Are we stress testing again?

[tl121]

That's the problem with all these people. It's not that they can't use Bitcoin, it's that they don't know how to do it properly.
Hint: pay high enough fees and it works. In this particular situation, Bitcoin works as intended.

One may question whether the network is really robust, but the faith of the true bitcoiner will resist any reality attack.  If tomorrow a hacker steals half the coins of the world by exploting some obscure old bug in BitcoinCore that exposed their private keys; or the Chinese miners go on strike and mine only empty blocks, orphaning all other blocks; or the US government blocks all relay nodes except those run by the NSA, that filter out any contributions to Wikileaks or Snowden -- the faithful will still claim that Bitcoin worked as intended.  And they woudl be right...

You don't need to repeat your argumenta ad absurdum.

We have a fee market in some form. It means that transactions are sorted by fees; those with higher fees are more likely to get into a block. Thus, if you pay high enough fees, your tx is going to get into the next block with close to 100% probabilty (of course it's simplified). It doesn't matter how many transactios there are, if you pay high enough fees you can outbid others and get into a block. It's an economical issue, not a technical (I mean, real technical) one. So this 'stress test' doesn't expose any weaknesses in Bitcoin that we don't already know about. Honestly, it would be much more interesting to me if this attack raised the fees to really high number, but it didn't. That's if you really wanna be pedantic.

Increasing throughput is what should (IMO) be done, but there are always trade-offs, which need to be carefully managed.

A little demonstration has been necessary, presumably because there are a lot of bitcoin users and pundits who do not understand in detail how the system works, nor do they understand computer science disciplines such as queuing theory. If the spam transaction fees had been set several times the customary fees, then perhaps the recent activity could be properly called an "attack".  They were not. We experienced a "test" or, better, a "demonstration".  I would not be surprised to see a higher fee "attack" if the developers don't get their act together soon.

The real "test" is not whether bitcoin works as designed.  It clearly does.  The real "test" is of the people in the bitcoin community.   A world-wide financial system that can process less than two transactions per second is a joke. If the bitcoin community can not see this or can not manage to unite and  fix this problem, then bitcoin has been nothing more than a science project and deserves to die.

[Mikestang]

I just send 0.1 btc to an investment account using core 0.11 as my wallet, default tx fee, and it went through no problem.

[kenscho]

here after 9hours 0 confirmations...

[d4n13]

If anyone else hits trouble, I might be able to help fish them out of the mempool.  Will require that you know (or learn) how to sign a transaction.

I'm doing it to raise money for a developers bounty to encourage wallet developers to fix this.  There is a method called CPFP that could be put into wallet applications to at least give a chance of pulling these things out of the mempool.

Can't give any testimonials, I'm the only customer so far... lol.  Never thought there would be bitcoin life-gaurds.

non-profit transaction rescue service

[RoadTrain]

A little demonstration has been necessary, presumably because there are a lot of bitcoin users and pundits who do not understand in detail how the system works, nor do they understand computer science disciplines such as queuing theory. If the spam transaction fees had been set several times the customary fees, then perhaps the recent activity could be properly called an "attack".  They were not. We experienced a "test" or, better, a "demonstration".  I would not be surprised to see a higher fee "attack" if the developers don't get their act together soon.

The real "test" is not whether bitcoin works as designed.  It clearly does.  The real "test" is of the people in the bitcoin community.   A world-wide financial system that can process less than two transactions per second is a joke. If the bitcoin community can not see this or can not manage to unite and  fix this problem, then bitcoin has been nothing more than a science project and deserves to die.

I do agree with you and Jorge that it wasn't really an attack. Ok, let's call it a test. This test shows us that not everybody using Bitcoin understands it in full. That's not unexpected. What else did this test achieve? It did not show us how users behave when there's real competition for block space. It did not show us that increasing blocksize limit is a silver bullet to spam problem (quite the contrary, in fact). It also did not show us whether the devs are incapable of solving problems, because this test didn't demontrate anything serious in the first place.

Maybe I'm not seeing something, but to me this test was a waste of money.

[JorgeStolfi]

What else did this test achieve? It did not show us how users behave when there's real competition for block space.

Definitely not.

It did not show us that increasing blocksize limit is a silver bullet to spam problem (quite the contrary, in fact).

Well, if the block size limit had been 8 MB instead of 1 MB, with the same budget the "testers" would have achieved a much smaller backlog, and it would have cleared much faster.  And clients would have got faster service by paying the same fee.

There are two issues in the block size question, that must be considered separately: how will the system behave under natural growth of its "normal" traffic, and how it will behave under a malicious spam attack.  As far as I can tell, in both situations 8 Mb will be much better than 1 MB.  

