What Is Network Congestion?
Network congestion occurs when the number of transactions submitted to the network exceeds its capacity to process these transactions. This phenomenon has several contributing factors, such as external factors including market volatility and intrinsic network characteristics such as block size and block time.
As more people submit transactions to the blockchain, the number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool can exceed what can be included in a single block. This is particularly relevant for blockchains with inherent limitations in block size and block time.
Increased transactions can be driven by sudden price volatilities leading to a surge in transaction activities or waves of mass adoption cycles.
As blockchain technology is expected to be adopted by more users in the coming years, network congestion issues are gaining prominence. A network’s ability to efficiently process a high volume of transactions is pivotal for widespread adoption and usability. This is particularly relevant for blockchain systems intending to facilitate real-time, everyday transactions.
While blockchain network congestion poses significant challenges, the community continues to develop solutions to help mitigate these issues. This is why research around blockchain scalability enhancement is at the forefront of the industry.