Bitcoin Forum

Let me start this by saying I live in a particular socialist paradise in South America, up until recently there had been excitement among certain normie circles, and I managed to introduce a couple of dozen people into cryptocurrency just in 2020 alone.

This all has been changing since the halving and something needs to be done about this - Wages in the third world, in general, are low, you can't expect someone to put up with a $3 transaction fee when they are only able to earn $20-30 bucks a month or less and Venezuela is not the only country heading this way. I have friends in Argentina that are starting to struggle with their bitcoin transactions and justifying when their minimum wage has gone down from $500 to $150 in 3 years.

It feels like fiat currencies are collapsing and this should be the time for BTC and crypto in general to shine but instead adoption is being slowed down by a relatively flawed economic incentives system and greedy miners... Where is the lighting network?

I agree, not just LATAM but Asian and African citizens will get turned away by high fees, that's just the way it is. The whole point of BTC and crypto was to be able to compete with current financial solutions, putting a $5 tag for transactions makes transaction costs like PayPal's seem reasonable (which btw isn't at all). But we've been here before, people are panicky. Let's see how this looks a few months down the line once the dust has settled both around the Halvening and Covid.

Or in case dust doesn't settle and shit starts to go sideways, we'll also see.

That why I added "and the 3rd world in general" If it is bad in South America, Idk how the African crypto communities are dealing with it. I know Nigeria has a huge crypto community and a $3+ price tag on a single transaction hurts real bad. I assume the situation is similar in South Asia and SEA.

I feel you, living in third world countries and those figures on just transaction fees is already expensive.
Having huge transaction fees on Bitcoin is really a pain in the ass especially even you will just move a few amounts, I feel you.
About the lightning network which runs on the top of Bitcoin, for me, it's still not that so popular so there are still few people using it.
But as the time goes by, people using the lightning networks are increasing, and let's hope that using the lightning network will become easy especially settings up your channel, send/receive.

Here is your problem: Ignorance. Why? The transaction fee can be set in the wallets you use to send funds from. It is incredible the many times the likes of you make me repeat this simple fact again and again and again. You DON'T need instant transactions.

Now take a decent wallet, such as Electrum, preferably under a decent OS such as Linux, and change the configuration so you use a manual fee, not a network guess of any kind. There, you are going to type 1 sat/B, which results in typically a couple of USD cents. Electrum a couple more options that can help reduce fees.

And yes, make sure, absolutely sure, you are using a bech32 Segwit address. Your bitcoin address should start with bc1, not 1 or 3, because every tiny little satoshi counts.

And teach your friends in Argentina this lesson. Repeat after me: You DON'T need instant transactions. There is only one fee that matters: 1 sat/B. Set it, send it, check back tomorrow or the day after that, I'll eventually reach, no matter what. Its faster than wire transfers, and cheaper than Airtm, Western Union or the likes.

You cannot have $3 fees without you foolishly letting the wallet pick it for you. Do not let the wallet guess whats best, and if your wallet sucks, change it.

Also you are incorrect. The minimal wage in Venezuela is about 2 USD per month now, you already paid more in the fee because you didn't know how to set a fee manually. And the day is coming when we will be able to set 0.1 sat/B...

Always plan things ahead and stop whining. Bitcoin works far better than the alternatives...

You might be right - but not every user will become educated in this, its unrealistic to believe that.

Also - I'm from Venezuela and at today's rates, the minimum wage is at $4 and no one earns just that or else we would have thousands of people a day dying of hunger because you can barely get a 2lt coke with that. Everyone has a side hustle or lives with support from the 6m exyles or works online making what they can.

You are underestimating OP. He is correct that fee is too high. You are correct that low fee can be used but with low fee, tx will not be confirmed. And with unconfirmed tx, you can do nothing again without spending another good amount of fee.
Would you accept a payment with zero confirmation? I think no one would at least on such a time when fee is too high. If someone use 1sat/byte and the tx do not confirm, later, they can use the same input to send another address which is why it is easy to scam anyone by pretending to send BTC while it is with low fee.