An increase in the minimum fee (and making it really minimum) would also help, in both scenarios.

It also did not show us whether the devs are incapable of solving problems, because this test didn't demontrate anything serious in the first place.

Agreed.  As a test, it should have had a more useful goal than just "create a 200 MB backlog".  For this goal, it would not have been necessary to use more than the minimum fee.  Since they used higher than minimum fees, they must have had some other goal, even if unconscious.  Then they should have stated this goal explicitly and devised a fee strategy to achieve it.

Maybe I'm not seeing something, but to me this test was a waste of money.

Actually, if this theory is right (and I have no evidence that it is), it may have been profitable -- meaning that they could keep running the test for as long as they wanted, even with increasing fees, without running out of money...

[SebastianJu]

I cant believe that some claim that bitcoin is working as intended. Its simply not normal that the forum, reddit and all other places, are full of persons that are annoyed about bitcoin. What should you do with a currency you cant use?

That's the problem with all these people. It's not that they can't use Bitcoin, it's that they don't know how to do it properly.
Hint: pay high enough fees and it works. In this particular situation, Bitcoin works as intended.
PS. It might not work when Bitcoin actually saturates, and that need to be addressed. But this doesn't have much to do with this stupid attack.

And? You await that every adopter has to know these rules? Thats stupid to await and you most probably will agree. People simply want to use a currency. And even with knowing, i would have paid a higher fee, i only didnt know that there was another attack going on.

I see you dont like that attack too but what you say is that some scammers can enforce that all bitcoiners need to pay higher fees. You think thats worthwhile? Miners are greedy they want always more and they will have MUCH less when the next halving comes. And the loss in profits can never gained back with fees. That would simply be impossible. So the higher they force the fees the less likely will adoption become. I mean would you want to use a currency that is ruled by miners at the end? Wouldnt be such a big difference than using banks anymore. It should be a free currency and it shouldnt happen that someone forces everyone to his rules. Guess you think so anyway.

[Quickseller]

Anyone using bitcoin is not going to know how large a fee will need to be used to get their transaction confirmed quickly if there is always going to be a large queue. They could pay a large enough fee at one point, then others could pay an even larger fee forever for their transactions in order to get their transactions also confirmed quickly.

[SebastianJu]

so this attack raised awareness, that's another big bonus. wasn't that bad and did little harm

Just delays - no loss of money - isn't great!   Now the world knows that Bitcoin is not free anymore - it requires at least $0.03 to send a transaction --- "priceless" ?

you can still send 0 fee tx. the speed will be at SEPA/Wired level then, which is fine in my opinion. and >3 cent for a tx is still nothing

Um... no. I did not get transactions confirmed for days so that i had to doublespend after my transaction was forgotten. SEPA is faster in my experience. But even when not. Ever trusted bitcoin to get your transaction done and waited with someone you wanted to exchange bitcoins for the first confirmation? This can be hard even without a stresstest. And waiting days...

And >3 Cent for a tx is still nothing? What currency do you want? Satoshi wanted a currency free of banks. When you cant pay someone a cent for something, only because you would pay 4 in fact then this is no replacement for cash. And as far as i see we want adoption and look pitying to fiat. But fiat has a minimum of 1 Cent and it has zero fee to pay it to someone.

Or are you one of those who think bitcoin should become a high amount transaction system? It wouldnt meet what satoshi intended in my eyes. Its my personal view and i think bitcoin should be open to everyone and not that the poor have to use some inferior coin.

[SebastianJu]

An alternative theory is that Coinwallet.eu was financed by some "benevolent" entity or individual who thinks that the current fees are too low and wanted to force the developers, miners, and nodes to raise them.

Are Hearn and Gavin rich early adopters? I mean they really want their client to start up. Marketing campaign. Though i wonder where they want to get the profit from. Donations for development of the client?

[SebastianJu]

A little demonstration has been necessary, presumably because there are a lot of bitcoin users and pundits who do not understand in detail how the system works, nor do they understand computer science disciplines such as queuing theory. If the spam transaction fees had been set several times the customary fees, then perhaps the recent activity could be properly called an "attack".  They were not. We experienced a "test" or, better, a "demonstration".  I would not be surprised to see a higher fee "attack" if the developers don't get their act together soon.

The real "test" is not whether bitcoin works as designed.  It clearly does.  The real "test" is of the people in the bitcoin community.   A world-wide financial system that can process less than two transactions per second is a joke. If the bitcoin community can not see this or can not manage to unite and  fix this problem, then bitcoin has been nothing more than a science project and deserves to die.

I do agree with you and Jorge that it wasn't really an attack. Ok, let's call it a test.

