Yes, the number of backlogged Bitcoin transactions climbed above 90,000 and the size of memory pool exceeded 150MB. This is because one London-based Bitcoin exchange decided to give away almost $48,000 worth of Bitcoin free on Thursday.

MotherBoard Vice reports that CoinWallet.eu had released 200 Bitcoins at no cost in lieu of conducting its stress test. As a result, users are fervently making transactions in order to receive those coins, which is effectively leading to backlogging of transactions and expansion of the memory pool.

CoinWallet.eu slowly released the addresses and private keys for Bitcoin wallets containing 200 coins split into numerous tiny transactions of 0.00001 coins each. The intention of the Bitcoin exchange is clear: It wants to clog the memory pool and delay the transaction processing time in order to present its case for an update of the Bitcoin network.

And yes, the company’s strategy definitely worked as the number of unconfirmed transactions reached closer to 100,000-mark while the size of the mempool shot past 150MB (generally, it is below 10). At the time of writing this piece, things had cooled down considerably as the number of unconfirmed transactions hovered around 24200.

In August, the exchange had announced that it will be conducting another stress test in September and warned that it could lead to a 30-day backlog. However, just a day ago, the exchange announced on Reddit that it is cancelling the stress test and instead announced a Bitcoin giveaway in order to use the Bitcoin community to prove its point.

Last time, the exchange had to manage everything by themselves and this time they chose a much simpler way of conducting an indirect stress test.

What do they hope to achieve? To emphasize that Bitcoin needs an update if it is cater to a larger audience and even greater number of transactions.