I had a tx unconfirmed for 3 days, I used 1sat/byte. Later I had increase the fee. It is not always work in same direction.

Since when are people required to pay a $3 transaction fee anyway? You're probably stuck in 2017. Seriously most people making this argument are the people who doesn't do any bitcoin transactions at all(probably besides exchange withdrawals).

Also, lightning. If people used great newbie wallets like Phoenix, things would be easier.

I have helped a couple of businesses in my area setup BTC wallets and usually pay them in BTC, they even give me the goods before paying because they know me but to any other person they wait for at least 1 confirmation and any business person should do the same. BTC -> Fiat exchanges in Venezuela also wait for 3 confirmations before handing you fiat. No business will proceed with a transaction that might or might not be completed.

Fee is not fixed. For faster confirmation, it was almost same couple of days back. Leave OP words but if you think about purchasing $10 worth of things and had to pay even $1 worth of BTC as fee, that's too high. It is not unusual that 2017 will be back again.

No, its $2. 400 000 bolivares + 400 000 food tickets. 1 USD is about 200 000 VES, therefore 2 in "cash", 2 in food stamp equivalent.
Skip your drama and perhaps head over to the Spanish language area.

The exchange rate against bitcoin would be about 17 bolivares per satoshi. Now get a clue and teach others properly. This is not Bitcoin's fault, its the wallet developers fault for setting the network guessing thing as default, when it used to be manual.

Drama? are you having an aneurysm? I count the food stamps as part of the minimum wage anyways. Why don't you go to the Spanish language area yourself?

This is false. Again, ignorance. Any fee above zero will get confirmed, eventually. Only zero fees are dropped, and even when some nodes may drop low fees, other nodes pick them as long as they are not zero, which means, they will get confirmed. Also, the (decent) wallets keep trying. There is absolutely nothing to worry about unless the sender has malicious intent of double spending, which is why you must always wait for one confirmation. Once one confirmation occurs, the rest come quickly. I didn't say accept no confirmation transactions, i did say WAIT.

Again, you are wrong and are spreading a lie here. No broadcasts with a fee of any kind will get lost or need to be resent AT ALL.

99% of my transactions have been done at 1 sat/B, some wallets let you increase the fee later if you are somehow in a hurry. By default, transactions don't need to be instant. It is ignorance that is eating your money in fees, not Bitcoin. You "think" your transaction would get lost, but you are wrong.

3 days is nothing, in 2018 you could easily wait two weeks. Did they pass? Yes they did, because i did such transactions.

I'm starting to think that you're the one that has never used Bitcoin for a real-world transaction 🤣

I take issue with just accepting it because "that's just the way it is.",  but I agree it is still more reasonable that Paypal's existence as a whole, and that people are overreacting to this.

Except, you do? For any realistic use you want to give to it. You can't just have people wait up to two weeks for a confirmation or normies to just accept this. Your help to get around this is issue is greatly appreciated, but you could do without the attitude.

Says the newbie who can't even find out where to set the transaction fees in a wallet... Get a clue.

Hmm. I guess it's understandable when talking about face-to-face transactions. But then again, while lightning is not in it's best state right now, it's definitely usable. It's just depends if the people are actually willing to learn to use Lightning, but the tech is here, and people can use it if they want to.

Man, if you do not understand what I said above, use google translator, jokes apart  :D
Have you seen the title? Seen the word adoption there? If so, you would not argue with your repetitive statements. No one said that with 1 sat/byte, tx will not confirm. Fee less tx was possible back in the day. The problem is IGNORANCE. You never read what the hell we talked. I am sure you never used BTC in real life.

"Newbie" by forum standards, I can set my fees but real-world transactions require immediacy. Try trying to buy stuff in a store that takes BTC and sit there waiting for hours for your $10 to confirm.

If you can provide a cryptographic way to link an address to a location, even temporarily, blockchain services can offer reduced rates (i.e. 90% off) for users in that location.  

