Guide to mempool.space

00:00 Hey everyone, this is a quick guide to
00:03 mempool.space
00:05 This is a techie video, so this is not
00:07 something the average person needs to
00:09 deal with, but I figured I would just
00:11 give you a quick run through on what
00:13 this is because not everybody knows what
00:15 a meool is. And this is an advanced
00:17 video and I will go back and tag it as
00:19 such. Okay, so when you go to
00:21 mempool.space space up here in the uh
00:25 browser. Uh what you see is the current
00:28 happenings on the Bitcoin network. So
00:31 I’m going to walk you through what this
00:32 is. The most recent block is block
00:35 874,786.
00:38 That is the most recent block of
00:39 transactions that has been solved by the
00:42 Bitcoin miners and cemented permanently
00:45 and forever onto the Bitcoin blockchain.
00:48 This thing up here at the top is the
00:50 Bitcoin blockchain. this dividing line
00:52 that shows the up and down arrows here
00:54 and the left and right arrows here. That
00:56 dividing line is between blocks that
00:58 have been mined on the right side and
01:01 blocks that have not yet been mined on
01:03 the left side. So you’ll see uh let’s go
01:06 through it item by item. On the right
01:08 side, the average price per transaction
01:11 was six sats per vite. Uh the range was
01:15 between six and 339 sats per vite.
01:18 That’s how expensive transactions were.
01:20 I’m not going to explain exactly how
01:22 that’s calculated because it gets too
01:23 technical for this video, but the mining
01:26 transactions uh in that were worth 07
01:30 bitcoin. You’ll see in previous uh
01:32 blocks it was 066 088. And this one back
01:36 here was a a more uh I guess lucrative
01:40 block to mine.242.
01:42 Over time, those uh that amount of
01:45 Bitcoin keeps going up, which makes the
01:47 uh Bitcoin transactions worth mining. Uh
01:51 in addition to the block reward, whoever
01:52 mines that block gets uh 3.125 Bitcoin.
01:56 These blocks were mined 18 minutes ago.
01:58 The one before that was 5 minutes before
01:60 it. The one before that was one minute
02:01 before it. The one before that was 11
02:03 minutes. And the one back before that
02:05 was 20 minutes. Overall, it’s about 10
02:07 minutes, but it uh it does uh change
02:10 over time. Okay. So if you want to and
02:13 then let’s go over here. Okay, so coming
02:15 up uh eight sats per vite is what it
02:18 takes to get in the upcoming block. The
02:20 total bids are between seven and 302
02:22 sats per vite. Whoever mines this
02:25 upcoming block is going to get 103
02:28 bitcoin in addition to the block reward
02:31 of 3.125 bitcoin. Uh and then it always
02:34 is going to say estimated 9 minutes 1928
02:38 38. That’s always estimates. uh and you
02:40 can you can see the number of
02:41 transactions. So most of these uh past
02:44 transactions have between 4,500
02:46 transactions and 5,600 transactions.
02:49 These do not count all There you go.
02:51 Hey, the block just got solved. So
02:54 Foundry USA just solved a block with
02:57 four uh 4,640
02:60 transactions in it. They got 0102
03:02 Bitcoin and they was done just now.
03:06 Okay. And that means all of the
03:08 transactions that were in this first
03:10 block are now permanently uh permanently
03:14 uh cemented into the Bitcoin blockchain.
03:16 And you’ll see it actually took 20
03:18 minutes between these two blocks uh or
03:20 19 or so. And now all of the Bitcoin
03:23 miners are working on mining this block.
03:26 All right. So, as we go down, what does
03:27 it take to get in the next Bitcoin
03:29 block? If you don’t care, you know, if
03:31 it takes an hour or two or three, you
03:33 can uh bid um as low as 57 cents. You
03:37 can get a transaction in at uh for 57
03:40 cents. If you want it to get in in the
03:43 next 20 or 30 minutes, um you need to
03:46 pay 85 cents to transact on the Bitcoin
03:48 network. Again, this does not count
03:50 transactions within Coinbase, which are
03:52 free. It does not count transactions on
03:55 the Bitcoin Lightning Network, which are
03:57 a fraction of a penny. Um, it this is
03:59 just transaction on the base layer of
04:03 the Bitcoin blockchain. The the most
04:05 expensive, the hardest. This is the kind
04:07 of this is where you transact. If you’re
04:09 transacting, you know, millions of
04:12 dollars, billions of dollars, you know,
04:14 all of that would take place on this
04:15 blockchain. And right now, anywhere in
04:17 the world, you can spend 99 cents and be
04:21 guaranteed that you will go in the next
04:22 block. So literally you can send a
04:26 billion dollars anywhere in the world
04:28 right now on the Bitcoin blockchain with
04:30 absolute certainty that it will be
04:33 delivered that the transaction will be
04:35 irreversible and that you know all of
04:38 that is possible for less than a dollar
04:40 for an unlimited amount of money. All
04:42 right. And I’ve I’ve talked in previous
04:44 videos over here on the right on the
04:46 Bitcoin uh block difficulty. Right now,
04:48 this uh the last two weeks has been
04:50 averaging at about 9 and a half minutes.
