Bitcoin transfers getting more expensive

[AngelusWebDesign]

Everyone talks about how "no problem if BTC goes to $100 -- you can work out transactions to however many decimal places you want."

But why does the Bitcoin client require a minimum of .01 BTC to transfer money?

That used to be pretty small -- about 6 cents. Now it's 17 cents! It's becoming greater and greater.

And the 10-million-dollar question: WHO gets that money?

Don't say "the people providing the hashing power" because most people are part of pools, and as far as I know, the pools don't divvy up those fees to their members -- they only deal with shares.

Have I stumbled upon the real cash cow of the various pools -- a bonus income if you will? Is this why some pools offer 0% commission? Because they're getting these .01 BTC payments, which is enough to buy a few beers?

[NetTecture]

Everyone talks about how "no problem if BTC goes to $100 -- you can work out transactions to however many decimal places you want."

But why does the Bitcoin client require a minimum of .01 BTC to transfer money?

That used to be pretty small -- about 6 cents. Now it's 17 cents! It's becoming greater and greater.

And the 10-million-dollar question: WHO gets that money?

Don't say "the people providing the hashing power" because most people are part of pools, and as far as I know, the pools don't divvy up those fees to their members -- they only deal with shares.

Have I stumbled upon the real cash cow of the various pools -- a bonus income if you will? Is this why some pools offer 0% commission? Because they're getting these .01 BTC payments, which is enough to buy a few beers?

Well, first - tx fees are actually allowed smaller, and the next client allows 0.005 So, it is just right now that smaller deals are not used.

Second.... they go to who solves the block. Mostly a pool which does NOT turn that over to the members but uses it to help finance - not that it is a lot at the moment.

[bcpokey]

I'm guessing the beer comment is a comment in jest, as the costs to operating a pool are significant.  Transaction fees are part of block solving as I understand it, so yes the solo miner, or pool involved gets the transaction fee. I don't think pools pay them out so it is a bit of hidden cash out to the operator. Looking at BTCGuilds stats though, it's not really that significant, 24BTC of transaction fees in 14,000BTC of block solving.

As far as I know there is no requirement to pay anything for transactions, although some client versions might have that built in, I know that mine does not.

[Sukrim]

Well, first - tx fees are actually allowed smaller, and the next client allows 0.005

The next client however will still use the current 0.01 fee, only the one afterwards will make fees half priced via the UI.

There are btw. 3rd party builds with patches to circumvent this (either 0 fee or the much smaller fee required by Eligius).