Are we stress testing again?

[el kaka22]

I bet first this guy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=154254) (Yes, TKeenan) will come here and post something like that "Hey, let's use bigger blocks, don't you see we need it right now!"

I'm still thinking Gavin is doing such spamming.

Also how the hell is that possible?
This tx broadcasted (spammed network) and  get accepted immediately; https://blockchain.info/tx/5f475e567548232d3b9f395b941c2ca8584df68492bd586937cd8d08f96c30e7
It's outputs are lower than the min limit...

Each block has a FIFO area in size where it accepts tx for free. do you mean DUST got accepted?

Now the dust is meaning amount less than 546 satoshis, not 5460 anymore. So since the smallest output is 1000 satoshi which is larger than the spam threshold, it is relayed and accepted in a block. Also, it pays 0.0002 for the ~500B tx, which is higher than normal (0.0001). So miners 'like' it and hence take it.

[Erza]

Does anyone know who is making this stress test?

Someone call the authorities and track down these transactions.   </endassclown comments>

No, I don't think anyone knows the source of the spam/stress test this time around. Someone with a decent amount of funds and a motivation to force some improvements, I'd say.

Do you mean that this was happened before? And this same attacked hit blockchain twice? They did not update a good wall to protect this attack? But

what the purpose of doing this attack? They will get the effect too for making this attack

[favdesu]

I don't see a reason behind this attack. Nodes and miner will stop accepting 0 fee spam TX and that's it.

[Amitabh S]

Which website shows the correct size of mempool? blockchain.info seems to be giving different number than whats being stated here.

[fairglu]

Which website shows the correct size of mempool? blockchain.info seems to be giving different number than whats being stated here.

There is no "correct size", it depends on what the node has seen since it has been restarted, custom settings, propagation & relaying delays etc.

[Amph]

Does anyone know who is making this stress test?

Someone call the authorities and track down these transactions.   </endassclown comments>

No, I don't think anyone knows the source of the spam/stress test this time around. Someone with a decent amount of funds and a motivation to force some improvements, I'd say.

he have a point, with the current bitcoin limit, bitcoin can not go anywhere, all major merchants are not willing to adopt something that could limit their poteantial revenue if implementend among their accepted payments

[johnyj]

And the exchange rate just jumped. This again proved that bitcoin's value is not mainly decided by its payment function, but investment and speculation, both do not require a high transaction frequency, and can afford to pay a high fee to get the payment done when needed

The other use cases are international remittance and drug dealing, again both are typical large transactions over $50, so even the fee rises to $1 (e.g. 0.003 btc), it is still acceptable

[favdesu]

And the exchange rate just jumped. This again proved that bitcoin's value is not mainly decided by its payment function, but investment and speculation, both do not require a high transaction frequency, and can afford to pay a high fee to get the payment done when needed

The other use cases are international remittance and drug dealing, again both are typical large transactions over $50, so even the fee rises to $1 (e.g. 0.003 btc), it is still acceptable

any payment that clears faster then 24 hours with $0.10 fee is incredible. so whatever happens to the attack, you can always clear a TX faster with a little higher tx fee.

[cakir]

I bet first this guy (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=154254) (Yes, TKeenan) will come here and post something like that "Hey, let's use bigger blocks, don't you see we need it right now!"

I'm still thinking Gavin is doing such spamming.

Also how the hell is that possible?
This tx broadcasted (spammed network) and  get accepted immediately; https://blockchain.info/tx/5f475e567548232d3b9f395b941c2ca8584df68492bd586937cd8d08f96c30e7
It's outputs are lower than the min limit...

Each block has a FIFO area in size where it accepts tx for free. do you mean DUST got accepted?

Now the dust is meaning amount less than 546 satoshis, not 5460 anymore. So since the smallest output is 1000 satoshi which is larger than the spam threshold, it is relayed and accepted in a block. Also, it pays 0.0002 for the ~500B tx, which is higher than normal (0.0001). So miners 'like' it and hence take it.

When it was reduced from 5430 satoshi to 543 satoshi? Can you provide me github push about it?
AFAIK it's still 5430 satoshi.