04:54 And what that means is uh the Bitcoin
04:56 miners are mining a little bit too
04:58 quickly, which means the network is
04:60 about to adjust the mining difficulty up
05:02 by 5.28%.
05:04 Uh that’s going to happen in the next 24
05:07 hours at roughly December 15 at 4:53
05:10 p.m. In 24 hours from now, the network
05:13 it will become 5.28% 28% more difficult
05:16 to find a m bitcoin block. That is 5%
05:19 more, which will result in all of these
05:21 miners that are finding blocks at 9.5
05:23 minutes going back to 10 minutes. The
05:26 network is constantly adjusting every
05:27 two weeks up and down uh to make sure
05:30 that it’s always about that period of
05:32 time. Uh on the right side here, it says
05:35 if you submit a really cheap
05:36 transaction, it’s going to purge it and
05:38 it’s not even going to pay attention. Uh
05:41 this memory usage is complicated. I
05:43 won’t go through that. There’s a bunch
05:45 of junk transactions that are really
05:46 small that nobody cares about. And then
05:48 it just shows the incoming transactions.
05:50 I’ll come back to this uh thing up here
05:52 on the left. And then re it shows recent
05:54 transactions and uh recent replacements
05:58 which is again too technical for this
05:59 video. All right. So this is a Bitcoin
06:02 block that is in the process of trying
06:04 to be mined. This shows all the
06:06 transactions. This shows consolidation
06:08 transactions where a group of Bitcoin
06:10 transactions are being consolidated into
06:12 a single transaction uh which is done to
06:15 save future transaction fees or to
06:18 simplify the storage of Bitcoin. Coin
06:20 joins which usually there’s very few are
06:23 when people are combining Bitcoin to
06:25 enhance their privacy, not something an
06:27 average person needs to do. And there’s
06:28 also data transactions where people are
06:30 using the Bitcoin blockchain to uh
06:33 submit anything. It could be a message
06:36 to a loved one. It could be um an image.
06:39 It could be uh a piece of data like uh
06:42 election records. They did this in
06:44 Guatemala where uh they were constantly
06:46 cementing the election results in the
06:49 Bitcoin blockchain as the election
06:51 results were rolling in to guarantee
06:52 that nobody could change them. So people
06:54 are using the Bitcoin blockchain for a
06:56 lot of things in addition to
06:58 transmitting Bitcoin uh value because it
07:01 is the most it’s what’s called an
07:03 immutable ledger. An immutable ledger is
07:05 a ledger that can never be changed. And
07:08 the Bitcoin blockchain is the most
07:09 immutable thing humans have ever
07:12 invented. Let’s say the least immutable
07:14 would maybe be a white uh you know a dry
07:16 erase board or a white board or a
07:18 blackboard or whatever where you can
07:20 literally walk up, wipe your hand across
07:21 it, and it goes away. Uh that is the
07:24 most easily changeable. Or maybe you
07:25 draw your name in the sand and somebody
07:27 kicks sand across it and it’s gone. The
07:30 most immutable thing humans have ever
07:32 invented in the entire world is the
07:35 Bitcoin blockchain. So, a lot of people
07:37 use the Bitcoin blockchain to anchor
07:39 things for which they need an absolute,
07:41 complete, and immutable record, meaning
07:43 a record that absolutely cannot change,
07:46 such as election outcomes in a country
07:48 like Guatemala again. And they used the
07:51 Bitcoin blockchain uh to uh as the
07:54 election results were rolling in, they
07:56 wrote them to the Bitcoin blockchain to
07:58 guarantee that there would not be any
07:59 shenanigans and that nobody could change
08:01 the record of the votes. Um, so that’s
08:04 what these transactions are. again. But
08:06 if we go back and look at coin joins and
08:08 consolidations, here’s all of them. So
08:10 if we take a random, let me try to look
08:13 at just a random transaction. Let’s say
08:16 we look at here, I’ll pick one over
08:18 here. Um, so here’s a random transaction
08:22 six minutes ago. I just picked it out of
08:23 the blue. Uh, this says six minutes ago
08:27 someone is trying to they paid $2.37.
