series records $0.3585 per transaction on October 12, with $0.2517 and $0.2576 on the two preceding days.
Recommended rates carry a wide safety margin. Per the recent blocks endpoint, the last five blocks cleared at median rates between 0.38 and 2.01 sat/vB, and the cheapest included transactions paid around 0.29 sat/vB, far under the 6 sat/vB headline.
Backlog depth is not bidding pressure. Almost all of the 39 blocks of queued weight pays under 0.3 sat/vB. What determines your required bid is how many vB sit above your price, not how many transactions sit in the queue.
Address type drives cost directly. Using the Bitcoin Optech size calculator, a single-input, two-output transaction measures about 226 vB for legacy, 140.75 vB for native SegWit and 154.25 vB for Taproot. At 6 sat/vB, SegWit saves about 37.7% against legacy.
Fees now contribute under one percent of miner revenue. Across the last 144 blocks, mempool.space's mining reward statistics show about 2.28 BTC in fees against 452.28 BTC of total revenue, a share of 0.505%, with the rest coming from the 3.125 BTC subsidy.
Policy has pushed the floor down. Bitcoin Core lowered the default minimum relay feerate to 0.1 sat/vB in version 30.0, which is a direct reason so many sub-threshold transactions now sit in mempools.
Current Rates and What a Payment Actually Costs
What the Five Tiers Mean
The tiers are not arbitrary price points. Each is a probability estimate attached to a confirmation target. The fastest tier aims for inclusion in the next block, the half-hour and hour tiers for roughly three and six blocks, the economy tier accepts a wait of several hours or longer, and the minimum tier sits close to the threshold at which nodes will relay a transaction at all.
Tier | Current rate | Single-input, two-output SegWit | In USD |
Fastest | 6 sat/vB | 844 sats | 0.70 |
Half hour | 5 sat/vB | 704 sats | 0.59 |
One hour | 4 sat/vB | 563 sats | 0.47 |
Economy | 2 sat/vB | 282 sats | 0.23 |
Minimum | 1 sat/vB | 141 sats | 0.12 |
The absolute gap between the fastest and economy tiers is under fifty cents. For most users that makes economising on fee rate a poor trade right now, particularly when the payment is funding a position and the cost of waiting exceeds the cost of the fee. Live pricing that moves the dollar conversion is on the BTC price page.
The Cost Spread Across Address Types
Fees are charged on the virtual size a transaction occupies, not on the amount transferred. Sending 0.01 BTC and sending 100 BTC cost exactly the same if the input and output structure matches. Size is a function of how many inputs and outputs are involved and which address types they use.
Address type | Single-input, two-output size | At 6 sat/vB | At 100 sat/vB | At 300 sat/vB |
Legacy P2PKH | 226 vB | $1.13 | $18.84 | $56.52 |
Native SegWit P2WPKH | 140.75 vB | $0.70 | $11.73 | $35.20 |
Taproot P2TR | 154.25 vB | $0.77 | $12.86 | $38.58 |
One detail here is routinely misunderstood. A Taproot input measures 57.75 vB against 68.25 vB for native SegWit, but a Taproot output measures 43 vB against 31 vB. In the common single-input, two-output shape, Taproot therefore costs slightly more. Its advantage appears only when consolidating many inputs, where the cheaper input side outweighs the heavier output side. In practice, wallet change policy and the fragmentation of a user's unspent outputs affect real cost more than address type does.
Reading the Mempool Without Being Fooled by It
Queue Depth Versus Competition
The mempool is each node's own set of unconfirmed transactions. Miners select from it by fee rate, highest first, until they fill roughly one million vB of block space. What sets your required bid is how much weight is bidding above you, not how many transactions exist in total.
Today's readings make the distinction stark. The 39.1 million vB of queued weight implies 39 blocks of work, yet the fees attached come to only about 0.058 BTC, or 0.148 sat per vB on average. The fee histogram, ordered from high to low, peaks at roughly 2.12 sat/vB and falls under 0.3 sat/vB within a handful of buckets, one of which alone holds 430,000 vB. Bid above 2 sat/vB and the entire queue ahead of you does not fill a single block.
