Micro Payments Dead?

[JPage]

One of the very big hopes for Bitcoin was the notion of enabling 'micropayments'.  Today, one can't practically pay 50 cents with Visa because there is a 30 cent swipe fee and a percent fee on top. 

However, now with the stalwarts of 1MB blocksize limits, it looks like we are going to have to start setting our miners fees to (remarkably enough): 30 cents. 

Does this spell an end to micropayments? 

[1715206239]

1715206239

[AgentofCoin]

One of the very big hopes for Bitcoin was the notion of enabling 'micropayments'.  Today, one can't practically pay 50 cents with Visa because there is a 30 cent swipe fee and a percent fee on top. 

However, now with the stalwarts of 1MB blocksize limits, it looks like we are going to have to start setting our miners fees to (remarkably enough): 30 cents. 

Does this spell an end to micropayments? 

Only time will tell.
I believe micro-payments are what will really push Bitcoin/bitcoin to mass adoption one day.
Any amount, around the world, any time, without trusted parties. That is special.
But as I have said, only time will tell.

[JPage]

One of the very big hopes for Bitcoin was the notion of enabling 'micropayments'.  Today, one can't practically pay 50 cents with Visa because there is a 30 cent swipe fee and a percent fee on top. 

However, now with the stalwarts of 1MB blocksize limits, it looks like we are going to have to start setting our miners fees to (remarkably enough): 30 cents. 

Does this spell an end to micropayments? 

Only time will tell.
I believe micro-payments are what will really push Bitcoin/bitcoin to mass adoption one day.
Any amount, around the world, any time, without trusted parties. That is special.
But as I have said, only time will tell.

Machine-to-machine payments are hugely important concept.  This will be totally suppressed if we get stuck with the same high transaction fees that Visa has.  Side chains tend to be unreliable and proprietary letting a 'middle man' tax traffic on that medium.  I think we should be careful to preserve the notion of micropayments and let blocksize go to 20MB to avoid log jams and corresponding high miner fees.

[uknohowwedo]

micro payments? cmon give me a break this is true degennery

[Meuh6879]

miner fees : 0,4 mBTC
http://bitcoinexchangerate.org/fees



but, that, it's to use the next block ...
and micro-payment don't say that it's for the next block ...



that is the key.

[giustone]

Hi

For micropayments you can use service like xapo wallet,or send bitcoin with a low fee,and wait 3-4 days for confirmation.

[gentlemand]

We don't know how side chains will work yet. They might be flawless or a load of shit. Off chain payments are already here but that's far from ideal.

If Bitcoin can't pull off micro payments then you can guarantee that there'll be some other system that can. It's too important and useful to disregard and might spell the beginning of Bitcoin's slide into the history books if it isn't addressed.

[Hazir]

Hi

For micropayments you can use service like xapo wallet,or send bitcoin with a low fee,and wait 3-4 days for confirmation.

It is useless, micropayments are usually used to pay for some services like access to website, items in online games or stuff of that nature.
You pay and you want to have that access/item/service available for you right away. Waiting for it couple days - and in addition using xapo wallet is contradiction in my opinion.
Bitcoin transfer fee will be lower that credit card/paypal still so we have nothing to worry about.

[PolarPoint]

I think we are better off leaving micro payments to shared wallets like xapo. It is costly and inefficient to send on chain micro payments. We could have side chains to handle micro payments but that is too distant. I think micro payment is not crucial to mass adoption. I am prepared to forego that for less spam on the blockchain.

[jeannemadrigal2]

One of the very big hopes for Bitcoin was the notion of enabling 'micropayments'.  Today, one can't practically pay 50 cents with Visa because there is a 30 cent swipe fee and a percent fee on top. 

However, now with the stalwarts of 1MB blocksize limits, it looks like we are going to have to start setting our miners fees to (remarkably enough): 30 cents. 

Does this spell an end to micropayments? 

