Miners are all hitting close to the cap currently

[AgentofCoin]

Why are we getting so close to the cap like this?
Are people running stress tests again?

Also the BTC market price rose greatly today. Based on what news?
What is going on?

[shorena]

Why are we getting so close to the cap like this?
Are people running stress tests again?

Also the BTC market price rose greatly today. Based on what news?
What is going on?

#1 price is on the rise, price changes usually result in more transactions
#2 TX are piling up and I guess most miners have found the config file to raise the softlimit from 750KByte



PS 6K unconfirmed is nothing spectacular.

[jbrnt]

Histroy tells us transactions goes up whenever bitcoin price is rising. May be people are moving coins to the exchange or out of cold storage. I haven't heard any major news to trigger a climb, I think people are just more confident in the $250 support level and decides it's a good time to buy.

The average block size is still below 500k, but your screenshot does show we are close to the 1M cap and it is worrying.

[Argwai96]

Histroy tells us transactions goes up whenever bitcoin price is rising. May be people are moving coins to the exchange or out of cold storage. I haven't heard any major news to trigger a climb, I think people are just more confident in the $250 support level and decides it's a good time to buy.

The average block size is still below 500k, but your screenshot does show we are close to the 1M cap.

it was so odd to see the spike today, i sold a little yesterday thinking it was going to go down a to around 224 or so.

[melody82]

I was fully expecting a bounce on the price, it fell too much too quickly.  If you look at the market information it was obvious to see.  I can't say where it will go from here, but I think it will not return back down to ~220 in the next few weeks.  I hope it just stabilizes tbh, even if you are a day trader it is great when the price stays in a good stable range.  I don't day trade BTC.  I think that a stable price is great for wider adoption as a currency, and with the really great news recently (movie theaters taking btc) I think there is a good chance of some new blood coming in.

[AgentofCoin]

#1 price is on the rise, price changes usually result in more transactions
#2 TX are piling up and I guess most miners have found the config file to raise the softlimit from 750KByte



PS 6K unconfirmed is nothing spectacular.

Thank you for your comment.
I'm just surprised, for a while now, the blocks found seem to be hitting the miners own self imposed block limit. All look 700 and 900s.
I didn't know this was normal when prices rise like this.
I have not paid attention much to the blocksize amounts till the debate of 20mb of the past few months.
I was just surprised to see the size consistently. Usually I see a 500kb or less thrown in between the large blocks.

[AgentofCoin]

...
May be people are moving coins to the exchange or out of cold storage. I haven't heard any major news to trigger a climb, I think people are just more confident in the $250 support level and decides it's a good time to buy.
...

You are probably correct. I'm not a day trader, so I never see this coming.

[NorrisK]

I guess people are preparing to dump their coins when the price hits their desired level. Moving out of cold storage first, then moving them to exchange. Prepare for some massive volume

[unamis76]

Probably stress tests are being run in the light of recent block limit discussion, but as people have said, when price goes up, normally transactions do too.

As for shorena's post, I find it really disturbing that 6k unconfirmed transactions waiting isn't that much of a number... I wasn't aware that this number was so high at times. I'm all in favor of rising block size limit, but these high numbers still shock me. Just goes on showing that people who don't want to raise the block limit aren't really thinking clearly...

We need that block size change ASAP. We're a "small player", for now. Imagine when Bitcoin approaches most people and people start using it more frequently and for more things... We definitely don't want to have hundreds of thousands of transactions just waiting hours for one confirmation.

[shorena]

Probably stress tests are being run in the light of recent block limit discussion, but as people have said, when price goes up, normally transactions do too.

As for shorena's post, I find it really disturbing that 6k unconfirmed transactions waiting isn't that much of a number... I wasn't aware that this number was so high at times. I'm all in favor of rising block size limit, but these high numbers still shock me. Just goes on showing that people who don't want to raise the block limit aren't really thinking clearly...

We need that block size change ASAP. We're a "small player", for now. Imagine when Bitcoin approaches most people and people start using it more frequently and for more things... We definitely don't want to have hundreds of thousands of transactions just waiting hours for one confirmation.

6-8k happens "often". The biggest spike I have on record is ~12k and Im still not entirely sure if it actually happened as I did not check the 24 hour stats of that day and dont save the detailed data.

Spikes like this are the exact reason for the need of increasing the size earlier than waiting. I do wonder why there are so many transactions going about today though.

I dont think its an actual problem yet, because these backlogs are quickly worked off. However the longer these last the more frustrated people get and I can imagine that this could lead to a diffuse "bitcoin is broken" attitude.

[grendel25]

$20 is a "spike"?  I guess I'm still spoiled by the run to $1K+.  Really though, $20 isn't a huge price spike when we're talking about bitcoin.  This thread got my hopes up but I don't really think anything today is an indication of anything big that recently happened.  There already are examples of people waiting hours and even days for transactions to process or actually fizzle out and not process at all.  So yeah, I agree something needs to be done before the masses even consider bitcoin as a mainstream finance option.  But that needed to be done years ago.

[RussianRaibow]

Histroy tells us transactions goes up whenever bitcoin price is rising. May be people are moving coins to the exchange or out of cold storage. I haven't heard any major news to trigger a climb, I think people are just more confident in the $250 support level and decides it's a good time to buy.

The average block size is still below 500k, but your screenshot does show we are close to the 1M cap.

it was so odd to see the spike today, i sold a little yesterday thinking it was going to go down a to around 224 or so.

Bitcoin trading is a variant of gambling. It is next to impossible to predict the price. Even Andreas Antonopoulos made mistake this time...

