Bitcoin Forum

So a couple months ago, SatoshiDice spiked the transaction quantity, and Blockchain.info added a new chart which ignored the 100 most popular addresses (to show the bitcoin network without high-end outliers)

But, today I looked at that chart, and it's spiking again! This is not SatoshiDice or any of the 100 most popular addresses... so does anyone have an explanation?

http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular?showDataPoints=false&timespan=&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&scale=0&address= (http://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-excluding-popular?showDataPoints=false&timespan=&show_header=true&daysAverageString=7&scale=0&address=)

Yeah, I don't know.  I noticed too.  Maybe some of it can be explained by people moving coins out of MtGox to other exchanges, but I'm even speculating on that.  I really have no idea.

http://bitcoinrebate.com/ (http://bitcoinrebate.com/)

Could probably cause a ton of transaction spam. Also see https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83784.40 (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=83784.40)

I have a problem with calling transactions "transaction spam"... so long as the fee is being paid, then one transaction is just as legitimate as another. The blockchain better be able to handle immensely higher amounts of transactions than it does today.

Actual transaction spam would be someone creating bogus transactions of tiny amounts for the purpose of clogging something up or otherwise messing with things. If there is any payment purpose to the transaction at all then it is not spam.

IMO it is the most pressing issue Bitcoin faces from a technical perspective.

In that case let's just call it bloat as until there is a proper dev fix for this none of the really transaction heavy services are atm doing much of anything for either bitcoin or its wider adoption.

Bloat is a fair term I guess :)

Here is one last attempt to get a sane looking transactions graph:

https://blockchain.info/charts/n-unique-addresses

Shows the number of unique bitcoin addresses used per day. Still showing a nice uptrend.

mixing services?

http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/6/27/porcfest-2012-bitinstant-and-the-bernanke-bitcoin-exchange.html

Ehhh well since I wrote that I should've considered if that was the spike :)  But no, I don't think PorcFest contributed anywhere near to 1-2k new transactions per day, and I think the spike occurred just after PorcFest, not during. There must be some other factor going on...

This is cool. On the 100 most popular graph how are the 100 most popular addresses determined? Is it the most popular in the last 24 hours or over some longer period?

It's the addresses which have received the most coins in total. Here's the list:
http://blockchain.info/popular-addresses (http://blockchain.info/popular-addresses)

Paul Graham has endorsed bitcoin by funding a startup which uses bitcoin. Perhaps this increased legitimacy is helping.

It certainly increases legitimacy, and it'd explain a price spike, but doesn't really explain a transaction quantity spike that happens right at the same time.

But I like all these theories... keep them coming!

BFL

All the Bitcoins for their ASIC preorders went through bit-pay and they're probably selling most of them slowly in order to make their USD payments to BFL. Since they also announced that they're not going through the exchanges but rather sell them directly there's obviously more transactions in the blockchain.

We dont see any impact on transaction volume (http://blockchain.info/charts/estimated-transaction-volume?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=). So mixing services are unlikely candidate for explanation. More like some scriptkiddies attempting transaction spam.

Maybe they should move it up a notch, to "..without the 1000 most popular addresses"

Trying to separate out "real" transactions is a worthy effort and I appreciated that on blockchain.info. I think it'll make less sense however as transaction volume becomes more diverse over time. I've decided just to take SD as a sign that Bitcoin volume is going to grow in tons of new ways, all adding value to the existence of the technology, network, and currency.

Something tells me that Erik might already have an answer...