But the flurry in on-chain activity is showing signs of slowing down as congestion in the Bitcoin mempool β a database of unconfirmed transactions β has eased from nearly 500,000 unconfirmed transactions to roughly 250,000 at the time of reporting. That number generally stayed under 50,000 last year. Bitcoin is popular in El Salvador, a country known for being the first nation state to adopt the cryptocurrency as legal tender in 2021.