Where Recent Blocks Actually Cleared
The block data gives a more direct reference. Block 971,111 carried 6,415 transactions at a median rate of 0.38 sat/vB, with the cheapest inclusion near 0.29. Block 971,109 ran a median of 2.01 sat/vB with a floor near 1.01. Several blocks show isolated transactions at 45 to 149 sat/vB at the top of their range, which are usually automated transfers set to a fixed high rate rather than a market signal.
The practical value of knowing this is that the 6 sat/vB headline embeds meaningful padding. When sending a large batch of payments, or operating during a period when rates are climbing, pricing against the median rate of recent blocks rather than the recommendation can change the bill by a multiple.
What Makes Rates Jump
On-chain fees do not drift upward gradually. They run along the floor and spike. The triggers are concentrated bursts of demand for block space: minting waves from inscription and token protocols, batch consolidation by large platforms, margin movement during violent price swings, and symbolically important moments such as halvings.
The April 2024 halving block remains the extreme sample. Per Blockchain.com's block record, block 840,000 carried 3,050 transactions paying 37.6256 BTC in fees, twelve times the 3.125 BTC subsidy, worth more than $3.1 million at today's price. When that kind of demand appears, a bid of a few sat/vB becomes uncompetitive within minutes.
Cheap block space decides when it makes sense to move. Open the BTC spot market and see whether this is your window
How the Fee Is Calculated
Virtual Size and Weight
SegWit changed how block capacity is measured. BIP 141 defines block weight as base size multiplied by three plus total size, capped at 4,000,000. The effect is that non-witness bytes cost four weight units each while witness bytes cost one, so signature data receives a three-quarters discount. Virtual size is weight divided by four, which is where the vB in every fee quote comes from.
This explains something that otherwise looks like a vendor promotion. At the same 6 sat/vB, a SegWit transaction that carries its signatures in the witness consumes less chargeable capacity, so the total is lower. The discount is written into the consensus rules rather than offered by a wallet.
From Rate to Total
Total fee equals virtual size multiplied by fee rate. Wallet interfaces usually display the total, but the rate is the actual bid for block space. When two wallets quote very different amounts for the same payment, the reasons are almost always the same three: a different selection of unspent outputs, a different change policy, and a different estimation algorithm. Bitcoin Core's built-in estimator works from how recent blocks confirmed historical transactions, while services like mempool.space lean more on the live structure of the pool, and the two diverge most during periods when rates are moving fast.
When a Transaction Gets Stuck
Replacing It
If a payment went out underpriced and is sitting unconfirmed, the first remedy is to replace it with a higher-paying version. The replacement rules defined in BIP 125 originally required a transaction to signal replaceability when broadcast, but that precondition has changed. Bitcoin Core 28.0, published on October 2, 2024, changed the default value of -mempoolfullrbf from 0 to 1, meaning nodes accept replacements for any unconfirmed transaction whether or not it signalled.
For ordinary users this means a stuck payment can almost always be accelerated if the wallet supports it. For merchants accepting zero-confirmation payments it means unconfirmed transactions became less reliable still, which is why the change was contested at the time.
Letting a Child Pull the Parent
The second remedy applies when you cannot modify the original, either because you are the recipient or because someone else sent it. You spend the unconfirmed output in a new transaction carrying a high fee rate. Miners evaluate parent and child together, so collecting the child's fee requires mining the parent as well. Bitcoin Optech's write-up on the technique covers the conditions under which it works and where it breaks down.
The cost is that you pay for the combined size of both transactions, which usually exceeds what adequate pricing would have cost up front. That is the argument for paying two or three extra sat/vB for certainty while block space is this cheap.