[dothebeats]

And the exchange rate just jumped. This again proved that bitcoin's value is not mainly decided by its payment function, but investment and speculation, both do not require a high transaction frequency, and can afford to pay a high fee to get the payment done when needed

The other use cases are international remittance and drug dealing, again both are typical large transactions over $50, so even the fee rises to $1 (e.g. 0.003 btc), it is still acceptable

any payment that clears faster then 24 hours with $0.10 fee is incredible. so whatever happens to the attack, you can always clear a TX faster with a little higher tx fee.

Mine was confirmed within 1 hour, but that transaction was made on the 9th of July, with only $0.03 worth of fee. Is there any stress testing happening as of this moment?

[NeuroticFish]

Mine was confirmed within 1 hour, but that transaction was made on the 9th of July, with only $0.03 worth of fee. Is there any stress testing happening as of this moment?

Nope, but the network seems to be recovering rather slow.
There are still 9-10k unconfirmed transactions, most of those being (chain.so tells) ~32h old.

[dothebeats]

Mine was confirmed within 1 hour, but that transaction was made on the 9th of July, with only $0.03 worth of fee. Is there any stress testing happening as of this moment?

Nope, but the network seems to be recovering rather slow.
There are still 9-10k unconfirmed transactions, most of those being (chain.so tells) ~32h old.

That is odd. Why is mine confirmed that fast when I only put 0.0001 fees on it? As long as those transactions are confirmed, it should be fine all in all. I think, we are not ready for a huge volume of transactions in the near future. As I can see it, we cannot handle VISA-level transactions.

[Quickseller]

Mine was confirmed within 1 hour, but that transaction was made on the 9th of July, with only $0.03 worth of fee. Is there any stress testing happening as of this moment?

Nope, but the network seems to be recovering rather slow.
There are still 9-10k unconfirmed transactions, most of those being (chain.so tells) ~32h old.

That is odd. Why is mine confirmed that fast when I only put 0.0001 fees on it? As long as those transactions are confirmed, it should be fine all in all. I think, we are not ready for a huge volume of transactions in the near future. As I can see it, we cannot handle VISA-level transactions.

Because your transaction most likely has a higher ratio of fees to bites the transaction will fill up.

As of right now the mempool is over 126 MB, meaning if no one sends any additional transactions to the network it will take at least 126 additional blocks to clear out the mempool:

Code:

quickseller@quickseller1:~$ date
Fri Jul 10 14:22:10 EDT 2015
quickseller@quickseller1:~$ bitcoin-cli getmempoolinfo
{
    "size" : 41682,
    "bytes" : 126584240
}

I think it should be pretty clear that the obvious solution would be to raise the block limit substantially.

[dothebeats]

Mine was confirmed within 1 hour, but that transaction was made on the 9th of July, with only $0.03 worth of fee. Is there any stress testing happening as of this moment?

Nope, but the network seems to be recovering rather slow.
There are still 9-10k unconfirmed transactions, most of those being (chain.so tells) ~32h old.

That is odd. Why is mine confirmed that fast when I only put 0.0001 fees on it? As long as those transactions are confirmed, it should be fine all in all. I think, we are not ready for a huge volume of transactions in the near future. As I can see it, we cannot handle VISA-level transactions.

Because your transaction most likely has a higher ratio of fees to bites the transaction will fill up.

As of right now the mempool is over 126 MB, meaning if no one sends any additional transactions to the network it will take at least 126 additional blocks to clear out the mempool:

Code:

quickseller@quickseller1:~$ date
Fri Jul 10 14:22:10 EDT 2015
quickseller@quickseller1:~$ bitcoin-cli getmempoolinfo
{
    "size" : 41682,
    "bytes" : 126584240
}

I think it should be pretty clear that the obvious solution would be to raise the block limit substantially.

Maybe that was the case. Btw where are you viewing the current mempool of the network? I'm seeing 73.00 MB here in tradeblock.

[NeuroticFish]

Mine was confirmed within 1 hour, but that transaction was made on the 9th of July, with only $0.03 worth of fee. Is there any stress testing happening as of this moment?

Nope, but the network seems to be recovering rather slow.
There are still 9-10k unconfirmed transactions, most of those being (chain.so tells) ~32h old.

