Bitcoin Network Update - 20 December: Crisis is Here, Average Transaction Fees Over $40. Network Is Colapsing

40$ average fee. Damn, you can buy 12 steem with an average bitcoin transaction fee!
Two days after the great retarget, bitcoin situation network is greatly worsening. BTC price is decreasing while Bitcoin cash is rising to new All-Time-Hight, as many users and investors are outflowing from BTC to bitcoin cash.
Today's update is very important because situation is going to really worse for bitcoin network usability.
Let's continue with our periodic update about bitcoin network situation.

I believe that it is very important not only for people who try to use bitcoin for value transferring, but it is also very important for investors because this negative situation of bitcoin network is giving a great market advantage to Bitcoin Cash and Litecoin, that are the most obvious (and more efficient) alternatives to Bitcoin as crypto-money.
This is the dominant factor of all the day in crypto-market, also because Bitcoin is dragging to the dip all the altcoins.

Ps: If you have forgotten last episodes, this is (in part) why in these days BTC is so slow. Read this article about the great bitcoin retarget that happened two weeks ago and yesterday again
!https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@marculisse/important-do-you-want-to-transfer-bitcoin-do-it-immediatley-retarget-incoming.

From 18 december, because of the effects of retarget, bitcoin produces -17% blocks/hour without considering hashrate variations (hashrate, to simply say, measures mining power) . This means -17% network ability to confirm transations and higher fees.

Ps: Data reported here cover period from 00:01 to 23:59 UTC+1 (Central Europe Time) of 20 december

Seems that Bitcoin network is producing new blocks at a very slow rate, also because of another slight decrease in hashrate. We are having a Bitcoin Blocks production rate of approx. 5.6 blocks/hour in last 24 hours.
Source https://fork.lol/blocks/time

Bitcoin unconfirmed transation number is growing, and after a great increase it is now well over 200K (with average transation fee that, in 20 december, was certainly over 40$. Data will arrive within 10 hours from now...).
In fact the number of transations on BTC network was still very high, about 370K transations in 24 hours.
So bitcoin is continuing and even worsening the long period of mempool stoopping up, whit an increase of unconfirmed transaction. The "mempool" is the "pool" that contains all Bitcoin unconfirmed transations.
So, as a lot of transations are still unconfirmed. Here you can find all mempool data https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#24h Probably, unless this grat hashrate influx continues, situation will continue to get worse.

FUN FACT: We have even seen a block with average fees over 80$, the block 500313, mined one hour after the previous one, 173480 $ fees for about 2200 transactions https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/block/500313

Because of these elements, already now, bitcoin fees are really increasing and average transaction fee is probably over 40-45$. It is too expensive to use Bitcoin for normal payments. Consider also that bitcoin's high price is increasing the cost of bitcoin average transaction fees, that are calculated in Bitcoin. See at https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html#3m

MARKET REVIEW
Competitors of BTC are taking advantage from this situation.
This slowdown period, as forecasted in precedent posts, is creating a good chance for a bitcoin cash price recovery, that has spiked over 4100$ and now it is 3828 dollars, a really high value. We are seeing a good price increase and this trend will probably continue.

Litecoin price is decreasing, following BTC, and at this moment it is $314. (-8% in 24 hours). Daily transactions done with litecoin are near to 143K, a slight increase from yesterday.
Bitcoin price at the moment is decreasing, and after a very volatile day at the moment it is near to 16600$
See at https://coinmarketcap.com

We also have to coinsider that this still high price is making bitcoin network less usable (see for more informations about this https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@marculisse/in-bitcoin-rally-making-bitcoin-unusable-the-problems-of-speculative-market)

Stay turned and pay really great attention to this chaotic moment.
If you need of help or clarifications, dont hesitate to comment and ask.
Have a nice day guys!