Bitcoin Forum

https://i.imgur.com/AG5dq.png


{edit: updated to include next block}

What a rip, deepbit is getting paid fat without lifting a finger, helping the network my ass..

Obviously the network is extremely active, as the numbers from other block finders show.

Nothing is wrong. All I see is a little variance.

We have these threads too often :P

I don't think its about the blocks found and who finds them. (but then again I could be wrong)

But the lack of transactions within the blocks. Once again I could be wrong and tbh I don't know how pools work (I just mine). Is there a way pools can be lazy and not submit tx work.

I'm sure someone will be along soon with a LOT more brains than me

Is it possible for pool operators to only accept transactions with a txtfee greater than or equal to what they set?

pools make money from txn fees, be silly not to include them eh?
Some pools refuse free txn - deepbit is not one

also blockchain.info is notoriously inaccurate with deepbit blocks - they may or may not even be deepbits,

look at
http://blockorigin.pfoe.be/top.php
for accurate block stats :)

Blockorigin is over 1k blocks behind :(.  I missed their charts, it was nice to see a longer window (2016 blocks).

I have noticed the same thing lately though [I've been goofing around with SatoshiDice].  Blockchain.info will be showing 1000-1500 unconfirmed txes once in a while, and a Deepbit (it may be a false positive, but I doubt it is wrong EVERY time) block might only have 100-200 tx.  A few minutes later, a block from another pool hits with 600-900.  It's not a big problem right now, but it could become one later.  If a pool is adding a large portion of the overall hash rate, but simply ignoring/not including a large number of transactions in each block, it could be a problem when we're seeing a higher transaction volume.

It does seem odd, as far as the network is presently behind, (3,111 unconfirmed transactions at the time of this message, 2322 low priority) that a block goes through with little to no transactions in it.

http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/txlist/

Why? 95%+ of tx include no fee.  Now if there are 3000+ paying tx which miss multiple blocks that is something to be concerned about.  Personally I think it is awesome.  We are starting to see differentiation in pay for service.  If you want a fast confirm you are going to have to pay.  If you don't care and just want it in a block eventually you might get away with a free tx.

On one hand, they are under no obligation to calculate the free transactions, but on the other, it's discerning to see the largest pool taking this stance  :-\

Not that I doubt you, but can you cite a source / graph / stats?

Sorry I can't just personal knowledge based on the % of tx I reject from the memory pool.  My bitcoind is running patched version which has mintxfee option which I have set to 0.005 BTC.  I guess it would have been useful to record that information.  Maybe something for the future.

Then again that stats may be out of data.  SatoshiDice generates a large # of tx and most (all?) have a tx fee so the % of free tx may have declined significantly.

I guess one way would be to use the blockchain.info API and parse the last 2016 blocks.

I've found that even with the recommended fee of 0.0005 BTC for a transaction with few inputs, Deepbit still doesn't accept the transaction (I have to wait for other blocks.) If I do a fee of like 0.005 then it accepts it.

Together, if true, this may be the problem we're presently seeing.

If SatoshiDice is generating scores of 0.0005 tx fee transactions (or less/free), and Deepbit isn't accepting anything below 0.005 (10 times higher) then we have a problem.

Yeah if only BTC was like a credit card ... immediate commit and transaction fees.

Oh hang on, no, people want everyone to pay the transaction fees - but BTC doesn't have immediate commit for all transactions like a credit card ...

As for the picture at the top ... it's wrong - get over it.
blockchain.info is quite unreliable in determining the source of a block.
I can provide code to get 50% of blocks with 100% certainty, but the other 50% ... well ...

Assuming a block is from deepbit based on the IP address is clearly not reliable.

No doubt you saw the number at the bottom of that page about how many nodes they are connected to?
Currently: Status: Ok (260 Nodes Connected)
So yeah that's really gonna guarantee that the IP address is correct ... NOT.
Also a bitcoind could connect to deepbit and send its block to them first - and in that case the IP address method is clearly wrong

Someone asked for my comments, so...

1. Block 183478 was found in just 12 seconds, so it was possibly a result from one of the very first getworks from this round. Those getworks contain only the coinbase TX because we had no time to build a complete block.
Block 183482 by other pool was found in 32 minutes, so it has lots of time to collect new TXes and include free or low-fee TXes not mined by Deepbit earlier.

2. Blockchaininfo's information about Deepbit's blocks is wrong sometimes. May be it's because other blocks are frequently received by them from our relaying nodes. Use the Blockorigin site, it takes information directly from Deepbit.
Looks like this time the block is really mine, and that's just our luck. Happens to anyone.

3. Usually Deepbit was including more free TXes than anyone else, but this situation changed recently. I heard from someone that those "1dice" TXes take up to 50% of the total numbers, and they are considered "free" by our fee policy, so we are limiting them in our blocks. There are lots of "1dice" TXes in that 747-TX block.
If this will become a problem, I'll consider rising my free TX limits.

Actually, 1dice TXes actually DO have fees attached, following the standard bitcoind fee assessment of 0.0005 per 1 KB (unless the coins are aged / many coins being sent, but that is not the case with most of dice transactions).  As a matter of fact, I'm having trouble finding a single one in that 700 tx block that did not have a fee.