How Long This Cheap Regime Can Last
The Relay Floor Moved
The pile of sub-0.3 sat/vB transactions in the pool traces directly to a change in protocol defaults. Bitcoin Core 30.0, published on October 10, 2025, lowered the default minimum relay and incremental relay feerates to 0.1 satoshi per vB and the block minimum feerate to 0.001. The same release raised the default
-datacarriersize to 100,000 and permitted multiple OP_RETURN outputs per transaction for relay and mining. The notes also caution that transactions built at the lower rates are not guaranteed to propagate or confirm until the new defaults are widely adopted.That change dropped the network's floor by an order of magnitude, producing the current picture: a mempool that looks full of transactions that older rules would not have relayed at all. Per the Bitcoin Core release list, the software now stands at 31.1, with those defaults still in force.
Fees Below One Percent of Miner Revenue
Across the last 144 blocks, mempool.space's mining statistics show total revenue of 452.28 BTC against 2.28 BTC in fees, a share of 0.505%, averaging about 0.0159 BTC per block and 308 satoshis per transaction. TokenPost reported on October 12 that fees accounted for roughly 0.64% of miner revenue over the preceding thirty days. Two different windows, the same conclusion: miner income is currently almost entirely subsidy.
For users that is welcome, since transfers are nearly free. For the network's long-run security budget it is the open question in bitcoin's economic design, because the subsidy halves every four years and the next halving arrives at height 1,050,000, about seventy-nine thousand blocks from here. Fees eventually have to carry more of that load, which makes the fee share a variable worth tracking alongside price. Our guide to the bitcoin market cycle sets out the broader cyclical framing.
What Would Push Rates Back to Three Digits
Returning to triple-digit fee rates requires no long build-up, only one concentrated burst of demand for block space. Historically that has meant a minting wave, a violent repricing that forces capital to move, or platforms batching operations into the same window. At 100 sat/vB a standard SegWit payment costs about $11.73, and at 300 sat/vB about $35.20, fifty times the current level.
The structural point is that on-chain costs are deeply asymmetric. They are negligible most of the time and high enough to make small transfers uneconomic exactly when everyone wants to move. Users with on-chain housekeeping to do are best served completing it during windows like this one.
Exclusive View from James Mitchell
For James Mitchell, the value in today's readings lies in how cleanly they expose a widely misread indicator. Unconfirmed transaction count is treated across dashboards as shorthand for congestion, yet 80,000 unconfirmed transactions currently correspond to a weighted average of 0.148 sat/vB and a histogram that tops out at 2.12. There is effectively nobody bidding in that pool. Using count as the trigger to pay more will cost multiples in a cheap regime, and it will give false comfort in a tight one, because a mempool with a modest count but dense bidding will still push a transaction out of the next several blocks.
The second misreading is treating the current level as a baseline. A fee share of 0.505% of miner revenue describes exceptionally weak demand, not an efficiency gain in the network. Blocks are still being filled, with the last five averaging around 5,100 transactions each; those transactions simply are not paying. The moment demand with willingness to pay arrives, as in the 37.6 BTC of fees collected in block 840,000, the ordering reprices within a block or two.
Three variables deserve monitoring from here. The shape of the fee histogram matters more than the mempool's size, and the signal to watch is cumulative vB above 2 sat/vB approaching one block of capacity, which is when real competition starts. Next is adoption of the lower relay defaults introduced in Core 30, because wider propagation of sub-threshold transactions will keep the nominal mempool permanently inflated and further degrade that metric's usefulness. Third is the fee share of miner revenue, since the path by which it recovers under a halving subsidy and rising hardware costs is the substance of the security budget debate.
Across asset classes, bitcoin's fee market behaves less like a financial market with market makers quoting continuously and more like a spot auction for a perishable commodity, closer to electricity or shipping capacity. Such markets run along the floor for long stretches and spike by tens of multiples without warning, which makes the mean nearly useless for decisions and the percentiles essential. That framing is more durable than any single day's recommended rate, both for users who transact on-chain regularly and for investors modelling miner revenue.
FAQ
What is the bitcoin transaction fee right now?
As of roughly 07:00 UTC on October 13, mempool.space recommends 6 sat/vB for next-block confirmation, 5 for half an hour, 4 for an hour and 2 for the economy tier. Applied to a single-input, two-output SegWit payment of about 140.75 vB, the fastest tier costs roughly 844 satoshis, or under $0.70 with BTC near $83,368. Rates move continuously with demand for block space, so the live reading in a wallet or block explorer is what matters at send time.
