Leading US crypto exchange Coinbase has rolled out Bitcoin batching, enabling fewer fees and less congestion on the Bitcoin network—just as the market reached its yearly low. The price of Bitcoin have plunged as coronavirus fears spread across the United States. In fact, total market capitalization for all cryptocurrencies has been slashed by more than a quarter.
Coinbase has said the new “Bitcoin transaction batching” will lower network fees for users and free up space on the Bitcoin blockchain, which will enable the network to increase transaction throughput, and increase scalability.
Bitcoin transaction batching works by packaging transactions into one block, instead of a single transaction taking up a block all to itself.
Last year, and the year before that, Coinbase had announced that batching was soon coming to the service after users had complained about fees. Meanwhile, competitors such as San Francisco-based exchange Kraken and and wallet providers like Samourai launched batching features years ago.
Despite Coinbase’s announcement, people have pointed out there might be some privacy downsides to batching transactions.
