What Is “Transaction Malleability” and How Does It Relate to Congestion?
Transaction malleability is a vulnerability where a third party can change the unique identifier (transaction ID or TXID) of a transaction before it is confirmed, without invalidating the transaction itself. While not directly causing congestion, it complicated the implementation of Layer 2 solutions and was a factor in the block size debate.
It was largely mitigated by the SegWit upgrade, which separates the witness data from the transaction data.