Did v0.11.1 break micro-transactions?

[bitvisitor]

I have a node that issues many micro-transactions. Even with txfee=0.00005 it has been very unreliable to get transactions to propagate. Sometime they do, sometimes they don't. This has only been a problem starting 10/13 around the time when v0.11.1 came out with the new mempool protection. There was never a problem getting transactions to propagate with txfee=0.00001 before this. Is there something else going on here that I need to take into consideration? I can live with a 5x increase in fees, but if transactions don't propagate reliably it limits the use of bitcoin significantly.

[1714161945]

1714161945

[1714161945]

1714161945

[achow101]

The default for the `-minrelaytxfee` setting has been increased from `0.00001`to `0.00005`in core 0.11.1

[bitvisitor]

The default for the `-minrelaytxfee` setting has been increased from `0.00001`to `0.00005`in core 0.11.1

Thanks. I am aware of that, but my concern is that even with setting a fee of 0.00005/kb many transactions no longer propagate. I am wondering if others are seeing this problem or if the fact I am issuing many micro-transactions is causing other nodes to blacklist me or something. 

[achow101]

The default for the `-minrelaytxfee` setting has been increased from `0.00001`to `0.00005`in core 0.11.1

Thanks. I am aware of that, but my concern is that even with setting a fee of 0.00005/kb many transactions no longer propagate. I am wondering if others are seeing this problem or if the fact I am issuing many micro-transactions is causing other nodes to blacklist me or something. 

Well with the recent spam attacks, a lot of people have been setting -minrelaytxfee to something a lot higher which prevents a lot of low fee transactions from propogating.

[bitvisitor]

The default for the `-minrelaytxfee` setting has been increased from `0.00001`to `0.00005`in core 0.11.1

Thanks. I am aware of that, but my concern is that even with setting a fee of 0.00005/kb many transactions no longer propagate. I am wondering if others are seeing this problem or if the fact I am issuing many micro-transactions is causing other nodes to blacklist me or something.

Well with the recent spam attacks, a lot of people have been setting -minrelaytxfee to something a lot higher which prevents a lot of low fee transactions from propogating.

It sounds like this is probably the reason because I started seeing issues around 10/13 and 0.11.1 came out 10/15. I remember seeing people recommending changing minrelaytxfee when the reddit post came out.

This really needs to be addressed because it is breaking the core functionality of bitcoin. We can argue about big blocks and txfees but if it becomes impossible to determine what minimum criteria is necessary to propagate a transaction then bitcoin becomes useless. At the bare minimum we need a mechanism to determine what fee is necessary to propagate a transaction. Forcing users to guess with real money does not make for a robust or useable system.

I feel it is somewhat reckless the way these current changes were introduced. I know some people do not want to see Bitcoin used for micro-transactions but there is no way the next 7 billion users will come online without them. The services that depend on micro-transactions will simply move to a new alt and that is what will become the defacto standard for onboarding new users.

[achow101]

It sounds like this is probably the reason because I started seeing issues around 10/13 and 0.11.1 came out 10/15. I remember seeing people recommending changing minrelaytxfee when the reddit post came out.

This really needs to be addressed because it is breaking the core functionality of bitcoin. We can argue about big blocks and txfees but if it becomes impossible to determine what minimum criteria is necessary to propagate a transaction then bitcoin becomes useless. At the bare minimum we need a mechanism to determine what fee is necessary to propagate a transaction. Forcing users to guess with real money does not make for a robust or useable system.

I would argue that the core functionality of bitcoin is not for micro transactions, but that is for a different discussion.

The mechanism for determining the fee necessary to propagate should be the same mechanism for determining the fee for a transaction to confirm. If it will confirm, it will propagate. You should really be creating transactions with a decent fee, I have been sending them with a minimum fee of 0.0001, if not higher. There are a variety of tools that analyze recent transactions to estimate the best fee. Bitcoin core has its own fee estimation built in, and a site I have been using which is quite helpful is http://www.cointape.com/.

I feel it is somewhat reckless the way these current changes were introduced. I know some people do not want to see Bitcoin used for micro-transactions but there is no way the next 7 billion users will come online without them. The services that depend on micro-transactions will simply move to a new alt and that is what will become the defacto standard for onboarding new users.

You may think it is reckless, but it is in fact not. Every change in Bitcoin Core is discussed on the mailing list, in IRC, or on the github, if not all of them. You can read the discussion specifically for bumping the default here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6793. Also, this change is considered a temporary measure, not a permanent one. There is a better solution being worked on for 0.12 but that is not ready for a release yet. This change will probably be reverted in the new release.