Nah... i cant get this being called a test. They dont use testnet or something, they attack a life working economy. Its like ddosing paypal or something. Payments cant happen or are delayed. And everyone would see that its an attack. It doesnt matter what intentions the attacker have. The result is an attack.

[RoadTrain]

I cant believe that some claim that bitcoin is working as intended. Its simply not normal that the forum, reddit and all other places, are full of persons that are annoyed about bitcoin. What should you do with a currency you cant use?

That's the problem with all these people. It's not that they can't use Bitcoin, it's that they don't know how to do it properly.
Hint: pay high enough fees and it works. In this particular situation, Bitcoin works as intended.
PS. It might not work when Bitcoin actually saturates, and that need to be addressed. But this doesn't have much to do with this stupid attack.

And? You await that every adopter has to know these rules? Thats stupid to await and you most probably will agree. People simply want to use a currency. And even with knowing, i would have paid a higher fee, i only didnt know that there was another attack going on.

I see you dont like that attack too but what you say is that some scammers can enforce that all bitcoiners need to pay higher fees. You think thats worthwhile? Miners are greedy they want always more and they will have MUCH less when the next halving comes. And the loss in profits can never gained back with fees. That would simply be impossible. So the higher they force the fees the less likely will adoption become. I mean would you want to use a currency that is ruled by miners at the end? Wouldnt be such a big difference than using banks anymore. It should be a free currency and it shouldnt happen that someone forces everyone to his rules. Guess you think so anyway.

They might not know all the rules, that's understandable. That's why Bitcoin Core has the fee estimation mechanism that aids in selecting correct fee. It's bad that other clients do not have one, and that mechanism might not be perfect, but it's not a protocol problem.

Nah... i cant get this being called a test. They dont use testnet or something, they attack a life working economy. Its like ddosing paypal or something. Payments cant happen or are delayed. And everyone would see that its an attack. It doesnt matter what intentions the attacker have. The result is an attack.

JorgeStolfi has already explained why it's not an attack, at least not a malicious one. You might not agree, of course.

And >3 Cent for a tx is still nothing? What currency do you want? Satoshi wanted a currency free of banks. When you cant pay someone a cent for something, only because you would pay 4 in fact then this is no replacement for cash. And as far as i see we want adoption and look pitying to fiat. But fiat has a minimum of 1 Cent and it has zero fee to pay it to someone.

Satoshi wanted a currency free of banks, but it doesn't mean it should be free. I can understand if you somehow want Bitcoin to be everything: trustless, anonymous, robust and cheap. But reality is that there are trade-offs between these properties. And we might never see all them at once. I personally value its trustlessness the most.

[RealMalatesta]

Coinwallet.eu, the somewhat mysterious entity doing the "stress test", said that they had 5000 EUR budgeted for it.  Transaction fees were ~20 BTC/day just before the test; they have increased by 10 + 25 + 30 + 22 + 22 = 107 BTC over the 5 days since it started, with would be ~30'000 EUR (or USD) at the current price.  However, many client have had to increase the fees on their own transactions in order to get them through the backlog.  So it is possible that Coinwallet only spent 5000 EUR while the legitimate users spent 25'000 EUR.

Well, I tried a couple of times to use coinwallet.eu. However, if you want to send them money for buying Bitcoins - they just ignore you. This company does not exist. It is a scam, and I wouldn't be wondering if they sooner or later come forward, asking for money to stop the attack. Surely, they really are only testing for then starting their real attack.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

Still running at around 11,000 unconfirmed transactions - https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

This seems to have become the norm now, my memory is terrible but I swear the average used to be somewhere between 500 - 3000 at any one time. It's terrible really, how long are these stress tests spam attacks set to go on for?

[Meuh6879]

It's terrible really, how long are these stress tests spam attacks set to go on for?

per nature, if all miners accept no fees transactions ... it can long infinity of time.
but, if you want a "free" payment network ... you must accept this.

so, what ?
fees for a transaction have rise to the 2014 level ... it's all.

not a big deal.
even when you compare paypal/WU fees ... 

[Mikestang]

Still running at around 11,000 unconfirmed transactions - https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

This seems to have become the norm now, my memory is terrible but I swear the average used to be somewhere between 500 - 3000 at any one time. It's terrible really, how long are these stress tests spam attacks set to go on for?

I hope all the garbage stays unconfirmed, there's no reason to fill blocks with the "test spam".  Let all those tx sit in limbo while us regular folk go about our business.  I use normal tx fees and have not had one issue since the spam tests started.

If this was a test it proved nothing.

If this was an attack it was poorly executed and failed.

