Can someone ELI5 what's going on with mempool right now and who has the kind of money to be pay more in transaction fees than what the underlying transactions are worth?! I heard something about BRC-20 and minting of a coin or something but not sure what's real and what's just conjecture.
  1. A horde of stupid people is giving its bitcoin to miners in exchange for trash.
  2. The scammers who lead stupid people do have a lot of money, having made it by scamming past generations of stupid people.
  3. Neither the scammers nor the stupid people have enough bitcoin to continue giving miners more bitcoin forever.
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What is the trash though? Any specific examples or websites where said trash is being promoted/sold?
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people are using the blockchain for storing arbitrary data. because it's hot shit right now, alot of people are trying to get their data in ASAP. so they are paying high fees. it may suck for those using bitcoin transactions for normal payments and such, but it's the way the fee market works. want your transaction accepted in a block before others? pay the miners a higher fee.
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