08:32 They are trying to transmit. Let me see
08:34 if I can tell. uh 0.00 00 uh three
08:38 bitcoin and let me see. Normally it’ll
08:40 show you the US dollar value of that so
08:42 you don’t have to figure it out yourself
08:44 but I’m not immediately seeing that. Let
08:46 me see if I normally you can turn it on
08:48 and off. Um
08:51 fee rate.
08:53 Okay. I’m not immediately seeing it but
08:56 or maybe you have to click here. Um,
09:03 let’s see if it’ll tell us how much
09:04 they’re transacting here. Okay, here we
09:06 go. Uh, $312. So, somebody used the
09:08 Bitcoin blockchain to move $312.
09:12 And, uh, we can go in and look at, you
09:14 know, why they did it, how they did it,
09:16 all that sort of stuff. Um, we don’t
09:18 know why they did it, but we can look
09:19 at, you know, the mechanics of that. Um,
09:21 so anyway, um, we’ll look at, uh, let me
09:24 see if there’s a bigger one. Um,
09:28 okay. Let’s see if
09:32 down here.
09:37 Let’s let’s look at the hottest
09:39 transaction here. Someone was willing to
09:40 pay 30 bucks. Um, they paid 30 bucks to
09:45 move.
09:46 Again, sometimes people just do this for
09:48 no reason. Oh, to Bitcoin. Okay. So,
09:50 they uh for security reasons, maybe it’s
09:53 a multi- signature wallet or something
09:55 like that, but they wanted to pay $30.
09:58 They were willing to pay extra in order
09:60 to move Bitcoin that was worth uh two
10:03 Bitcoin total. So, $200,000. So, whoever
10:06 did this um is moving $30,000 one place
10:11 and $182,000
10:13 another place, $213,000.
10:15 and they decided to pay the most
10:17 expensive fee for this entire
10:19 transaction. The most expensive fee in
10:21 the entire block of this entire
10:23 transaction, which is this bright red
10:25 one up in the corner. And let’s see what
10:27 somebody’s doing down here in the bottom
10:29 left. All right. So, we’ll look at this
10:32 transaction down here. Somebody paid a
10:34 buck 29 to move.
10:38 What did they move? They paid a buck 29
10:40 to move.
10:43 Okay. uh $354.
10:46 So, you know, people are using the
10:48 Bitcoin blockchain for everything. So,
10:50 that’s a quick rundown. Uh the coolest
10:52 little animation, which we’ll see when a
10:54 block gets mined, is when somebody uh uh
10:57 mines a block, you see all of these
10:59 transactions here get uh swooshed away.
11:03 And you s you could see the top of that
11:05 earlier when the Bitcoin uh block got
11:07 mined real time. You can see it just in
11:09 the bottom left uh how it just sort of
11:11 blows away and then it starts working on
11:14 the next block. You can also see here uh
11:16 every few seconds it updates to reflect
11:18 new transactions that have entered uh
11:20 the Bitcoin um uh blockchain and or the
11:25 meool waiting to be written to the
11:26 Bitcoin blockchain. So for example,
11:28 there’s a bright red one. Let’s see what
11:30 they’re doing with this one right here.
11:32 All right, somebody’s paying 23 bucks.
11:34 Super expensive. And they are doing that
11:36 to move
11:39 H something’s not right. It’s not
11:40 showing me the actual
11:43 It’s not showing me the actual total for
11:44 some reason. Uh of how much they
11:46 actually are spending to move. But
11:48 anyway, um so this is, you know,
11:51 technical video and again if we watched
11:53 long enough, we would see the very cool
11:54 animation where it just uh blows away
11:57 the old transaction as they get
11:59 permanently cemented to the blockchain
12:01 and it shows us new transactions from
12:03 there. So that is the mempool. It’s
12:05 super technical. You don’t need to mess
12:06 with it. But you know, this is basically
12:09 the vitals of the Bitcoin blockchain.
12:11 Again, it does not show you all the
12:13 transactions happening on Coinbase or
12:15 places like that. It does not show you
12:17 all the people buying coffee with a
12:19 Bitcoin lightning transaction. It just
12:21 shows you the uh the most immutable
12:24 transactions, the transactions that
12:26 people want permanently and forever uh
12:28 absolutely cemented in stone and that
12:31 absolutely positively will never be
12:33 reversed. Those are the transactions
12:35 that are written here.