That is odd. Why is mine confirmed that fast when I only put 0.0001 fees on it? As long as those transactions are confirmed, it should be fine all in all. I think, we are not ready for a huge volume of transactions in the near future. As I can see it, we cannot handle VISA-level transactions.

Because your transaction most likely has a higher ratio of fees to bites the transaction will fill up.

As of right now the mempool is over 126 MB, meaning if no one sends any additional transactions to the network it will take at least 126 additional blocks to clear out the mempool:

Code:

quickseller@quickseller1:~$ date
Fri Jul 10 14:22:10 EDT 2015
quickseller@quickseller1:~$ bitcoin-cli getmempoolinfo
{
    "size" : 41682,
    "bytes" : 126584240
}

I think it should be pretty clear that the obvious solution would be to raise the block limit substantially.

Yes, I also think that, unfortunately, Bitcoin is not ready yet.

Quickseller, I tend to disagree.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Last blocks (chain.so, sorry for the not-so-great formatting)

Code:

Block #	Age			Miner			Transactions	Size
364,739	23 minutes		1FeDtFhA...		1,445	998.13 kb
364,738	31 minutes		F2pool (Discus Fish)	243	98.93 kb
364,737	33 minutes		F2pool (Discus Fish)	1,421	377.32 kb
364,736	37 minutes		1JaxbrU7...		701	415.91 kb
364,735	44 minutes		F2pool (Discus Fish)	1,677	358.95 kb
364,734	about an hour		16EW6Rv9...		452	801.47 kb
364,733	about an hour		1M5hoG1p...		1	0.21 kb
364,732	about an hour		21 Inc.			1,107	749.18 kb
364,731	about an hour		BTCChina Pool		1,857	949.20 kb
364,730	about an hour		F2pool (Discus Fish)	4,234	999.96 kb

So while some pools "do their best" and process up to 999.96 Kb (!!!), some get the easy "finder's prize" and that's all.
Is it me or this can / has to be fixed and fast?

If all pools would have been .. fair with the network, all should have gotten as much as possible and the stash of "unconfirmed" would have dropped to normal by now, without bigger block size.

edit: improved the formatting

[Mikestang]

Because your transaction most likely has a higher ratio of fees to bites the transaction will fill up.

As of right now the mempool is over 126 MB, meaning if no one sends any additional transactions to the network it will take at least 126 additional blocks to clear out the mempool:

Code:

quickseller@quickseller1:~$ date
Fri Jul 10 14:22:10 EDT 2015
quickseller@quickseller1:~$ bitcoin-cli getmempoolinfo
{
    "size" : 41682,
    "bytes" : 126584240
}

I think it should be pretty clear that the obvious solution would be to raise the block limit substantially.


Yes, I also think that, unfortunately, Bitcoin is not ready yet.

Quickseller, I tend to disagree.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Last blocks (chain.so, sorry for the not-so-great formatting)

Code:

Block #	Age			Miner			Transactions	Size
364,739	23 minutes		1FeDtFhA...		1,445	998.13 kb
364,738	31 minutes		F2pool (Discus Fish)	243	98.93 kb
364,737	33 minutes		F2pool (Discus Fish)	1,421	377.32 kb
364,736	37 minutes		1JaxbrU7...		701	415.91 kb
364,735	44 minutes		F2pool (Discus Fish)	1,677	358.95 kb
364,734	about an hour		16EW6Rv9...		452	801.47 kb
364,733	about an hour		1M5hoG1p...		1	0.21 kb
364,732	about an hour		21 Inc.			1,107	749.18 kb
364,731	about an hour		BTCChina Pool		1,857	949.20 kb
364,730	about an hour		F2pool (Discus Fish)	4,234	999.96 kb

So while some pools "do their best" and process up to 999.96 Kb (!!!), some get the easy "finder's prize" and that's all.
Is it me or this can / has to be fixed and fast?

If all pools would have been .. fair with the network, all should have gotten as much as possible and the stash of "unconfirmed" would have dropped to normal by now, without bigger block size.

edit: improved the formatting

Lots of this discussion in the recent empty block thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1085800.0

[Hollingsworth]

This problem was addressed and fixed with litecoin years ago.

LTC dev, Coblee advised bitcoin devs about this but no one listened.