It's an uphill battle to get adoption going on here not everyone is open to adopting the bleeding edge and changing on the daily like us that hang out in these forums.

 read my signature.


btc can not work as a stand alone store of value.

LTC and DogeCoin solve all issues>

I can move 1,000,000 Doge coin for about 2 doge which is under ½ of 1 us penny cost to move 2544 USD worth of the coin.

The issue is not that of btc and miners.  The issue it that of people that do not understand the value of other coins.

Alt coins are important part the the structure of the crypto market.

It is very sad the op posted what he did.

If he believes it is true he is simply lost in ignorance.

If he lied to push his own agenda he is an evil puppeteer .

At op I hope you are simple a victim of ignorance as you can learn truth about the wonderment of the multiverse of cryptocoins.

here is dogecoin

https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dogecoin/

it is merge mined with LTC and has a very protected network due to the vast amount of LTC mining gear.

Here is a Dogecoin account I use

https://dogechain.info/address/DKYP3RRoaempZAjLbDmRUDzQ8AP8NtDGnQ

it moves coins fast safe and cheap   thanks to the wonderful miners of LTC + Doge that merge mine it day after day.

That's reality here mate,the lower the fee is the longer the waiting and what if you have only limited amount to withdraw?and you will be obliged
 to set higher fee just to get the funds quickly in which will surely a burden for those who has small funds they need to get.

I have the same situation weeks ago when the price starts to pump that it took me 2 days of waiting until i decided to increase the fee just to get
my funds in which not happen to me for the last year.

anyway this may serve a lesson if we wanted a faster confirmation then we must put higher fee so we will not bored waiting for our funds .


i think there's no need for some insulting or anything close to that Guys,we are here sharing ideas and experiences
 so better respect each post for better conversation .

I guess you need to re read your own words in bold then?


This is a blatant lie.

This sounds like something I should research. Thanks for the info.

Try doing a face to face real-world transaction with a low fee and tell me how many days it took you to get your goods 😂

I will go with a pool if that is the case then use SegWit.

I tried to wait for everything to calm down but it seems like it won't happen early.
I did a transaction just a few days ago with a $10 transaction fee. But that is an instant withdrawal thru an exchange which cannot be edited.
They are using dynamic options on their end and you cannot do anything about it.
Same goes with exchange.

That's what someone in the bleeding edge like us would do. Still, you can't expect a business owner that's already taking the risk in taking a new payment method to change his ways every other week depending on where the transaction fees are at + you can't expect them to go thru with sales that take days to confirm.

Ever heard of Mercadolibre? Or, i don't know, delivery? How about bank transfer?, if you live in Venezuela you would know bank transfer is one of the few methods of payment after banknotes got scarce before they invented that sms pay thing. And how long do you wait for a bank transfer? Is it immediate? Oh no it isn't, not unless you and the merchant happen to be in the same bank, good luck with that.

Its not my fault you just go to the kinds of business that expect instant payment. I repeat: Stop whining, plan ahead. Pay in advance, or open a tab with the merchant...

Bitcoin is 11 years old where have you been?, are you with the Randy troupe? You would fit well with them...

Bitcoin as it is does not realistically work for instant payments, that is OLD news. If you were telling people otherwise, you were misguiding them. Bitcoin excels in anything that is not instant payment, which is most things anyway.

What, you never went to a place without the point of sale working, because cantv (or corpoelec) is down again? No credit card (because none work); no cash (because you would need bags of it) and you just finished your restaurant meal and all you have is money in the bank, what do you do and what does the owner do?

Up until last year, payments with foreign currency were illegal. This situation is OLD, and "normies" here started learning Bitcoin and altcoins since 2017 after the gov tried pushing the failed Petro.


Most purchases in Mercadolibre take various days, no seller ships after confirming their money was transferred into the bank or some other method like going physically to the shop to use a debit card. One day, it occurred to me to ask the seller if he would accept bitcoin, he said yes and one hour later the 1 sat/B transaction confirmed and i picked up the item.

