Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Bitcoin Technical Support => Topic started by: manuel on October 24, 2013, 10:05:21 AM



Title: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on October 24, 2013, 10:05:21 AM
I have my settings set to 0 for fees... yet still I get this, why?

http://s16.postimg.org/vc8qy6xqt/image.png

So now I have a small balance I can never remove from a wallet?

Hey I know it's worthless... but what was worthless a few years ago is now really worth something.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: finway on October 24, 2013, 10:09:41 AM
set bitcoin.conf


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on October 24, 2013, 10:24:28 AM
How?  WHat do I set?


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: zvs on October 24, 2013, 12:58:11 PM
fees have been mandatory for a very long time except for 'priority' transactions when block is < 27000 bytes.

these still exist

if you're trying to send some amount below a certain threshold it's doubtful any mining pool would ever pick it up,  so you still wouldnt be able to send it.  maybe run your own p2pool or something


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on October 24, 2013, 01:05:21 PM
How?  WHat do I set?
there is a file called bitcoin.conf in your appdata.

Yes there is but what do I change in it/add to it?

Why can I do this if fees are mandatory?

http://s22.postimg.org/sicj4mdgx/img.png


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: domob on October 24, 2013, 02:59:30 PM
How?  WHat do I set?
there is a file called bitcoin.conf in your appdata.

Yes there is but what do I change in it/add to it?

You want to add this line:
Code:
paytxfee=0.00

However, as already explained, this only works if the client believes your transaction will be mined without a fee (if its priority is high enough).  If not, it "mandatorily" includes the fee.  This is, however, only a thing the client does - fees are not mandatory from a protocol point of view, as long as you find a miner that is willing to include your transaction in a block for free.  This worked for me in tests most of the time as long as the total you send is large enough, you don't spend too many dust outputs at once, and you have a few hours to wait in case it takes so long.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: grue on October 24, 2013, 03:58:17 PM
there's a "no forced transaction fee" fork that removes all fee requirements. if you use it, please don't come back asking why your transaction has not confirmed.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: devthedev on November 05, 2013, 05:18:21 PM
How?  WHat do I set?
there is a file called bitcoin.conf in your appdata.

Yes there is but what do I change in it/add to it?

Why can I do this if fees are mandatory?

http://s22.postimg.org/sicj4mdgx/img.png

Fees aren't mandatory to send a transaction.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: DiamondCardz on November 05, 2013, 05:26:58 PM
Fees aren't mandatory, the client just forces them so that your transactions actually get confirmed in a realistic time-frame.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on November 07, 2013, 10:01:22 AM
It's kind of lame that the standard client does this even if you go out of your way to specify no fees both in the settings AND in the .conf file.  I mean wtf?  Let people put no fees if they want.  This is supposed to be free market.  If their transactions don't get processed because of it so be it.  Who cares?

What if the .0003 BTC really becomes worth something some day?  Consider there are 6 billion plus ounces of gold and those are valued at $1300+, then consider there will only ever be 21 million bitcoins.  .0003 might not be something you just throw away.

If you have to download some special non-standard client to get the client to actually believe you when you say "NO FEES" then they effectively are mandatory.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: zvs on November 07, 2013, 12:17:15 PM
OK, fees aren't mandatory, but these aren't the days where your 0 fee non-priority transaction will get processed unless you have a pre-arranged agreement with some pool or have a sufficient amount of mining power yourself to find a block

Quote
What if the .0003 BTC really becomes worth something some day?
Then the standard fee would be lowered, I'm sure


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on November 07, 2013, 01:51:07 PM
OK, fees aren't mandatory, but these aren't the days where your 0 fee non-priority transaction will get processed unless you have a pre-arranged agreement with some pool or have a sufficient amount of mining power yourself to find a block

Quote
What if the .0003 BTC really becomes worth something some day?
Then the standard fee would be lowered, I'm sure

I feel like in a true free market situation people should be able to set their own fee and not have something hard coded in the client that over rides their decision.  I mean they could have a warning that says "your transaction probably will not be processed if you don't make it more than X" but hard coding it is wrong.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: justusranvier on November 07, 2013, 01:55:59 PM
I feel like in a true free market situation people should be able to set their own fee and not have something hard coded in the client that over rides their decision.  I mean they could have a warning that says "your transaction probably will not be processed if you don't make it more than X" but hard coding it is wrong.
A planned feature for 0.9 is for the client to watch the network to determine what the market for fees is, and give you an accurate estimate of how long it will take to confirm your transaction based on the fee you attach.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: VeeMiner on November 07, 2013, 01:56:48 PM
I can hardly believe that someone is so cheap that he doesn't want to pay 0.3 mBTC transfer fee.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: os2sam on November 07, 2013, 02:03:15 PM
I can hardly believe that someone is so cheap that he doesn't want to pay 0.3 mBTC transfer fee.

Yeah, but it will be worth something some day.  Why should someone else profit from Bitcoin, it should be against the law.  I wish that were funny and ridiculous, but it is the sign of our times, sadly.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on November 07, 2013, 02:08:13 PM
I can hardly believe that someone is so cheap that he doesn't want to pay 0.3 mBTC transfer fee.

Yeah, but it will be worth something some day.  Why should someone else profit from Bitcoin, it should be against the law.  I wish that were funny and ridiculous, but it is the sign of our times, sadly.

"I can hardly believe there is someone so cheap they don't want to pay 1 BTC" somebody might have said not long ago.