I’m not worried about a bitcoin hard fork.  I expect more panicked bitcoin obituaries will be written this month. Bitcoin is more resillient

https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/605155795538481152

As against his prediction, Bitcoin price went up so far in the month of June. And when everyone will think it will go up more, there will be a sudden crash.

[operrajunk74]

Histroy tells us transactions goes up whenever bitcoin price is rising. May be people are moving coins to the exchange or out of cold storage. I haven't heard any major news to trigger a climb, I think people are just more confident in the $250 support level and decides it's a good time to buy.

The average block size is still below 500k, but your screenshot does show we are close to the 1M cap.

it was so odd to see the spike today, i sold a little yesterday thinking it was going to go down a to around 224 or so.

Bitcoin trading is a variant of gambling. It is next to impossible to predict the price. Even Andreas Antonopoulos made mistake this time...

I’m not worried about a bitcoin hard fork.  I expect more panicked bitcoin obituaries will be written this month. Bitcoin is more resillient

https://twitter.com/aantonop/status/605155795538481152

As against his prediction, Bitcoin price went up so far in the month of June. And when everyone will think it will go up more, there will be a sudden crash.

Exactly I completely Agree with you. This is what history says but honestly speaking a person who have patience would surely invest at present in Bitcoins as the prices are not that higher as per the expectations and hold it for the future.

[Lauda]

I was just reading something in regards to this.

Peter Todd: Anyway, given the huge growth potential of Bitcoin and blockchain tech, if 20MB is the max limit there is a high chance we'll be seeing 20MB blocks soon; if the limit was 100MB there is a high chance we'd be seeing 100MB blocks.

However I don't see any evidence behind such a statement nor do I believe that it is true.


Looking at the blockchain, we can see that it isn't actually about the number of transactions but rather their size.



We can clearly see that some blocks are quite big but with a lower number of transactions. However someone else will have to explain this as I'm not that familiar with the blockchain. Although it could also be that someone is doing this on purpose or stress testing.

As for shorena's post, I find it really disturbing that 6k unconfirmed transactions waiting isn't that much of a number... I wasn't aware that this number was so high at times. I'm all in favor of rising block size limit, but these high numbers still shock me. Just goes on showing that people who don't want to raise the block limit aren't really thinking clearly...

This is not still clear to me. Does that graph show transactions with an included fee? If not, then it tells quite a different story.

[Spjuth]

I was just reading something in regards to this.

Peter Todd: Anyway, given the huge growth potential of Bitcoin and blockchain tech, if 20MB is the max limit there is a high chance we'll be seeing 20MB blocks soon; if the limit was 100MB there is a high chance we'd be seeing 100MB blocks.

However I don't see any evidence behind such a statement nor do I believe that it is true.


Looking at the blockchain, we can see that it isn't actually about the number of transactions but rather their size.
https://i.imgur.com/AE3pW4l.png


We can clearly see that some blocks are quite big but with a lower number of transactions. However someone else will have to explain this as I'm not that familiar with the blockchain. Although it could also be that someone is doing this on purpose or stress testing.

These addresses seems to be involved:
https://blockchain.info/address/1HRh1ec6zMBFFHZR3gnhDo9CSAXGxfXDCk
https://blockchain.info/address/19vJZjvvgMmef24h7VETTxyXzpoWoEHqvS

Public note on the transactions mention CoinWallet.eu

[kilter71]

I'd keep an eye on Greece.  It seems like the next week should bring some fireworks for Greece.  If they leave the EU and/or there are currency controls, Bitcoin is going to fly again, like when Cyprus had their financial issues.

[bitbollo]

I'd keep an eye on Greece.  It seems like the next week should bring some fireworks for Greece.  If they leave the EU and/or there are currency controls, Bitcoin is going to fly again, like when Cyprus had their financial issues.

OP,in that scenario,the price will pump more speed than the light fast!
Think about a small market liquidity in every exchange market, with a basic 5 digit order it's simple get price pump really really fast.
Today only LTC go to the moon with a +20% so far, (+70% monthly based)....

[jeannemadrigal2]

Spikes like this are the exact reason for the need of increasing the size earlier than waiting. I do wonder why there are so many transactions going about today though.

Yes exactly, and the problem is that Gavin has said that it could take some months to get the change implemented.  That is why he is pushing for action now.  If he waits then it will be too late in the future to make the change fast enough to prevent problems.  And the side chain nonsense is not ready for the prime time, I wish those guys to get rid of their conflicts and make what needs to happen for the community  in stead of lining their own pockets.

[pliv84]

The Greeks are worried that their cash is about to become worthless. Therefore, they are buying up as much gold and BTC as they can.

[grendel25]

$20 is a "spike"?  I guess I'm still spoiled by the run to $1K+.  Really though, $20 isn't a huge price spike when we're talking about bitcoin.  This thread got my hopes up but I don't really think anything today is an indication of anything big that recently happened.  There already are examples of people waiting hours and even days for transactions to process or actually fizzle out and not process at all.  So yeah, I agree something needs to be done before the masses even consider bitcoin as a mainstream finance option.  But that needed to be done years ago.

A lot more people have interest and money involved in bitcoin now than the 1000$ days, I guess a 20$ can make a lot of more people move money around.

That's interesting.  I think I see where you're coming from.  $20 is roughly 10% of the value at one recent time. So, there is that.  It's still hard to break free of my opinion that it's so volatile by nature and that the big price swings are natural for this market.

It's weird because I've really only been on the bitcoin scene about 3 years myself but I guess I am already getting client-ism where I'm so out of touch with the current actual use cases user impacts on bitcoin.