No fee market with small blocks thanks to BlockPriority of BTCChina

[knight22]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-giant-btcc-launches-priority-blockchain-transactions-its-customers-1529730

The service works by submitting bitcoin transactions sent to or from any BTCC wallet address directly to BTCC's mining pool for rapid confirmation. BTCC's mining pool accounts for approximately 13% of the global bitcoin network's hashing power.

BlockPriority prioritises all BTCC's customers' transactions, including those who pay zero transaction fees. Customers who pay lower transaction fees on other exchanges or wallet services may have to wait before the bitcoin network confirms their transactions, said BTCC.

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Do other exchanges own significant proportions of the global Bitcoin network's hashing power? Could other big players start colluding with exchanges and wallet services like blockchain.info to prioritize their traffic? BTCChina has started a new trend now, and I don't like where it could lead.

[USB-S]

Do other exchanges own significant proportions of the global Bitcoin network's hashing power? Could other big players start colluding with exchanges and wallet services like blockchain.info to prioritize their traffic?

My guess is that that's the direction we're heading with these types of news. However this would still not work in the long run.

[gogxmagog]

Well if confirmation times weren't so slow this issue would never have come up. Slow confirmation is a big problem for a lot of transactions (not all)
If BTCC gets any traction with this expect to see an all out war amongst the biggest players. Hopefully it will cause a backlog amongst the paid priority tx guys.
Now, would larger block size do anything to stop this?

[knight22]

Well if confirmation times weren't so slow this issue would never have come up. Slow confirmation is a big problem for a lot of transactions (not all)
If BTCC gets any traction with this expect to see an all out war amongst the biggest players. Hopefully it will cause a backlog amongst the paid priority tx guys.
Now, would larger block size do anything to stop this?

Yes. Larger block size means there is no transaction back log therefore pools won't be have incentives to do such a wicked prioritisation to advantage big exchanges.

[odolvlobo]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

[iCEBREAKER]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

Exactly.  The Gavinista dead-ender zero-percenter attempts to spin every new development into FUD and Bitcoin Obituaries are now so old as to be clichéd.

It means now pools can start colluding negotiating with exchanges to priorities their transactions regardless of the fees. It once again encourage centralization competition of pools and discourage bootstraps a fee market.

FTFY.  So many errors in such a small space, like a 5th grader trying to do calculus despite not understanding what most of the symbols mean.

[knight22]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

Exactly.  The Gavinista dead-ender zero-percenter attempts to spin every new development into FUD and Bitcoin Obituaries are now so old as to be clichéd.

It means now pools can start colluding negotiating with exchanges to priorities their transactions regardless of the fees. It once again encourage centralization competition of pools and discourage bootstraps a fee market.

FTFY.  So many errors in such a small space, like a 5th grader trying to do calculus despite not understanding what most of the symbols mean.

For someone who cares a lot about censorship resistance you sure have no problems about driving transactions exclusively into the hands of big centralized payment processors acquiring mining pools. Oh the irony.

[RustyNomad]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

I agree, it is going to cost them some transaction fees in the long run. Once all BTCC customer know that they can send transactions without any fees and still get priority treatment they will start doing so i.e. include no fee. BTCC will end up processing a large number of transactions without any fees once this takes hold.

[franky1]

well BTCC only have 13% of the hash.. thats 1 block an hour roughly..

so while BTCC says they will prioritize customers. the truth is that the other 5 main pools each hour will ignore the fee-free transactions. and thus customers of
BTCC are not going to actually get instant recognition on the blockchain.. just a slight boost in the chance of a confirm within the hour..

to me, not really big news about BTCC. and not really much of a promise from them..

to me, i see it as another precedent. the first precedent we seen was when miners ignored tx's without fee's. next precedent we will see, is all miners getting ignorant of tx's not from their favourite services.

so goodluck to anyone trying to do private transactions person to person. as i see all the big players picking a centralized service to cater to, and ignoring tx's that are not using those services.

[iCEBREAKER]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

Exactly.  The Gavinista dead-ender zero-percenter attempts to spin every new development into FUD and Bitcoin Obituaries are now so old as to be clichéd.

It means now pools can start colluding negotiating with exchanges to priorities their transactions regardless of the fees. It once again encourage centralization competition of pools and discourage bootstraps a fee market.

FTFY.  So many errors in such a small space, like a 5th grader trying to do calculus despite not understanding what most of the symbols mean.

For someone who cares a lot about censorship resistance you sure have no problems about driving transactions exclusively into the hands of big centralized payment processors acquiring mining pools. Oh the irony.

Bitcoin is by design a settlement network designed to replace or make honest central banks and gold markets, not a high volume payment system designed to replace commercial banks, plastic, cash, and Starbucks gift cards.

Payments should be handled off-chain, though payment channels like Lightning, or via alt chain.

Go write your fuckwit Bitcoin Obituaries on /r/bitcoinXT or bitco.in or BTC Judas's rump forum.  We are not imbeciles and don't GAF about your Chicken Little/Boy Who Cried Wolf panic attacks and fear-based GavinCoin salesmanship.

[Cconvert2G36]

I think a fee market that is relative to demand for blockspace is perfectly reasonable... but not today. We're too small to sustain the demand in the face of countless competitors. Bitcoin doesn't have the benefit of the periodic table, if we don't capture share while miners are subsidized and incentivized to secure and process transactions... it becomes like rpietila's castle game, with you and a few thousand others trading pogs back and forth.

