"Stress Tests", Spammers, Attacks: Burning My Butt. Very Bad.

[traderbit]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

[OROBTC]

...

traderbit

Since the attacks started, I have sent two small BTC transactions (one on July 6, one this afternoon), both with a generous BTC0.0006 (= $0.13, 13 US cents).  Both transactions were confirmed by the next block.

It does look like the way to finesse these attacks (at least for now) is just to be generous to the miners.  They have a big role in our Bitcoin Ecosystem.

Agree with above sturle's comments about BTC-friendly miners.  But, I am no expert.

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

That is true.
If you don't put something to the test, then you do not know what it can handle or not and how it will perform.
None the less, the testers did inform the community about the upcoming test.
What if it was an actual attack by a malicious party with NO warning/announcement of what's coming?

If an attacker had a large enough short position, it could be profitable for the attacker to fund a prolonged attack.

Or if some nefarious party wanted to do it for kicks. It's insanely inexpensive.

I think banning any low fee Tx is a reasonable countermeasure. Remember the so called "test" costs money to launch. I do not support asking them to stop, I support bleeding them dry if they want to continue DDOSing the blockchain.

Works for me^

[Coef]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

If your transaction is a normal one (eg. 1 input, 2 outputs, and a size of ~230 byte), then yes it will very likely get confirmed in the next block. But if your transaction has lots of inputs and outputs, then the answer would be a no.

FYI: http://bitcoinexchangerate.org/fees

Bitcoin Core Fee Estimates -------------------
Blocks ---- mBTC/KB
 1 1.35162
 6 0.58939
 12 0.26809
 24 0.05

[tspacepilot]

I've been deciding not to do anything different and I'm paying the consequences.  Small ones, but annoyances for sure.  I just realized that a transaction I sent yesterday to a cold storage address hasn't confirmed yet.  It's not really a big deal because, as I said, it's going to a savings address and it will get confirmed eventually, but it's still quite an annoyance.  27K unconfirmed is a lot.  Does anyone know yet who's behind this latest attack?

[BlindMayorBitcorn]

I've been deciding not to do anything different and I'm paying the consequences.  Small ones, but annoyances for sure.  I just realized that a transaction I sent yesterday to a cold storage address hasn't confirmed yet.  It's not really a big deal because, as I said, it's going to a savings address and it will get confirmed eventually, but it's still quite an annoyance.  27K unconfirmed is a lot.  Does anyone know yet who's behind this latest attack?

Here:

-clip-

-snip-

-nip-

-cut-

-rip-

A big chunk of them originate from this transaction: 3bad15167c60de483cd32cb990d1e46f0a0d8ab380e3fc1cace01afc9c1bb5af  if you can figure out whos exchange withdraw this-- since this key immediately began making the attack txn itself is you may have some very concrete evidence about whos attacking here.

[tspacepilot]

Thanks, I was trying to find that thread.   Cheers.

[dothebeats]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

I did a transaction on the 9th of July with only 0.0001 btc and my transaction went through and was confirmed within a span of 30 minutes. Has there been any stress testing occurring in the blockchain as of this moment?

[DooMAD]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

I did a transaction on the 9th of July with only 0.0001 btc and my transaction went through and was confirmed within a span of 30 minutes. Has there been any stress testing occurring in the blockchain as of this moment?

There's still between 13MB - 14MB of transactions queued, so unless we've seen a sudden and unexpected spike in legitimate usage (which seems an unlikely coincidence), it's fair to assume that either there's still some testing going on, or it recently finished and we haven't cleared the backlog yet.  According to statoshi, we peaked at 152 transactions per second earlier today.

[favdesu]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

I did a transaction on the 9th of July with only 0.0001 btc and my transaction went through and was confirmed within a span of 30 minutes. Has there been any stress testing occurring in the blockchain as of this moment?

There's still between 13MB - 14MB of transactions queued, so unless we've seen a sudden and unexpected spike in legitimate usage (which seems an unlikely coincidence), it's fair to assume that either there's still some testing going on, or it recently finished and we haven't cleared the backlog yet.  According to statoshi, we peaked at 152 transactions per second earlier today.

the current mempool size is around 70mb, so it's still a way to go before it's safe to use the usual fees https://tradeblock.com/blockchain

[dothebeats]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

I did a transaction on the 9th of July with only 0.0001 btc and my transaction went through and was confirmed within a span of 30 minutes. Has there been any stress testing occurring in the blockchain as of this moment?

There's still between 13MB - 14MB of transactions queued, so unless we've seen a sudden and unexpected spike in legitimate usage (which seems an unlikely coincidence), it's fair to assume that either there's still some testing going on, or it recently finished and we haven't cleared the backlog yet.  According to statoshi, we peaked at 152 transactions per second earlier today.

Hmm the transaction peak seemed to point out that there might be some testing still going on, though we cannot differentiate thoroughly what is made legitimately or what is made as a part of the testing. There are still 10000+ unconfirmed transactions as of this moment, still a 14MB transaction queue.

EDIT: 11000+ unconfirmed transactions as of this moment.

[dothebeats]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

I did a transaction on the 9th of July with only 0.0001 btc and my transaction went through and was confirmed within a span of 30 minutes. Has there been any stress testing occurring in the blockchain as of this moment?

There's still between 13MB - 14MB of transactions queued, so unless we've seen a sudden and unexpected spike in legitimate usage (which seems an unlikely coincidence), it's fair to assume that either there's still some testing going on, or it recently finished and we haven't cleared the backlog yet.  According to statoshi, we peaked at 152 transactions per second earlier today.

the current mempool size is around 70mb, so it's still a way to go before it's safe to use the usual fees https://tradeblock.com/blockchain

Yes, safe, but the consequence is you'll need to wait for longer times before you see your transaction confirmed, which is annoying and irritating. In order to get your transaction confirmed faster, you need to set a higher fee than the usual. I don't like that.

[jbreher]

If BTC were to fall to dirt cheap some day, it means people are losing faith with cryptocurrency and there is no denying that the other cryptocurrency will follow the same path as well. The altcoins are merely nothing without BTC anyway

Wrong. There is not a single older tech that has not been replaced by advanced and better tech. For example, Netscape Navigator to MS IE to Firefox to now Chrome, with Internet web-browsers.

Mmmm Hmmm. Which is why, of course, the only browser used is Chrome, having summarily eradicated all other browsers, including IE and Firefox from the face of the earth.

protip - you may want to check the following: https://www.netmarketshare.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0

Right now you can start using altcoins as a way to move BTC from exchange to exchange faster than using Bitcoin network or you can continue bitching and whinning here all you want, your choice.

Third alternative: enclose a sufficient transaction fee, and get your trasactions confirmed almost immediately. As reports of experiments directly upthread report.

Nothing more to add to this debate.

<naah... I'll refrain>

[jbreher]

Even if they get confirmed at the exact same time? Which transaction will be flagged as invalid by the network? The one with the fees or the one without fees?

It is not possible.  If they confirm in the same block, the block is invalid and will be discarded by all full nodes.

Oh now I get it. It would only be accepted by the nodes if I have sufficient balance to cover for the two transactions.

Not quite. The network knows nothing of your balance. It only knows of your unspent output. Which can only be unspent until it is spent.

[zz11]

assuming I send with a .001 (25 cents) transaction fee, my transaction should go through in one of the first blocks no?

I have been sending transactions with 0.3 mBTC and they always get included in the first block. You might need more if your transaction size is larger.