Athena Bitcoin warns of severe delays on transactions

Athena Bitcoin, the bitcoin wallet, and ATM provider issued a notification today regarding significant delays to users on its service due to record congestion on the Bitcoin network.

There is currently over 150,000 pending (unconfirmed) transactions in the Bitcoin memory pool waiting to be added to a block. This represents one of the most congested periods in Bitcoin’s history and is a consequence of both its popularity and inability to scale at this time.

The company said that as a result, users can expect transactions will not confirm for several hours and possibly up to a day later.

The Athena team stated:

“Only if you do not see your transaction at all in your wallet or on a block explorer should you contact us. Athena uses a high fee rate on our transactions, but once it is broadcast there is nothing we can do to speed up confirmation times. We will keep you informed about network conditions.”

The leading cryptocurrency is currently trading a little bit over USD $1,800 at the time of writing.