Does anyone know why this is the case? Surely it would drop right since the fees are outrageous and would move other people to buy other coins?
Cause when you are hodling you don't care about transaction fees.
OK let's assume you are right. --Because everybody is holding-- would be the answer to the OP's question. But, let me ask this: why are the fees so high and transaction backlog 130k+ if everybody is holding (so nobody is transacting, I assume)?
Actually the OP is right, what we are seeing right now makes little sense and begs for explanation
EDIT: maybe the correct answer is that everybody is holding and if not - the demand is on the buying side.
That's not the right analogy, just the opposite. When unconfirmed transaction in network reach up 100k more, this can be happen caused some likes issue about a new hard fork 'smart contract' which they will make Bitcoin great again, it will be launched on last December 12.
So, many traders exchange their altcoins to bitcoins. As usual high fees appear when the network reaches 75k unconfirmed transaction.