Does the fee depend on how much bitcoin I send?
No. Bitcoin charges for the virtual size a transaction occupies, not the value it carries. Sending 0.01 BTC and sending 100 BTC cost the same when the input and output structure is identical. What raises cost is the number of inputs and outputs and the address types involved. A wallet holding many small unspent outputs may need to combine several inputs for one payment, multiplying size and therefore fee.
There are 80,000 unconfirmed transactions, so is the network congested?
Not necessarily. Those transactions total about 39.1 million vB but carry only around 0.058 BTC in fees, an average of 0.148 sat/vB, and the fee histogram peaks near 2.12 sat/vB. They are barely bidding and will not compete with a normally priced payment. Congestion is measured by how much weight is bidding above your rate, not by the raw count sitting in the queue.
Is native SegWit or Taproot cheaper?
It depends on the shape of the transaction. Per Bitcoin Optech's calculator, a single-input, two-output payment measures about 140.75 vB in native SegWit against 154.25 vB in Taproot, so SegWit wins the common case. However a Taproot input is 57.75 vB against 68.25, while a Taproot output is 43 vB against 31. Taproot therefore becomes the cheaper option when a transaction consolidates many inputs into few outputs.
What should I do if a transaction is stuck?
There are two remedies. Replacement means rebroadcasting the same payment at a higher rate, and since Bitcoin Core 28.0 in October 2024 nodes have accepted replacements by default even for transactions that did not signal replaceability, so most wallets can accelerate a stuck payment. Child pays for parent means spending the unconfirmed output in a new high-fee transaction, which obliges a miner to include the parent to collect the child's fee. The second costs more in total and suits cases where the original cannot be modified.
Why does an exchange withdrawal fee differ from the on-chain rate?
They are different things. The on-chain rate is set by competition among transactions for block space, while a platform's withdrawal fee is a price the platform sets, typically covering network cost plus batching operations and risk controls, and usually quoted as a flat amount rather than in sat/vB. That is why withdrawal fees do not always fall in step when on-chain rates collapse. The published schedule of each platform governs; the mechanics of moving coins are covered in the guide to buying and transferring bitcoin and the BTC purchase page.
Could fees return to tens of dollars per transaction?
There is precedent. Block 840,000 collected 37.6256 BTC in fees in April 2024, twelve times the subsidy, and YCharts notes average fees approached $60 during the 2017 peak. A standard payment costs under $0.70 at today's 6 sat/vB, but about $11.73 at 100 sat/vB and about $35.20 at 300. These moves are triggered by concentrated bursts of demand rather than gradual drift, which is why they arrive with little warning.
When is the right time to consolidate my unspent outputs?
Periods like this one, with single-digit sat/vB rates and a thin bidding stack, are the window for tidying wallet structure. Combining fragmented outputs adds considerable size to a transaction, and at 6 sat/vB that work costs roughly a sixteenth of what it would at 100. Doing it early avoids being forced into high-rate transfers during volatile markets, which tends to be exactly when moving funds quickly matters most.
Disclaimer
The information above is provided for general market information and technical explanation only and does not constitute investment advice, financial advice, legal advice, tax advice or a recommendation to trade. Prices of crypto assets, equities and other related financial assets can fluctuate sharply, and past performance, technical indicators and on-chain data do not guarantee future results. The fee rates, mempool readings, block data and prices cited here are live readings taken at the time of writing, and on-chain conditions change continuously, so the current figures shown in a wallet or block explorer should govern before any transaction is sent. Readers should conduct their own research and make decisions based on their own financial circumstances, investment objectives and risk tolerance, consulting a qualified professional where appropriate. The MEXC Crypto Pulse team accepts no liability for any direct or indirect loss arising from the use of this information.
