The signs of the apocalypse are upon us: Bitcoin (BTC) transaction fees peaking, block time increasing, and the mempool is becoming congested — all as predicted past Zach Resnick, a managing partner at Unbounded Capital.

Flash crash is more than likely

When Resnick spoke to Cointelegraph on May 8, he argued that the "death screw" scenario is not priced in and that the community underestimates its probability. He claimed that there is however maybe merely two to three percent take chances of the halving killing off the chain completely, just in his opinion, Bitcoin was existence priced equally if in that location was a zero percent run a risk of that happening. As well, he said that a big flash crash is more likely to happen:

"I put at least a 10 per centum chance on kind of a big flash crash".

It should be noted that Resnick and his squad are big supporters of Bitcoin SV (BSV) and believe Craig Wright to exist Satoshi Nakamoto.

Network activeness vindicates Resnick?

Resnick'due south argument for the death screw went something like that. As the halving cuts the block reward, a large number of miners will exit the network. As the network hashrate drops, the cake time increases, the network becomes congested. This, in turn, makes Bitcoin less bonny, equally participants do not want to wait forever to have their transactions processed. This leads to the Bitcoin price falling, which pushes more miners off the filigree. This process repeats itself until the network dies.

Bitcoin transaction fees & block interval. Source: Glassnode.

Firstly, hashrate dropped by 30% in 3 days. As a effect, the block time interval has increased — meaning fewer transactions candy. This led to the increase in the number of transactions waiting to be processed (mempool). Bitcoin transaction fees are priced by supply and demand, and shrinking supply has acquired manifold increment in transaction fees.

Mempool Transaction Count. Source: blockchain.com

Although the electric current data may support the doomsday predictions, it remains highly unlikely that the temporary lethargy of the Bitcoin network will lead to its ultimate demise. Somewhen, adjustments in price and difficulty volition pb to the new equilibrium in the network.