The whole concept of free market, peer to peer, no central, authority obviously eludes both of you.  If a person specifies a fee lower than what the market will bear, tough shit for them.  They can raise it or not do business.  A minimum dictated fee of any amount is wrong.

If you make lots of transactions that can add up - or if the price of BTC keeps rising pretty soon it will cost more than something like this (https://www.dwolla.com/) for example.  It already does if you want to send less than $10 USD.  $10 USD still buys shit, although admittedly not for long.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: Eternity on November 07, 2013, 02:15:57 PM
Whats the maximum transaction fee to be incurred for any amount ?


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on November 07, 2013, 02:20:16 PM
Whats the maximum transaction fee to be incurred for any amount ?

I don't think there is a maximum - I think you can specify as much as you want...?



Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: DannyHamilton on November 07, 2013, 03:16:52 PM
The whole concept of free market, peer to peer, no central, authority obviously eludes both of you.  If a person specifies a fee lower than what the market will bear, tough shit for them.  They can raise it or not do business.  A minimum dictated fee of any amount is wrong.

The minimum fee prevents the sort of problems you are complaining about in a different thread:

I have never seen this before and I don't understand what's going on.  I received a payment almost exactly 3 hours ago as of now.  My Bitcoin client says it's up to date, in sync and connected to 15 active connections.  Yet this payment received 3 hours ago says it has zero confirmations.  How can this be?  How can I fix it?

My debug window says that the last block I got is 266592 which agrees with what blockchain.info is swaying the latest block is right now.

Several possibilities. Need more information to assist.

Can you either post the transactionID or the receiving address?

I actually posted my response in another thread by accident.  It was almost certainly due to no fees.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: os2sam on November 07, 2013, 04:13:22 PM
"I can hardly believe there is someone so cheap they don't want to pay 1 BTC" somebody might have said not long ago.

When was a transaction fee ever 1 BTC?

The whole concept of free market, peer to peer, no central, authority obviously eludes both of you.  If a person specifies a fee lower than what the market will bear, tough shit for them.  They can raise it or not do business.  A minimum dictated fee of any amount is wrong.

Bitcoin counts on Transaction fees to exist.  No transaction fees No Bitcoin.  That's all there is to it.

Nobody is making you pay transaction fees.  If you are patient and you don't need you dust right away there is nothing wrong with not paying the fee.  Someone will eventually include it in their block.

If you make lots of transactions that can add up - or if the price of BTC keeps rising pretty soon it will cost more than something like this (https://www.dwolla.com/) for example.  It already does if you want to send less than $10 USD.  $10 USD still buys shit, although admittedly not for long.

Doesn't Western Union charge a fee to transfer money?  What's the difference?

At some point there will be no Block Reward so the ONLY incentive to keep mining is to collect transaction fees.  If there is no mining the whole thing just breaks down.
Sam


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: os2sam on November 07, 2013, 04:33:24 PM
Whats the maximum transaction fee to be incurred for any amount ?

Whatever you choose to pay.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: os2sam on November 07, 2013, 04:36:23 PM
The whole concept of free market...snip... A minimum dictated fee of any amount is wrong.

What's your definition of a "free" market?

There is no dictated fee, by the way, just recommendations.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: Eternity on November 08, 2013, 09:17:01 AM
Quote
I don't think there is a maximum - I think you can specify as much as you want...?

How do you choose the transaction fees ? In the bitcoin client even if you choose no transaction fees even then you are charged

Dont mind giving few but wanted to learn whats the min and max


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: os2sam on November 08, 2013, 11:50:13 AM
Quote
I don't think there is a maximum - I think you can specify as much as you want...?

How do you choose the transaction fees ? In the bitcoin client even if you choose no transaction fees even then you are charged

Dont mind giving few but wanted to learn whats the min and max

In my experience if you set your fee to 0 and then try to transfer a small amount of BTC or an amount containing allot of transactions it will suggest a fee but you can choose no to pay it.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: DannyHamilton on November 08, 2013, 01:54:19 PM
In my experience if you set your fee to 0 and then try to transfer a small amount of BTC or an amount containing allot of transactions it will suggest a fee but you can choose no to pay it.

This is not true in the user interface of the reference client (Bitcoin-Qt).  What wallet are you talking about?


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: os2sam on November 08, 2013, 02:19:37 PM
In my experience if you set your fee to 0 and then try to transfer a small amount of BTC or an amount containing allot of transactions it will suggest a fee but you can choose no to pay it.

This is not true in the user interface of the reference client (Bitcoin-Qt).  What wallet are you talking about?

The standard BTC client.  An older version of course since it was a while back that I transferred a small amount.

Edit: I stand corrected.  The options are Yes or Cancel in the 0.8.3 client.

I could have sworn it presented an option to send without the fee in older clients, but maybe not?


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: 2sog on November 08, 2013, 02:52:40 PM
Should we really be dissing the transaction fee as in the future when block rewards are even less these will be what keeps miners mining and in turn the network running smoothly.


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on November 26, 2013, 07:46:07 PM
Well low and behold this already ~0.25 USD at today's prices.  Sure that's still meaningless for sizable transactions but not for transactions of $10 or less.  Just sayin'


Title: Re: When did fees become mandatory?
Post by: manuel on November 26, 2013, 07:47:12 PM
Should we really be dissing the transaction fee as in the future when block rewards are even less these will be what keeps miners mining and in turn the network running smoothly.

"Dissing" or discussing.  There are other technologies and solutions out there that are going to compete with Bitcoin.  This transaction fee has already become a meaningful amount for small transactions.