[bitvisitor]

It sounds like this is probably the reason because I started seeing issues around 10/13 and 0.11.1 came out 10/15. I remember seeing people recommending changing minrelaytxfee when the reddit post came out.

This really needs to be addressed because it is breaking the core functionality of bitcoin. We can argue about big blocks and txfees but if it becomes impossible to determine what minimum criteria is necessary to propagate a transaction then bitcoin becomes useless. At the bare minimum we need a mechanism to determine what fee is necessary to propagate a transaction. Forcing users to guess with real money does not make for a robust or useable system.

I would argue that the core functionality of bitcoin is not for micro transactions, but that is for a different discussion.

The mechanism for determining the fee necessary to propagate should be the same mechanism for determining the fee for a transaction to confirm. If it will confirm, it will propagate. You should really be creating transactions with a decent fee, I have been sending them with a minimum fee of 0.0001, if not higher. There are a variety of tools that analyze recent transactions to estimate the best fee. Bitcoin core has its own fee estimation built in, and a site I have been using which is quite helpful is http://www.cointape.com/.

I feel it is somewhat reckless the way these current changes were introduced. I know some people do not want to see Bitcoin used for micro-transactions but there is no way the next 7 billion users will come online without them. The services that depend on micro-transactions will simply move to a new alt and that is what will become the defacto standard for onboarding new users.

You may think it is reckless, but it is in fact not. Every change in Bitcoin Core is discussed on the mailing list, in IRC, or on the github, if not all of them. You can read the discussion specifically for bumping the default here: https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/6793. Also, this change is considered a temporary measure, not a permanent one. There is a better solution being worked on for 0.12 but that is not ready for a release yet. This change will probably be reverted in the new release.

There is quite a lot of dissent on both the github link and on other channels like reddit:

I understand this is not your priority, but the goal of this PR, I think, is to protect against spammy transaction who does not have enough fees, but it impacts way more than that.

this also affects other meta-layer protocols such as Counterparty, Omni, ChanceCoin, NewbieCoin, ....

Changing network relay rules suddenly is an extremely drastic measure. Many wallets will be forced to rush out updates, and even more users will find their software broken until they update. (from https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3oecqm/psa_to_address_mempool_flooding_bitcoin_core/)

Releasing an update that breaks core functionality would never pass muster in the business world. The only reason given was to keep nodes from dropping off. We really don't need people running nodes on their raspberry pi's and that is certainly not a reason to release such an impactful change. I have a feeling I may just be one of the first to hit the real world problems of this change because I have thousands of customers who complain when transactions don't go through. These problems were predictable but there is no way for the average user to prevent them. I only criticize because I want to see bitcoin become successful and I think this will be a major snafu. Much more serious then just low powered nodes dropping off.

[achow101]

Releasing an update that breaks core functionality would never pass muster in the business world. The only reason given was to keep nodes from dropping off. We really don't need people running nodes on their raspberry pi's and that is certainly not a reason to release such an impactful change. I have a feeling I may just be one of the first to hit the real world problems of this change because I have thousands of customers who complain when transactions don't go through. These problems were predictable but there is no way for the average user to prevent them. I only criticize because I want to see bitcoin become successful and I think this will be a major snafu. Much more serious then just low powered nodes dropping off.

Again, this is a temporary measure, not a permanent. You can increase the fees of your transactions to get them to propagate and confirm, that's the easy and obvious solution.

The permanent solution is being prepared for the 0.12 release, which is planned for february.

Also, you can still keep your fees if you identify a number of nodes that will relay your transaction and connect to those nodes so that your transaction gets relayed. If you can find miner's nodes, that is better since it will send them directly to the miners.

[bitvisitor]

Releasing an update that breaks core functionality would never pass muster in the business world. The only reason given was to keep nodes from dropping off. We really don't need people running nodes on their raspberry pi's and that is certainly not a reason to release such an impactful change. I have a feeling I may just be one of the first to hit the real world problems of this change because I have thousands of customers who complain when transactions don't go through. These problems were predictable but there is no way for the average user to prevent them. I only criticize because I want to see bitcoin become successful and I think this will be a major snafu. Much more serious then just low powered nodes dropping off.

Again, this is a temporary measure, not a permanent. You can increase the fees of your transactions to get them to propagate and confirm, that's the easy and obvious solution.

The permanent solution is being prepared for the 0.12 release, which is planned for february.

