[SOLVED] Why transaction fee is so big?

[ArdaXi]

So there was never an issue to begin with?

Seems crazy that so much can be charged!

Also: Who decides how much is charged? What if you can't even pay the fee?

The miners decide whether they include a transaction in their block based on the fee. By default, miners ask for a 0.01 BTC fee per KB.

Additionally, bitcoin isn't meant for micropayments.

It was my understanding that it was, in fact, meant for micropayments, especially since 1 BTC exceeds $10 now.

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[rahl]

The fee structure just seems to be a complete mess.

It seems unpredictable and generally too expensive to send small payments.

Also it is like impossible to get any of the fees back without super hardware. The fee income to the mining pools is pitiful.

Can't people just trade confirmations with eachother or something instead of paying fees that are added to an impossible race for a 50BC block? Does generating coins in the client at 2000khash actually do squat to confirm other peoples transactions? If it helps is should at least give me some free confirmations back...

[Gavin Andresen]

Additionally, bitcoin isn't meant for micropayments.

It was my understanding that it was, in fact, meant for micropayments, especially since 1 BTC exceeds $10 now.

Depends on your definition of "micropayment".  Bitcoin is not suitable for transactions of less than a US penny, because of its fixed costs of processing transactions.

[nixxle]

Additionally, bitcoin isn't meant for micropayments.

It was my understanding that it was, in fact, meant for micropayments, especially since 1 BTC exceeds $10 now.

Depends on your definition of "micropayment".  Bitcoin is not suitable for transactions of less than a US penny, because of its fixed costs of processing transactions.

Well, the thing is. Bitcoin is advertised as "having many decimal points",to me (and my team) this suggests that Microtransactions are encouraged. Also, there is a big niche in the on-line virtual goods transaction market for micro payments.

If Bitcoins is every to be adopted by a larger non-geek audience, something should really be done about the complexity of these transactions.  Millions of gamers are waiting eagerly.

[wwh]

It seems crazy to me that the client even lets you choose how a fee by selecting a global variable paytxfee.  Nobody wants to pay a greater fee than they have to.  Rather than setting a global fee parameter I suggest the following:

1. On a transaction by transaction basis the client will calculate the minimum fee possible and report it to the user before the user confirms the transaction.
2. If the transaction includes recently spent coins that may cause the transaction to be postponed using the minimum fee the client should advise the user of this and provide them with alternatives to paying the minimum fee to make the transaction occur earlier.