Ultimate Bitcoin Stress Test - Monday June 22nd - 13:00 GMT

[Spjuth]

just pay another couple pennies to get your transactions confirmed in the next block.

Ahh, yes. If only those 10k unconfirmed transactions had paid higher fees they would be confirmed by now.

Supply and demand would have decided which ones got including by who was willing to pay the most.

Hmm, makes me think of a different case of politically limited supply.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255693/Last-pictures-life-iron-curtain-collapse-USSR.html

[kolloh]

It will be interesting to see if this stress test brings about a solution to the block size problem. Hopefully we can find a solution to ensure that the blockchain continues to function without any issues or unnecessary delays.

[AgentofCoin]

just pay another couple pennies to get your transactions confirmed in the next block.

Ahh, yes. If only those 10k unconfirmed transactions had paid higher fees they would be confirmed by now.

Supply and demand would have decided which ones got including by who was willing to pay the most.

Yes, but if we raised the cap slightly, miners "could" fit more transactions within a block, thus clearing this backlog.
Raising your fee just places you at the top of the list. But the line is still increasing.

And in theory, if that line continued for weeks, you'd pay eventually 1btc to be at the front of that line.

That means that there would be 1 thousand other transactions every 10 minutes that were willing to pay 1 btc to have there transactions included as well.

Yeah.. great for miners, but horrible/impossible for the average user. Thus neutering Bitcoin/bitcoin.

My point is eventually the fees will continue to increase to a point that most users can not afford.
Many new and average users only own way less than 0.10 btc.

What happened to spreading Bitcoin throughout the world?
What are all those poor people in poor states gonna do now?
http://www.coindesk.com/ben-parker-bitcoin-has-potential-in-fragile-states/
Tough shit for them, I guess, eh?

Edit: spelled neutering wrong

[SuperClam]

just pay another couple pennies to get your transactions confirmed in the next block.

Ahh, yes. If only those 10k unconfirmed transactions had paid higher fees they would be confirmed by now.

Yes they will not be confirmed. We need 20 MB blocks to make spamming the network more expensive.

That is a false, or at least incomplete, argument.


The cost of spamming the network and delaying transactions is, in a simplistic representation, a function of the cost per kB and the size of the block.


This is an important distinction.

Although larger blocks would increase the cost to delay other user's transactions, the exact same result could occur from a functioning fee market.

Increasing EITHER capacity OR the cost per kB would increase cost.

The ultimate result of these two strategies is different, however.

With a larger block size, the long-term cost to the network rises.
Each kB of block chain must be stored by all of the full nodes participating in the network forever, given the current system.
Each kB of transaction stored in the chain has a very real long-term "cost".
The increased cost is permanent.

With a higher fee per kB, the short-term cost to the network rises.
Transaction fees must rise for users, in order to be included in a block, during the spam attack.
The increased cost is temporary.


This trade-off should not be underestimated.

[unamis76]

It will be interesting to see if this stress test brings about a solution to the block size problem. Hopefully we can find a solution to ensure that the blockchain continues to function without any issues or unnecessary delays.

This test isn't really going to change anything, or bring any solutions... This is only raising awareness of a problem we already know we have, it isn't proposing anything new. It's an interesting test, but with a predictable outcome for which the solution is already in discussion for quite some time, and there is already code ready to be deployed that helps prevent a situation like this.

[bri912678]

I finally understand why my transactions are delayed

Good experimentation anyway :-)

You can see how many unconfirmed transactions there are at this link.

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

There were over 10 thousand unconfirmed earlier on when no new block had been found for a long time, now there are about 7200 unconfirmed because a block was found recently.

[bri912678]

just pay another couple pennies to get your transactions confirmed in the next block.

Ahh, yes. If only those 10k unconfirmed transactions had paid higher fees they would be confirmed by now.

Yes they will not be confirmed. We need 20 MB blocks to make spamming the network more expensive.

That is a false, or at least incomplete, argument.


The cost of spamming the network and delaying transactions is, in a simplistic representation, a function of the cost per kB and the size of the block.


This is an important distinction.

Although larger blocks would increase the cost to delay other user's transactions, the exact same result could occur from a functioning fee market.

Increasing EITHER capacity OR the cost per kB would increase cost.

The ultimate result of these two strategies is different, however.

With a larger block size, the long-term cost to the network rises.
Each kB of block chain must be stored by all of the full nodes participating in the network forever, given the current system.
Each kB of transaction stored in the chain has a very real long-term "cost".
The increased cost is permanent.

With a higher fee per kB, the short-term cost to the network rises.
Transaction fees must rise for users, in order to be included in a block, during the spam attack.
The increased cost is temporary.


This trade-off should not be underestimated.