About the Author
James Mitchell specializes in technical analysis, market trends, and trading strategies for both Bitcoin and altcoins. Based in London, he has over 10 years of experience in financial markets. Before joining MEXC Learn, James worked as a senior analyst at a leading European investment firm, where he developed expertise in risk management and quantitative trading. His transition to cryptocurrency markets began in 2017, and he has since become recognized for his data-driven approach. He holds a Master's degree in Financial Economics from the London School of Economics. His analytical approach combines traditional technical analysis with on-chain metrics to provide readers with actionable insights.
Areas of Expertise: Technical Analysis, Market Trends and Cycles, Trading Strategies, Bitcoin and Altcoin Analysis, Risk Management.
Research References
Want the fastest access to MEXC's latest updates? Join our official Telegram group now!
Account Verification: Understand KYC | How to Complete KYC
Market Opportunity
Spacecoin Price(SPACE)
$0.003836
$0.003836$0.003836
USD
Spacecoin (SPACE) Live Price Chart
The articles shared on this page are sourced from public platforms and are provided for reference only. They do not represent the position or views of MEXC. All rights belong to James Mitchell. If you believe any content infringes upon the rights of a third party, please contact service@support.mexc.com for prompt removal. MEXC does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of any content and is not responsible for any actions taken based on the information provided. The content does not constitute financial, legal, or other professional advice, nor should it be interpreted as a recommendation or endorsement by MEXC. For expert insights and in-depth analysis, visit MEXC Learn.
Learn More About Spacecoin
View More
RKLB Stock Price Prediction 2026–2030: Neutron, Iridium, Defense and RKLBON Outlook
Summary Predicting Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) through 2030 requires more than extrapolating its current revenue growth. Rocket Lab is simultaneously developing Neutron, expanding defense programs,
2026/08/12
Rocket Lab Stock Analysis: Electron, Neutron, Space Systems, Defense Contracts and Backlog
Summary Rocket Lab's investment case in 2026 has moved beyond the simple question: “How many Electron rockets can it launch?” The company now spans: Launch; Hypersonic testing; Spacecraft; Satellite
2026/08/12
How to DCA Into RKLBON on MEXC: A Step-by-Step Spot DCA Guide
Summary Dollar-cost averaging (DCA) divides an intended investment into multiple recurring purchases instead of committing the full amount at one entry price. For users interested in RKLBON, MEXC
2026/08/12
Latest Updates on Spacecoin
View More
SpaceX Sonic Boom: Why SpaceX Launches and Dragon Reentries Cause Loud Booms
SpaceX sonic booms often surprise residents in California and other launch or reentry regions, especially around Vandenberg Space Force Base and Southern California splashdown paths. The loud sound is usually not an explosion. A sonic boom happens when a spacecraft, capsule or rocket stage travels faster than the speed of sound and creates shock waves through the atmosphere. For SpaceX, the most common triggers are Dragon capsule reentries, Falcon 9 booster returns and certain Vandenberg launches. As launch activity increases, sonic booms are becoming a more visible part of the public experience of spaceflight.
2026/06/10
SPCX Nasdaq-100 Inclusion: Why Price, Volume and Momentum Matter on Index Day
SPCX is set to enter the Nasdaq-100 Index effective at the U.S. market open on July 7, 2026. The inclusion marks a major visibility event for Space Exploration Technologies Corp., but the short-term market setup is more mixed than the headline suggests. Based on MEXC SPCXUSDT Perpetual data as of 04:00 UTC on July 7, SPCX traded at 156.25 USDT, down 2.85% over 24 hours, with the price sitting close to the lower end of its daily range. For traders, the key question is not only whether Nasdaq-100 inclusion brings passive-flow attention, but whether price action, volume, and momentum confirm sustained demand after the event becomes effective.
2026/07/07
Apple Market Cap Reaches Record $5.06 Trillion as AAPL Hits New High
Apple’s market cap reached a record $5.06 trillion as earnings and iPhone demand strengthened. Can AAPL’s growth justify its rising valuation?
2026/10/13
You May Also Like
HOT
Currently trending cryptocurrencies that are gaining significant market attention
Crypto Prices
The cryptocurrencies with the highest trading volume
Newly Added
Recently listed cryptocurrencies that are available for trading