Jaxx adds dynamic transaction fees to wallet
In a new update from Decentral, the makers of the Jaxx bitcoin wallet, dynamic transaction fee controls have been added to the wallet so users can adjust their fees to help push through transactions when the network is experiencing higher volume.
The reasoning according to Simon Howell from Decentral in particular is this past week, where bitcoin transaction volume has skyrocketed. It’s not entirely known what has caused the increased demand in bitcoin which has driven up the price, but a few speculative factors being tossed around recently have been due to China capital flight and the upcoming bitcoin halvening. Whatever the case, bitcoin market trading volume is seeing new highs.
The high volume of transactions at one point this week caused the network to come to a standstill, with CoinTelegraph citing that at one point 250,000 bitcoins were delayed due to the congestion.
With the release of Jaxx 1.0.5, dynamic transaction fees will have three options: Slow, Average, and Fast. The adjustable fees are calculated based on the current network activity. Users who want faster confirmation times and to avoid any delays due to network capacity issues, can raise their transaction fees in hopes that the network will push through the transaction faster.
Howell also added,
What we have in place is not a perfect solution, but we felt it was important to update our current options so that current Jaxx users won’t be faced with interminable wait times for BTC transactions. In future, we will also be adding Custom fee option, allowing users to specify their fee well above or below even Jaxx’s recommendations.
Previously, we had a floating fee rate based on the current transaction filesize, but this new solution is more effective for handling the current state of the Bitcoin network.
The network capacity issues may continue to be a thorn in the side of bitcoin users until more capacity is added. There has been a long standing “block size” debate in the bitcoin community on just how and when to add more capacity. As it currently stands, the average daily block size limit is nearing full capacity and as long as there is an increase in demand, these network congestion issues will continue.
Recently, Trezor made a few updates to their platform including one significant change where their wallet now supports dynamic transaction fees also.