Thank you EclipseMC and OzCoin...

https://i.imgur.com/A9lTa.png

what does it mean?

I means that the pools: Eclipse and Ozcoin are putting through lots of transactions.
Other pools are not doing this.

Clearly some of the ones above with IP addresses are ignoring lots of transactions.

Deepbit and Eligius do ignore transactions that they consider to be "SPAM"
So they consider some of your transactions as "SPAM" coz you don't pay them enough
(or aren't in their 'good' list)

All the more reason to not use either of Deepbit or Eligius

I don't think DeepBit or Eligius are the problem - the problem is people want to use the network for free.

If that attitude doesn't change at some point and if paid transactions aren't given highest priority, then when block rewards cease the network hashrate will probably fall significantly and network security will suffer.

The problem is the re-definition of "Free".  My understanding is that Tycho is looking at changing his pool's settings to include transactions that were being ignored.  As of right now, Deepbit only allows a small number of "free" transactions, BUT Deepbit considers transactions using 0.0005 BTC/KB  to be "free" currently, thus limiting how many it will put into a block.  At this stage of the network, that seems like a problem since the DEFAULT value is 0.0005 BTC/KB.

There are other problems with redefining what a "free" transaction is at the current stage of Bitcoin development:
1) There is no easy way to add a fee to a transaction with bitcoind or bitcoin-qt.  Basically bitcoin does it in the background, using the fee per KB you specified in configuration.
2) There is no easy way to know what fee your transaction will include (if any) until you try to send it using bitcoin-qt.  Using bitcoind will send it and just tack on the fee without telling you in advance.

... and at this point right now when I post there are 4100 outstanding transactions in my memory pool ...

Edit: and after the last LP 20 minutes ago the count was 3426

Edit2: and after a '50BTC' block just now - still 3719

4400 Now.

I follow that. Thanks for the explanation.

Going OT for a moment, I think transaction fee use might be easier if, as well as the current 'pick a fee' system, the client had an option that just listed "Priority 1", "Priority 2" .. etc which a user could select when sending a transaction and each "Priority" level corresponding to a particular fee/kb.

This would make it easier to judge how much of a fee should be considered for a given priority, and will make it easier for mainstream use.

There definitely does need to be some work done on the current way fees are handled, and how they are shown to the user.  Ideally, the client would be able to show the following:

1) Currently known TX queue - How many transactions total, and how many have fees
2) Fee to send a transaction with low priority (current 0.0005/KB system)
3) A place to enter a higher transaction fee manually for the single transaction.  Ideally the client would give a suggestion of a fee to give the transaction a high chance of confirming.

Usually I'm including 50 Kb of free TXes in each block. That was more than enough until the recent flood.
Sometimes this free zone was enlarged to quickly clean the queue, but at this moment I don't think that current queue can or should be cleaned that way.

Why is 0.0005/KB not sufficient for a transaction to be included in your blocks? At a rate of 10 minutes/block, and 35 BTC transaction fees/day, that equates to ~0.243 BTC transaction fees per block in extra income for you.

Sadly I don't have enough hashrate to mine one block per each 10 minutes.
I think that including more free transactions is not worth the risk for me, especially for ~0.06 BTC per day (according to your numbers).

0.0005 BTC was set as default fee when USD/BTC was somewhere around $22, so it was at least one cent. Now it's not.
If people think that confirmation of their transaction worths less than one cent, then may be it's not that urgent and may wait a bit more ?

No, I was just saying that you would get 0.243 BTC extra per block you mine, you might not get every block, but for the ones you do mine you would get the extra money.

Just wondering, what is the disadvantage of including transactions in blocks? Internet transfer fees?

No. 0.243 BTC extra per block. So if you Mine 40 blocks in a day your making a bonus of 9.72BTC approx.

This.

Bitcoin will need to move to a pay for performance model.  Paying a quarter penny (USD) for a tx should get you a quarter penny service level (which is we will do it when we get around to it).  While I am not as large as Deepbit I exclude all tx with fee less than 0.002 fee.  I also add 0.01 to all my outgoing txs.  Never had a problem with a slow or delayed tx for "some reason".

So, what is the problem with including low-fee transactions in blocks? Just want people to pay more so you can get more coins? Or are >2 MB files (block downloads) a problem for you?

So what is the problem with not including a fee to ensure your transaction is in the next block?  Just want people to do more work for less so you can keep more coins?  Or is a fraction of a penny a problem for you?

:)

Actually yes, block size is important, otherwise I wouldn't care.
It's not like I want to get real profits from TX fees.

... yet.

They haven't needed to ... yet ... due to the fees they charge.

I actually meant that when Tx fees make up the lion's share of miner earnings, DeepBit will want to get real profits from Tx fees.

in addition to the fees they charge

I started a thread regarding the pool orphan rate and high transaction volume issue here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88302.0

The problem is the definition of "free". Anything less than a bitcent (0.01) per transaction is "free" and subject to being ignored?

When we DO get to the point where the network -can- confirm high-paying/priority transactions in fractions of a second, then something DSCP-like based on fees can occur. Right now we're not big enough to declare second hand citizens.

In my humble opinion, that policy is harming both the network, and the miners by creating artificial congestion and delay.

+1 to this. Certain miners (mining pools) are willing to harm the network in order to get more money.