A Blockspace 101 lesson played out this last weekend across three rival crypto-networks: Bitcoin, Ethereum and Solana.

Each played their typical part. Bitcoin was boring (flat fees) while Ethereum fees spiked , costing traders millions. Solana saw so much momentary demand it went offline .

For Bitcoin miners, it's important to look into the why and the how of block space. That is, the demand to fill a certain block at a certain time with transactions in a certain way. Why? Because Bitcoin will eventually shift away from inflationary coinbase reward and into transaction fees alone.

Here, we see that design decisions made for each network play out. Bitcoin has prioritized a single asset (BTC) and transfer efficiency. Ethereum has whitelisted all assets, including funky monkeys that can cause $3,000 transaction fees. And Solana has focused on taking down Ethereum by turning down the fees at the expense of uptime.

However, this fee analysis could easily be flipped on its head. Perhaps it's dangerous that nobody wants to pay to use Bitcoin. And maybe both Ethereum and Solana have figured something out by increasing demand for blockspace. For miners, who derive a shrinking percentage of revenue from fees, this question will remain of note.
 

- William Foxley