I am not sure if that's really a spam attack. Surely there is some spam, but the fees that were paid for the largest number of transactions are pretty high for that (100-120 satoshis/bytes), and as expected, now that the weekend has begun, the mempools are a bit emptier again.
I predicted that situation some time ago if there was a new Bitcoin price rally, because in every rally in the past the transaction volume spiked (probably as more people move their coins from and to exchanges). The more calm situation in the last weeks, in my opinion, was mainly because of the high fees that disincentived some use cases that were popular before (I don't know if "satoshi-dice type gambling" still exist, for example) and people are incentived to bundle their transactions now.
And no, if there are really spam attacks, I see no (realistic) solution. I had thought in paying transaction fees in advance, for example, but that would have too many negative side-effects (e.g. if you paid accidentally a low fee, your fee would be gone).
I predicted that situation some time ago if there was a new Bitcoin price rally, because in every rally in the past the transaction volume spiked (probably as more people move their coins from and to exchanges). The more calm situation in the last weeks, in my opinion, was mainly because of the high fees that disincentived some use cases that were popular before (I don't know if "satoshi-dice type gambling" still exist, for example) and people are incentived to bundle their transactions now.
And no, if there are really spam attacks, I see no (realistic) solution. I had thought in paying transaction fees in advance, for example, but that would have too many negative side-effects (e.g. if you paid accidentally a low fee, your fee would be gone).
This is same thing I also witnessed when I tried to make some transactions and I was equally looking for explanation as to why the transaction was delayed beyond reasonable time in which I was even guessing why would all this be happening at this time. But if its actually a spam then its a serious one that the makers and shapers in the industry should really do something about because paying high fees and waiting for several long hours for confirmation is definitely a red flag to me.
