Bitcoin network commissions have risen 6 times since the beginning of the month

Transactions on the Bitcoin network have increased in price 6 times since the beginning of November

The increase in fees came amid a surge in activity related to the issuance of bitcoin-NFT or Ordinals

The average cost of a transaction on the Bitcoin (BTC) network has risen from $1.6 in early November to $9.26 currently, according to BitInfoCharts analytics service. Fees peaked on Nov. 9, when the average transaction price was $15.86, the highest since May 10, 2023.

Like Ethereum, on the Bitcoin network, the amount of fees is determined by in-network activity. During periods of market hype, the core network does not have time to quickly process the thousands of transactions that can be associated with all kinds of blockchain usage scenarios.

The current increase in fees has occurred amid a surge in activity related to the issuance of bitcoin-NFTs or Ordinals. The ability to issue tokens on the Bitcoin network appeared in late January, and since then more than 40 million have been created. More than 2,450 BTC ($88.7 million as of the date the news was published) in commissions were spent when they were issued.

The daily record for Ordinals issuance was set on Nov. 12, when more than 500,000 new bitcoin-NFTs appeared in a single day, according to the Dune service.

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A graph of the issuance of new Ordinals. Source: Dune

According to experts, the commission market is crucial to the existence and security of the Bitcoin network, as they will have to compensate miners in the future for the diminishing reward per block during the subsequent halving cycles originally built into the cryptocurrency's program code.

Bitcoin miners earned more than $44 million in block mining rewards and transaction fees on Nov. 12, the highest since April 21, 2022.

On November 13, another recalculation resulted in a 3.55% increase in the bitcoin mining difficulty index, setting a new historical record at 64.68 T. The growth in the difficulty of mining and the hash rate of the Bitcoin network indicates that more and more miners are joining the mining of the first cryptocurrency.