Also, you can still keep your fees if you identify a number of nodes that will relay your transaction and connect to those nodes so that your transaction gets relayed. If you can find miner's nodes, that is better since it will send them directly to the miners.

Thanks for the advice, it is much appreciated. I have no qualms about setting a higher fee to keep my website running (even though I feel it is not the direction bitcoin should be moving). The problem is I need to know what that fee is. Even with a fee of 0.0001 I sometimes see transactions fail to propagate. From the websites you listed it seems like 0.00009 is the current required fee so I may be hitting an edge case.

I think it would be a great if I could only connect to robust nodes, but end users shouldn't have to resort to implementing those type of solutions to maintain their operations.

[achow101]

Releasing an update that breaks core functionality would never pass muster in the business world. The only reason given was to keep nodes from dropping off. We really don't need people running nodes on their raspberry pi's and that is certainly not a reason to release such an impactful change. I have a feeling I may just be one of the first to hit the real world problems of this change because I have thousands of customers who complain when transactions don't go through. These problems were predictable but there is no way for the average user to prevent them. I only criticize because I want to see bitcoin become successful and I think this will be a major snafu. Much more serious then just low powered nodes dropping off.

Again, this is a temporary measure, not a permanent. You can increase the fees of your transactions to get them to propagate and confirm, that's the easy and obvious solution.

The permanent solution is being prepared for the 0.12 release, which is planned for february.

Also, you can still keep your fees if you identify a number of nodes that will relay your transaction and connect to those nodes so that your transaction gets relayed. If you can find miner's nodes, that is better since it will send them directly to the miners.

Thanks for the advice, it is much appreciated. I have no qualms about setting a higher fee to keep my website running (even though I feel it is not the direction bitcoin should be moving). The problem is I need to know what that fee is. Even with a fee of 0.0001 I sometimes see transactions fail to propagate. From the websites you listed it seems like 0.00009 is the current required fee so I may be hitting an edge case.

I think it would be a great if I could only connect to robust nodes, but end users shouldn't have to resort to implementing those type of solutions to maintain their operations.

I have been using .0001 as my fee, and it usually works. I haven't been doing many transactions recently, so I couldn't tell you what actually works as a fee.

[Foxpup]

At the bare minimum we need a mechanism to determine what fee is necessary to propagate a transaction.

Why? The minimum fee to relay a transaction is far less than the minimum fee to confirm a transaction in a reasonable period of time, and Bitcoin Core already calculates the latter automatically, which is all real users care about. Anyone who overrides this recommendation to pay the absolute minimum should "be aware that this can end up in a never confirming transaction" to quote the warning given when you attempt to do this. Bitcoin is not, never has been, and never will be suitable for microtransactions, nor was it designed or intended to be.

[bitvisitor]

At the bare minimum we need a mechanism to determine what fee is necessary to propagate a transaction.

Why? The minimum fee to relay a transaction is far less than the minimum fee to confirm a transaction in a reasonable period of time, and Bitcoin Core already calculates the latter automatically, which is all real users care about. Anyone who overrides this recommendation to pay the absolute minimum should "be aware that this can end up in a never confirming transaction" to quote the warning given when you attempt to do this. Bitcoin is not, never has been, and never will be suitable for microtransactions, nor was it designed or intended to be.

I am using the cli and I do not see any way to get this recommended number and never even knew that it existed. Also, if Bitcoin can't handle micro-transactions then it cannot scale. Let's hope that isn't the case.

[Foxpup]

I am using the cli and I do not see any way to get this recommended number and never even knew that it existed.

You get the recommended fee by not overriding it with -paytxfee or settxfee. By default, Bitcoin Core will automatically set a fee to try to ensure your transaction will probably confirm within the next 2 blocks; the number of blocks can be changed with the -txconfirmtarget option. You can query the current fee estimate at any time with the estimatefee n command, where n is the desired confirmation time in blocks (this fee is per kb).

Also, if Bitcoin can't handle micro-transactions then it cannot scale. Let's hope that isn't the case.

That statement makes no sense. Microtransactions constitute very low volume, and current high-volume transaction networks do not handle microtransactions, almost by definition. In any case, hoping for a thing will not make it so.

[shorena]

While my server is not on 0.11.1 yet (0.11 still) I had to increase -minrelaytxfee to 0.00002 durring the last spam in order to keep it online. I dont like this option, but I think its still better than to have it crash and be offline. You can try to connect to it directly (IP is 213.165.91.169) and see if you can propagate that way.