Only time will tell.
I believe micro-payments are what will really push Bitcoin/bitcoin to mass adoption one day.
Any amount, around the world, any time, without trusted parties. That is special.
But as I have said, only time will tell.

This is why it needs to be addressed.  Why allow a problematic weakness when it can be easily solved?  IMO micro payments are an important part of the bitcoin ecosystem.  We need them for wider adoption.  And having the fee the same as visa is just depressing.  We are supposed to be better than those guys right?

[|Bitcoin|]

Micropayment is not going to be death as long as bitcoin have people like you and me
 Even if it fail we have many altcoin for micropayment like the very popular dogecoin and litecoin.

[harrymmmm]

Don't you guys read anything?
Micropayments are already happening in streamium, and things like Lightning network are on the way.
Payment channels are all the rage!

[aso118]

One of the very big hopes for Bitcoin was the notion of enabling 'micropayments'.  Today, one can't practically pay 50 cents with Visa because there is a 30 cent swipe fee and a percent fee on top. 

However, now with the stalwarts of 1MB blocksize limits, it looks like we are going to have to start setting our miners fees to (remarkably enough): 30 cents. 

Does this spell an end to micropayments? 

With the stress testing coming to an end, transactions should start flowing as usual, shouldn't they?
The number of unconfirmed transactions is ~2K, which is not huge.
Having said that, the block size debate will continue and the block size will eventually have to be raised.

[Sourgummies]

Also need ed for new business ideas. Lot of these app games have their own markets, which could really work well with micro payments.

[Dire]

Micro payments is so important. There are just so many avenues that open up when micro payments are enabled, they'll be a lot of growth there. A whole lot of things related to tint smart contracts that will be automatically set (for the user) that'll enable them to do many new things.

It would be a shame if Bitcoin doesn't optimize for that. It needs to, one way or another, because if it doesn't, that's a big chunk of actual/potential value taken out of your BTC, and something else (alt coin/other) will definitely capitalize on that.

[14Activity]

I do not think the bitcoin developers will want to stop micro paying. I think they are coming up with a better idea. Bitcoin developers is very smart.

[Soros Shorts]

I believe that micro transactions are very important to Bitcoin adoption. However, having a global flat ledger where everyone needs to see every stinking 50 cent transaction is a stupid design. Right now if my bitcoind crashes it takes 2 days to re-index the blocks on disk before the node is fully online again - so increasing block size beyond 1MB should really be done as a last resort. We need a better architecture than simply crying out to increase the block limit every time there are too many unconfirmed transactions. I mean, should we increase taxes every time the government can't balance their budget?

[LiteCoinGuy]

One of the very big hopes for Bitcoin was the notion of enabling 'micropayments'.  Today, one can't practically pay 50 cents with Visa because there is a 30 cent swipe fee and a percent fee on top. 

However, now with the stalwarts of 1MB blocksize limits, it looks like we are going to have to start setting our miners fees to (remarkably enough): 30 cents. 

Does this spell an end to micropayments? 

no buddy, because we will raise the blocksize. bitcoin is for the people. sent 3 cents or 3 mio - your choice.

[xhoneyael]

there are some wallet that dont charge fees..
but takes time to confirm..
it up to you if you want fast transaction pay fee..
or if you want to save you can try some web wallet

[Kprawn]

I cannot see how this is a problem now... Yesterday I have made 3 transactions and the average fee for the 3 transactions was 0,07915 USD. Where are you getting the 0.30 cents from?

I did not even have to wait a long time for the confirmations.. {within 30 minutes there were 12 confirmations}

That address is also full of dust payments from faucets I experimented with, so it should have been expensive, but it was not. The only thing periodically pushing the fee's up, is

the people doing these fake stress tests to force people to pay higher fees. This is still way cheaper than any other bank I have dealt with or credit card fees. 

If this is a real issue for you.... use Xapo. {zero fees}