Maybe the wallets could be updated to scan for spam attacks, and in the event of one suggest paying a higher transaction fee. A message could explain the situation and suggest a higher fee for urgent transactions, or the normal fee for non-urgent transactions.

[btcfinans]

I finally understand why my transactions are delayed

Good experimentation anyway :-)

You can see how many unconfirmed transactions there are at this link.

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

There were over 10 thousand unconfirmed earlier on when no new block had been found for a long time, now there are about 7200 unconfirmed because a block was found recently.

too many to explored.
this thing will make me stressed for real.
Ultimate Bitcoin Stress Test whatsssss???
ultimate delaying yess

[Coef]

With a larger block size, the long-term cost to the network rises.
Each kB of block chain must be stored by all of the full nodes participating in the network forever, given the current system.
Each kB of transaction stored in the chain has a very real long-term "cost".
The increased cost is permanent.

Speaking of this, there will be a -prune option in 0.11 (stable version should be out soon, currently in rc2) that allows you to autoprune the old block data with wallet disabled.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/5863

Running a pruned node with wallet won't be included in 0.11 though.
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6057

[king_pin]

Those scammers CoinWallet.eu guys are really retarded!!!

I have been using Bitcoin for 3 years now, and rarely have I send a transaction without fee and almost never volume lower than 0,1 BTC!
Which means, that the 8500+ clogged transactions are only their own, mine and most other peoples transactions went thru with little to no delay.

I am pro going to 1MB Size blocks, but it is too early to speak about that.

[Velkro]

Didn't take part in it, but current test made very long queue. People waited over 3 hours for 1 confirmation.
Limit of block size must be increased ASAP.

[tspacepilot]

Didn't take part in it, but current test made very long queue. People waited over 3 hours for 1 confirmation.
Limit of block size must be increased ASAP.

Dude, I am still waiting for a confirmation from over 7 hours ago.  I sent a 551byte transaction with a 2KSat fee and I must be at the bottom of the queue or something.  I see on blockchain.info that we seem to have stabilized at about 5000 unconfimred transactions but to be honest I have no idea how this compares to historical averages because it's never been an issue getting confirmations before.

[AgentofCoin]

Didn't take part in it, but current test made very long queue. People waited over 3 hours for 1 confirmation.
Limit of block size must be increased ASAP.

Dude, I am still waiting for a confirmation from over 7 hours ago.  I sent a 551byte transaction with a 2KSat fee and I must be at the bottom of the queue or something.  I see on blockchain.info that we seem to have stabilized at about 5000 unconfimred transactions but to be honest I have no idea how this compares to historical averages because it's never been an issue getting confirmations before.

I think average is around 800 to 1300 unconfirmed transactions during normal situations. Maybe even less.

[yayayo]

It will be interesting to see if this stress test brings about a solution to the block size problem. Hopefully we can find a solution to ensure that the blockchain continues to function without any issues or unnecessary delays.

This test isn't really going to change anything, or bring any solutions... This is only raising awareness of a problem we already know we have, it isn't proposing anything new. It's an interesting test, but with a predictable outcome for which the solution is already in discussion for quite some time, and there is already code ready to be deployed that helps prevent a situation like this.

Yes, the test is meaningless - it's an annoyance aiming at price manipulation.

The solution to stop spam attacks like this is certainly not a max_blocksize increase, because even at 20x times the blocksize the resources needed to perform such an attack are still extremely small for any serious attacker.

The practical solution for now is: Prioritize your transaction by sending it with an adequate fee.

The general solution is: Increase fees for spam transactions, i.e. fees should rise non-linearly (maybe exponentially) for small-value transactions with big data size.

ya.ya.yo!

[tspacepilot]

Didn't take part in it, but current test made very long queue. People waited over 3 hours for 1 confirmation.
Limit of block size must be increased ASAP.

Dude, I am still waiting for a confirmation from over 7 hours ago.  I sent a 551byte transaction with a 2KSat fee and I must be at the bottom of the queue or something.  I see on blockchain.info that we seem to have stabilized at about 5000 unconfimred transactions but to be honest I have no idea how this compares to historical averages because it's never been an issue getting confirmations before.

I think average is around 800 to 1300 unconfirmed transactions during normal situations. Maybe even less.

Thanks that helps.  I also took a look at the number of transactions in the last few blocks and saw that they were in the hundreds (not thousands) and that also made me realize there must still be an above average queue going on here.  I see that at the moment of this post we're down to 3970 so at least things are headed in the right direction (although I'm still without a confirmation, wow).

I guess I can thank the OP's experiment for teaching me something about how many transactions are usually in a block.  And for teaching me a lesson to look up the number of waiting transactions before sending any bitcoin to make sure there's not some kind of "stress test" nonsense happening.

