... is there any other info on why this is happening?
TL;DR: The network is busyLong Version:
They say a picture is worth a thousand words... here are two.
The first shows the level of unconfirmed transactions over the last 24 hours... you'll note there has been more than 40,000 unconfirmed transactions almost the entire 24 hours... and it has now reached the 100,000 unconfirmed transaction mark.
The second shows the fee rates being used... Note the highlighted line at 280-300 sats/byte... that indicates there are near 11 megabytess worth of transactions at or above this level at this point in time... that is over 10 blocks worth of transactions... given blocks occur on average once every 10 minutes, it would take an average of 100 minutes for those transactions to all get mined... assuming NO more transactions are added... given the number of unconfirmed transactions has been climbing all day, its safe to assume a LOT of new transactions are being added... most likely with large fees for fast confirmation times.
What fee rate was YOUR transaction at?
Thank you for that that is a great response and very helpful. I paid 500 and 510 sats. Not sure about the ones done by bitfinex.