Bitcoin: What rising network activity means for BTC’s price prediction

• The last week has seen increased activity on the Bitcoin network.
• This has resulted in a 61% uptick in total fees during that period.

The Bitcoin [BTC] network experienced a surge in activity last week, leading to a 61% increase in total transaction fees, on-chain firm IntoTheBlock noted in a post on X.

On-chain activity spiked this week, with Bitcoin fees increasing 60%+ and Ethereum fees increasing by nearly 50%. pic.twitter.com/H2kFC6iQge

— IntoTheBlock (@intotheblock) December 8, 2023

According to the data provider, transaction fees recorded during the week totaled $43.8 million. 

The BRC-20 hype had this impact on the Bitcoin Network

The rise in activity has been due to the double-digit surge in BTC’s value during the week and the recent uptick in the adoption of BRC-20 tokens and text-based inscriptions on the Bitcoin network.

At press time, BTC traded at an 18-month high of $44,261. In the last week, the coin’s value has risen by 14%, according to data from CoinMarketCap. 

This has been due to the growth in demand for the leading coin, whose price has rallied to new highs. The coin’s network activity spiked as many aped in on BTC to profit from the price growth.

Also, the last week has witnessed a high interest in BRC-20 tokens on the BTC’s network. For example, during the week, meme coin Ordi [ORDI] became the first BRC-20 token to surpass a $1 billion market capitalization.

Similarly, its price touched an all-time high of $63 during the same period.

The high activity around BRC-20 tokens during the week caused the Bitcoin network to become congested with unconfirmed transactions, which clogged up the meme pool. 

As of 6th December, data from mempool.space showed that the memory pool, which is the temporary storage area for pending transactions, touched 1.54GB, a level significantly above the 300 MB capacity.

Further, during the week, the average transaction fee on the blockchain climbed to its highest since April.

On 6th December, network users paid an average transaction fee of $19.48, according to data from BitInfoCharts. However, this has declined in the past three days to $16.189 as of this writing. 

Read Bitcoin’s [BTC] Price Prediction 2023-24

Futures market participants maintain bullish sentiments

In the coin’s futures market, its open interest has continued to rise. At $19.7 billion at press time, BTC’s open interest rested at its highest level since April 2022.

The uptick in open interest means that more traders are entering the market and opening new positions.

Source: Coinglass

Likewise, its OI-weighted funding rate continues to return positive values. This shows that more traders are holding long positions, betting on BTC’s price to rise further.