[LFC_Bitcoin]

It's terrible really, how long are these stress tests spam attacks set to go on for?

per nature, if all miners accept no fees transactions ... it can long infinity of time.
but, if you want a "free" payment network ... you must accept this.

so, what ?
fees for a transaction have rise to the 2014 level ... it's all.

not a big deal.
even when you compare paypal/WU fees ...  

Oh I totally agree, I think transactions with no fee should be outlawed any way. Like you said the recommended fee per transaction is minimal in comparison to other methods of transferring money any way.

I hope all the garbage stays unconfirmed, there's no reason to fill blocks with the "test spam".  Let all those tx sit in limbo while us regular folk go about our business. 

+1

[turvarya]

I am wondering, what the "real" current backlog is. Blockchain.info and tradeblock.com always showed different sizes, always more than 10 MB(when I looked) and still Bitcoin seemed to work normal. I even send a 0-fee transaction 3 days ago, which went into the next block(yes, I am a cheap bastard, who still sends 0-fee-transactions from time to time).
Are there any sites with real-time predictions about how many of this transactions will fall out of the mempool(s) since no miner will mine them?

[d4n13]

I am wondering, what the "real" current backlog is. Blockchain.info and tradeblock.com always showed different sizes, always more than 10 MB(when I looked) and still Bitcoin seemed to work normal. I even send a 0-fee transaction 3 days ago, which went into the next block(yes, I am a cheap bastard, who still sends 0-fee-transactions from time to time).
Are there any sites with real-time predictions about how many of this transactions will fall out of the mempool(s) since no miner will mine them?

Best Stats: http://statoshi.info/

Best mempool info: https://tradeblock.com/blockchain/

[SebastianJu]

I cant believe that some claim that bitcoin is working as intended. Its simply not normal that the forum, reddit and all other places, are full of persons that are annoyed about bitcoin. What should you do with a currency you cant use?

That's the problem with all these people. It's not that they can't use Bitcoin, it's that they don't know how to do it properly.
Hint: pay high enough fees and it works. In this particular situation, Bitcoin works as intended.
PS. It might not work when Bitcoin actually saturates, and that need to be addressed. But this doesn't have much to do with this stupid attack.

And? You await that every adopter has to know these rules? Thats stupid to await and you most probably will agree. People simply want to use a currency. And even with knowing, i would have paid a higher fee, i only didnt know that there was another attack going on.

I see you dont like that attack too but what you say is that some scammers can enforce that all bitcoiners need to pay higher fees. You think thats worthwhile? Miners are greedy they want always more and they will have MUCH less when the next halving comes. And the loss in profits can never gained back with fees. That would simply be impossible. So the higher they force the fees the less likely will adoption become. I mean would you want to use a currency that is ruled by miners at the end? Wouldnt be such a big difference than using banks anymore. It should be a free currency and it shouldnt happen that someone forces everyone to his rules. Guess you think so anyway.

They might not know all the rules, that's understandable. That's why Bitcoin Core has the fee estimation mechanism that aids in selecting correct fee. It's bad that other clients do not have one, and that mechanism might not be perfect, but it's not a protocol problem.

Right, but its a Bitcoin Problem. At the end its all Bitcoin and when bitcoin has a problem then it doesnt matter anymore that the mainclient has a way to prevent this. You see all these threads on here and on reddit? Imagine how many persons found bitcoin and... it does not work. Great experience. And surely not helpful for adoption. While adoption is the only thing that could help miners to earn considerable amounts of fees in the future.

Nah... i cant get this being called a test. They dont use testnet or something, they attack a life working economy. Its like ddosing paypal or something. Payments cant happen or are delayed. And everyone would see that its an attack. It doesnt matter what intentions the attacker have. The result is an attack.

JorgeStolfi has already explained why it's not an attack, at least not a malicious one. You might not agree, of course.

Yes, i dont agree. At this point many start to doubt that its only to force a higher block count. It might be to force higher fees.

And >3 Cent for a tx is still nothing? What currency do you want? Satoshi wanted a currency free of banks. When you cant pay someone a cent for something, only because you would pay 4 in fact then this is no replacement for cash. And as far as i see we want adoption and look pitying to fiat. But fiat has a minimum of 1 Cent and it has zero fee to pay it to someone.

Satoshi wanted a currency free of banks, but it doesn't mean it should be free. I can understand if you somehow want Bitcoin to be everything: trustless, anonymous, robust and cheap. But reality is that there are trade-offs between these properties. And we might never see all them at once. I personally value its trustlessness the most.

So? What does it matter when you name the bank only differently? He wanted a currency that isnt controlled by somebody. It doesnt matter who controls it. How its named.

Seeing that its possible to force all bitcoiners using higher fees is somewhat disturbing. And it seems it doesnt even cost much to do so.