Mempool.space: A Guide to Bitcoin Transactions
mempool.space is a Bitcoin blockchain explorer and visualizer.
What features does it have and why should you use it?
What Is "Mempool"?
"Mempool" is the "waiting room" for valid Bitcoin transactions.
If a Bitcoin user sends BTC, the transaction is first propagated throughout the network of nodes, which independently verify the transaction.
Once each node has verified the transaction, it will wait in the mempool in order to be picked up by a miner to be added to the Bitcoin blockchain.
Miners are incentivized to pick transactions with the highest fees attached to them.
A Software to Help Optimize Miner Fees
The standard quantification for Bitcoin fees is "satoshis per virtual byte", often expressed as "sats/vB" or "sats/vByte", effectively sats per amount of data transferred.
A transaction's size is not determined by how much BTC it transfers, but by how many inputs, outputs and signatures it has, and which address type it uses (e.g. Taproot, SegWit, legacy etc.).
More intensive transactions, e.g. opening a Lightning channel would cost more.
Mempool.space can help Bitcoin users optimize how much they pay in miner fees when interacting with the Bitcoin blockchain.
Every sat will count in the future, so try to avoid overpaying for fees!
Visualize Your Bitcoin Experience!
Mempool.space provides real-time transaction tracking and mempool visualization.
For example, if you need a transaction to go through urgently on the Bitcoin blockchain, you can see how many sats/vB you should pay to get into the next block.
Purple blocks on the right are confirmed blocks with information about the fee rate (sat/vB), about when the block was produced, and the number of transactions in the block.
Green blocks on the left are projected blocks.
Fee estimations only work as a guide, and confirmed blocks might differ from projections.
In the search bar on the top right, you can copy/paste a tx ID to see its status in the mempool.
You can also paste e.g. a Bitcoin address to find information about it (e.g. balance).
Historical graphs can provide a 21,000 feet view on e.g. fees, hashrate etc.
The mining dashboard provides stats and visualizations about the status of Bitcoin mining.
There is also a dashboard for the Lightning Network with info about nodes and channels.
Mempool.space also supports Bitcoin testnets and the Liquid Network sidechain @liquid.
The open-source software is integrated with many wallets, mining pools and exchanges.
Host It Yourself If You Want With Raspberry Pi!
You can also host it yourself as a 1-click installation on Raspberry Pi full node distros such as e.g. Umbrel, Start9, or RaspiBlitz.
If you're mining with a pool, you can use mempool.space to audit your pool whether there has been censorship or whether transactions had been prioritized.
Hosting the software yourself can also improve privacy if you're searching for a tx from a specific IP address etc.
Mempool.space was started in 2018 by @softsimon and wiz.
The software has no ads or 3rd party tracking.
It relies on community sponsorships.
Donors can get their avatars listed on the About page.
Mempool Accelerator
Mempool.space recently launched its Mempool Accelerator product that can help you bump up the fee of your transaction if you want to get it to the next block.
The service can be paid with Lightning or fiat (Apple Pay, Google Pay, Cash App Pay).
The mempool.space software can also be found in unexpected places!
Additional Resources
Presentation by mempool.space CEO "wiz" at Bitcoin Nashville in July 2024:
Tutorial by @IanM from 2021 (still relevant!):