[monbux]

just pay another couple pennies to get your transactions confirmed in the next block.

Ahh, yes. If only those 10k unconfirmed transactions had paid higher fees they would be confirmed by now.

Supply and demand would have decided which ones got including by who was willing to pay the most.

Yes, but if we raised the cap slightly, miners "could" fit more transactions within a block, thus clearing this backlog.
Raising your fee just places you at the top of the list. But the line is still increasing.

And in theory, if that line continued for weeks, you'd pay eventually 1btc to be at the front of that line.

That means that there would be 1 thousand other transactions every 10 minutes that were willing to pay 1 btc to have there transactions included as well.

Yeah.. great for miners, but horrible/impossible for the average user. Thus nurturing Bitcoin/bitcoin.

My point is eventually the fees will continue to increase to a point that most users can not afford.
Many new and average users only own way less than 0.10 btc.

What happened to spreading Bitcoin throughout the world?
What are all those poor people in poor states gonna do now?
http://www.coindesk.com/ben-parker-bitcoin-has-potential-in-fragile-states/
Tough shit for them, I guess, eh?

That will lead to a huge decline in bitcoin... as for if it's so hard to spend, why use it at all? :-/

[tspacepilot]

That will lead to a huge decline in bitcoin... as for if it's so hard to spend, why use it at all? :-/

And I finally got a confirmation on my transaction sent with a standard fee, a total of 9 hours and 15 minutes after sending it.  Thanks stress test!

And yes, now that I know these kinds of shenanigans are being perpetrated, I'm going to be adjusting my usage accordingly.  I'm not sure that was the intended result of the stress-testers, but that's what I'm doing.  So I guess the stress-testers have achieved something in making bitcoin that much harder to use.

[CohibAA]

2) There should be some self-adjustment of fees. Clients should be
   able to inquire from the full nodes an estimate for a reasonable
   fee based on the current content of the mempool. This would allow for
   moderate fees under usual circumstances but would increase fees in
   times of flooding the blockchain with scam and would turn scamming
   into an expensive exercise.

^^ This.

If my client had warned me about the situation I would not have sent my BTC this morning.  'If my client had said "you're going to need to pay an exorbitant amount in fees if you hope to have your transaction confirmed anytime today thanks to a "stress test" that is currently being perpetrated on mainnet.' I would have appreciated the warning and cancelled the send.

I was going to play a game for 30 minutes or so before work.  Now, 4.5 hours later, my BTC is tied up in some unconfirmed transaction.  Hey, OP, uh, thanks!

Granted, you may be using a different client, but it is already possible to query the bitcoin core client (and maybe some others) to get a fee estimate (bitcoin-cli estimate fee NUMBLOCKS - where NUMBLOCKS is how many blocks you want the transactions to get one confirmation within).  I haven't really used it much, other than to put it on my node stats page, so I won't vouch for the accuracy, but the numbers look reasonable from what I have seen reported on my node.

Considering the devs cannot anticipate when an event like this will occur to put out an alert, nor do I believe it was a serious enough event to really warrant much attention, I think this is pretty fair.  Even if it was a full fledged, state sponsored attack on the network by way of flooding transactions, the core client and network seem to be working as designed.  Now, whether and how that design can be improved, there are no shortage of opinions and theories.  It's no secret that bitcoin is not ready to scale to a global sized economy yet, if ever.

[kolloh]

The cost of spamming the network and delaying transactions is, in a simplistic representation, a function of the cost per kB and the size of the block.

This is an important distinction.

Although larger blocks would increase the cost to delay other user's transactions, the exact same result could occur from a functioning fee market.

Increasing EITHER capacity OR the cost per kB would increase cost.

The ultimate result of these two strategies is different, however.

With a larger block size, the long-term cost to the network rises.
Each kB of block chain must be stored by all of the full nodes participating in the network forever, given the current system.
Each kB of transaction stored in the chain has a very real long-term "cost".
The increased cost is permanent.

With a higher fee per kB, the short-term cost to the network rises.
Transaction fees must rise for users, in order to be included in a block, during the spam attack.
The increased cost is temporary.


This trade-off should not be underestimated.

That is very true. The blockchain is already quite big as well and the storage required keeps rising. A temporary rise in fees could be interesting but would result in a more permanent rise as the number of bitcoin transactions grows with increased use I would imagine. Wasn't the idea of the "spam attack" that it was trying to simulate possible real world bitcoin activity later on in bitcoin's life?

[monsanto]

It is impossible to know with certainty, however we are anxiously looking forward to Monday.

Pretty good. lol.

Glad you liked it. It was deleted by a mod for being off-topic. How can Dr. Evil be off-topic in an Ultimate Bitcoin Stress Test thread!?