It is you who lack experience using 1 sat/B. Its normal to take a few hours, more rarely a day, but sometimes they pass even under one hour. This is why the things you say come from ignorance and or lack of experience. So start using it properly rather than bashing things you still don't fully understand.

Face to face is no different, you are just wasting time going physically to a place that won't give you anything until the bank transfer is confirmed. But sure, you go, ask the amount and bank details, go back home do the transfer and wait until they confirm so you can go pick it up (or they deliver it to you).

Venezuela has long dropped instant payments anyway, except for the select few with foreign currency. Without credit card and often failing rapidly disappearing debit cards, its just bank transfer and the sms thing if you are lucky. Only last year things moved a bit once they allowed foreign currency use.

Most people would have waited longer ANYWAY.

Fees sometimes increase and sometime decrease but most of the time, we have stable fees. It is always inconvenient and expensive when you have needs to move your BTC when the price of bitcoin rises and the network has so many transactions wait to be confirmed. Then you will be stucked into a transaction fee race that is not good.

I agree that to bring more convenience to users and more stability in transaction fee, bitcoin has more things to improve.

If people have a good schedule to move their bitcoin, they will get acceptable low fees, nevertheless.

You really like derailing conversations, I never implied BTC was my ONLY method of payment. I feel like a further discussion with you is just encouraging your drama, I know your type and your attitude. I just googled "How to politely get out of a conversation" this is what I got:

I’ve had such a nice time talking to you. And I’ll definitely connect with you on LinkedIn so I can keep up with all of your cool ventures. In the meantime, I’m going to go [grab some hors d’oeuvres/say hi to a friend/go to the next panel].”

If they use Android devices, try asking them to use Lightning through Phoenix Wallet[1]. While it's not great in terms of privacy, I think privacy might be the least of their concerns if we're talking about really poor people. It's literally almost like using on-chain bitcoin in a front-end perspective.

---

[1] https://phoenix.acinq.co/

Oh, believe me, I have been there, once it took 40min for the transaction to show up, in one side was my mistake, I normally paid with LTC if I need to buy something like that, but forgot to transfer from my pc wallet to my mobile, so I said "well maybe 10min wait with BTC" that day (like 4 months ago) the BTC network was extremely slow and took a lot of time. But the thing is that some wallets show the TX even unconfirmed, like coinomi (the one i use) even in BTC, but other needs 3-6 confirmations, yet in years I haven't seen a single TX go back.

We really need lighting network or atomic swaps to start rolling out, that will lower a lot the fees and make it more appealing to the public and to use it daily, in the case that you can swap immediately to a coin that can be confirmed instantly or within fee mins, will help a lot.

I'm living in a 3rd world country right now and I'm also feeling the very high fees of Bitcoin. Right now, my Bitcoins are stuck in one wallet only but I want to transfer some of them into different wallet.

I still remember when I need some funds to buy something but the fees are very high. My solution that I did is I exchanged my Bitcoins into other coins and then I transferred it in a faster speed and lower fees.
Right now, we will see the importance of different altcoins. ETH has a lower fees than Bitcoin. LTC and DOGE have relatively lower fees than Bitcoin. Lets use them and then just exchange them into Bitcoin again when you transferred it.

For me this is the only solution that right now is working aside from the Lightning Network because not all are using it right now.

If you're planning on transferring bitcoin from wallet to another, you can freely transfer right now using a very low fee if you don't urgently need the funds.

As for exchanging funds to other coins for cheaper fees, that could work if your funds are in exchanges in the first place(which isn't recommended). Also, don't forget to take note of the exchange fees, because you could also be potentially paying higher fees by exchanging your coins. Exchanges ain't free.

High fee is temporary, it doesn't happen all the times. These days, bitcoin has a lot of tx which is the reason behind the high fee. If you need to have faster confirmation, you have no way but to pay the higher fee. Also, you can use off chain transaction for small amount, coinbase is the best solution in that case.