If this problem persists, there is an alternative coin on standby ready to go.

[JorgeStolfi]

No, I don't think anyone knows the source of the spam/stress test this time around. Someone with a decent amount of funds and a motivation to force some improvements, I'd say.

The first test was done by a bunch of volunteers recruited informally through an /r/bitcoin thread.  Each volunteer tried to spam transactions on his own, within a specified 1-hour window (that became 2-3 hours actually) on a Friday night.

The second test, about 2 weeks ago, was started by an entity called "coinwallet.eu".  They described their plans on /r/bitcoin.  They had a 5000 euro budget.  That attempt was aborted after spending ~500 euros because their scripts/servers could not handle the load.  They also realized that their fees were too low.  They promised to retry in a couple of weeks.

This must be their promised retry.  Their goal is to get 250 MB of unconfirmed transactions in the queues.  They got already over 100 MB and the backlog is still growing.  The network could theoretically process 1 MB (~2500 tx) every 10 minutes, but the miners have been processing only ~0.5 MB (~1300 tx) of transactions per block, on average, even when the queues are fulll; and the normal traffic has been using ~0.32 MB (~800 tx) lately.  Therefore, once the test traffic ends, it will take ~1400 blocks (~10 days) to clear the backlog.

Apparently they are sometimes using more than the standard fees, but (most of the time) they don't seem to be adjusting the fees to aggressively keep normal traffic blocked.  That is, legitimate transactions that pay 2-3 times the standard fee are apparently able to jump the queue and get confirmed in the next block or two.

Not all the extra traffic is theirs.  Many of their transactions send many very small amounts to Wikileaks, charitable organizations, or addresses with well-known private keys.  As the recipients of those micro-donations collect them, their transactions add to the test traffic.

[EternalWingsofGod]

No, I don't think anyone knows the source of the spam/stress test this time around. Someone with a decent amount of funds and a motivation to force some improvements, I'd say.

This must be their promised retry.  Their goal is to get 250 MB of unconfirmed transactions in the queues.  They got already over 100 MB and the backlog is still growing.  The network could theoretically process 1 MB (~2500 tx) every 10 minutes, but the miners have been processing only ~0.5 MB (~1300 tx) of transactions per block, on average, even when the queues are fulll; and the normal traffic has been using ~0.32 MB (~800 tx) lately.  Therefore, once the test traffic ends, it will take ~1400 blocks (~10 days) to clear the backlog.

Not all the extra traffic is theirs.  Many of their transactions send many very small amounts to Wikileaks, charitable organizations, or addresses with well-known private keys.  As the recipients of those micro-donations collect them, their transactions add to the test traffic.

Well the transactions are going to charity although it seems to be causing a mess
I was wondering when people refer to the backlog where do you find the chart that measures the amount of data.
Just wanted to check if I was looking at the right place https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

[XCASH]

No, I don't think anyone knows the source of the spam/stress test this time around. Someone with a decent amount of funds and a motivation to force some improvements, I'd say.

This must be their promised retry.  Their goal is to get 250 MB of unconfirmed transactions in the queues.  They got already over 100 MB and the backlog is still growing.  The network could theoretically process 1 MB (~2500 tx) every 10 minutes, but the miners have been processing only ~0.5 MB (~1300 tx) of transactions per block, on average, even when the queues are fulll; and the normal traffic has been using ~0.32 MB (~800 tx) lately.  Therefore, once the test traffic ends, it will take ~1400 blocks (~10 days) to clear the backlog.

Not all the extra traffic is theirs.  Many of their transactions send many very small amounts to Wikileaks, charitable organizations, or addresses with well-known private keys.  As the recipients of those micro-donations collect them, their transactions add to the test traffic.

Well the transactions are going to charity although it seems to be causing a mess
I was wondering when people refer to the backlog where do you find the chart that measures the amount of data.
Just wanted to check if I was looking at the right place https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

You can see the number of unconfirmed transactions at blockchain.info but if you also want to check the size of the mempool then click this link.

https://tradeblock.com/blockchain/

After clicking the link select the table button to get this view.



It shows the mempool is 77.789309 MB in size as of today. That's about a third of the 250 MB size the stress testers want to push it to.