Report: Bitcoin (BTC) Mempool Shows Backlogged Transactions, Increased Fees if so?

The bitcoin mempool has dramatically increased as per the blockchain.info graph:

What appears to be happening is a bunch (possibly super spam) of 1 satoshi transactions (smallest unit in bitcoin) which will put a decent stress test if sustained. Some are saying near 4,500 spam transactions and counting.

Here is what we have from twitter world debates and crypto wars on words:

⚠️ #BTC mempool is at 46MB of backlogged transactions and growing ⚠️$BTC users may experience significant transaction delays and high fees as a result, please plan accordingly. The Bitcoin Cash network is not affected. pic.twitter.com/3JOZKT9yth

— Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) June 4, 2018

Step 1: Flood $BTC mempool and whine about high fees

Step 2: Attack centralized censorship on r/bitcoin Reddit

Step 3: Fork in favour of centralization and censorship on-chain

Step 4: Fleece users by overcharging fees 30x

Step 5: Burn 12% of overcharge (PUUMP)#TheBcashWay

— Zissou™ (@ZeusZissou) June 2, 2018

.@aantonop: Right now the BTC mempool sits at 52MB. Congestion and high fees have really hurt BTC adoption and directly led to the creation of BCH. Any advice for users of BTC? pic.twitter.com/QAzsQvE6kI

— Bitcoin (@Bitcoin) June 4, 2018

Here is what another had to say (regarding the Visa Network crash)

Bitcoin doesn't actually go down, it's just transaction fees spike and the mempool bloats until it becomes prohibitively expensive and unusably slow. And that happens at <10 tx/sec. VisaNet does 13,000, and is capable of over 65,000. https://t.co/MAT8Pv3H7e

— Tony “Abolish ICE” Arcieri (@bascule) June 1, 2018

BTC backlog now nearing 40MB and still climbing.

Apparently it's due to a larger consolidation by Xapo (care to confirm @xapo ?). If true this could take a while.

Bitcoin Cash users unaffected.https://t.co/IDgcZSKwiA

— bch 'make Bitcoin cash again' protocol upgrade (@btcfork) June 3, 2018

We are going to continue to follow this story and see what we can find as the root cause and if this is indeed a manufactured attack or it is organic/natural transactions.