On August 9th, Mempool, the blockchain explorer, introduced the Mempool Accelerator to expedite unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions. This off-chain service allows users to prioritize their transactions by paying an extra miner fee and service charge. Users can pay via Bitcoin (Lightning Network) or fiat (Cash App, Apple Pay, Google Pay) without needing to sign up.
Five major mining pools—Foundry USA Pool, MARA Pool, SBICrypto, SpiderPool, and Ocean Pool—are partnering with Mempool for this service, covering about 40% of Bitcoin’s global hashrate. Acceleration requests are sent to these pools, which may choose to prioritize transactions based on the higher fee rate.
The service is an alternative to on-chain methods like Replace-by-Fee (RBF) and Child-Pays-for-Parent (CPFP). While it relies on a centralized system and has a higher service charge compared to average fees, it offers a faster confirmation time and is useful in various scenarios, such as limited wallet functionality and multisig complexities.
July 2024, Cryptoniteuae