Again you seem to confuse what it is you'd like to or perceive Bitcoin should compete with and what Bitcoin's unique value and properties are.

If we can't agree on this I guess we can never agree on the rest but my opinion is we want Bitcoin to compete with gold, offshore saving accounts, safe havens of all sort , therein lies the value (and the "moon" valuations), not competing with VISA/Mastercard or Square.

I didn't reply with a hope to change your mind. But I do hope we can build a bridge from the middle of the river  

I'm just thinking you are hoping to sell 1. the wrong people onto Bitcoin using 2. the wrong "features" of Bitcoin. This necessarily creates a steep obstacle to the "adoption" you are wishing for.

To be quite honest I have been guilty of this in the past and have long maintained this delusion that Bitcoin was somehow this fantastic payment network that would replace credit cards, etc etc. Until I finally came to sense and understood what the true value of it was. Note that you shouldn't forego your dreams of moon because of this. The markets I am suggesting we target are enormously more valuable than replacing simple payment processors!

Peer to Peer Electronic Cash System
vs
Peer to Peer Electronic Wealth Storage System

I think we've distilled it down. I also think it can be both, but the former facilitates the latter.

[Zarathustra]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

Exactly.  The Gavinista dead-ender zero-percenter attempts to spin every new development into FUD and Bitcoin Obituaries are now so old as to be clichéd.

You mean that FUDster, who is very concerned, right?

https://twitter.com/petertoddbtc/status/667722504631259141

Greetings to the judean-socialist peoples Front National (JSPFN). You are so funny.

[Zarathustra]

I don't understand why you think this is a problem. The incentives are still there. BTCC has to reject other transactions with fees in order to include their transactions, so it will cost them money to do this.

Exactly.  The Gavinista dead-ender zero-percenter attempts to spin every new development into FUD and Bitcoin Obituaries are now so old as to be clichéd.

It means now pools can start colluding negotiating with exchanges to priorities their transactions regardless of the fees. It once again encourage centralization competition of pools and discourage bootstraps a fee market.

FTFY.  So many errors in such a small space, like a 5th grader trying to do calculus despite not understanding what most of the symbols mean.

For someone who cares a lot about censorship resistance you sure have no problems about driving transactions exclusively into the hands of big centralized payment processors acquiring mining pools. Oh the irony.

Bitcoin is by design a settlement network designed to replace or make honest central banks and gold markets, not a high volume payment system designed to replace commercial banks, plastic, cash, and Starbucks gift cards.

Payments should be handled off-chain, though payment channels like Lightning, or via alt chain.

LOL. It would be handled off-bitcoin, e.g. on your monero-chain, if the community would be stupid enough to listen to those jokes. But I guess it won't.

[Swordsoffreedom]

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/bitcoin-giant-btcc-launches-priority-blockchain-transactions-its-customers-1529730

The service works by submitting bitcoin transactions sent to or from any BTCC wallet address directly to BTCC's mining pool for rapid confirmation. BTCC's mining pool accounts for approximately 13% of the global bitcoin network's hashing power.

BlockPriority prioritises all BTCC's customers' transactions, including those who pay zero transaction fees. Customers who pay lower transaction fees on other exchanges or wallet services may have to wait before the bitcoin network confirms their transactions, said BTCC.

Pool control and priority will always change depending on who owns the hash, that said this only works with blocks they discover and not other blocks on the network, it also means that taking free sends will cost them in certain cases so not really in favor of it but I guess if they don't mind losing tx rewards from no fees that's fine.
I guess it might be a pain for users who want to use the Free Transaction Relay though

[1aguar]

Could other big players start colluding with exchanges and wallet services like blockchain.info to prioritize their traffic?

I once made a transaction and saw on blockchain.info the network penetration % and it was very high, over 90% very quickly, within seconds I think. Is that a useful measurement of the "rapid confirmation" that already occurs on the network? Does that % mean that 90% of the miners have already verified my transaction?

How long do free transactions typically take to confirm anyway?
Wasn't there recently an orphan block from BTCC that perhaps had an attempted double-spend?

[2fireddog]

This is the problems of centralizing mining. They can decide which will be included in the next block (although limited to the one they mined) without considering the set principle. It is not fair for the ppl who are paying a lot of fees to get the tx confirmed, or think their tx has high priority to get confirmed in next block actually not.

[Mickeyb]

I really don't know what to think about this! I guess the time will tell if this was a good move by the BTCC or not!

[franky1]

Could other big players start colluding with exchanges and wallet services like blockchain.info to prioritize their traffic?

I once made a transaction and saw on blockchain.info the network penetration % and it was very high, over 90% very quickly, within seconds I think. Is that a useful measurement of the "rapid confirmation" that already occurs on the network? Does that % mean that 90% of the miners have already verified my transaction?

How long do free transactions typically take to confirm anyway?
Wasn't there recently an orphan block from BTCC that perhaps had an attempted double-spend?

confirmations are about miners solving blocks which contain x,y,z transactions..

getting x,y,z it into the mempool ready to be added to a block is a separate matter..

if your bitcoin-core has been set up with added supernodes of the main mining farms. then your TX is sitting in the mempools of the miners, without issues in an instant.. .. so thats not really a concern. especially on this topic..
but that wont help your tx get confirmed any faster..

now the question is, will the miners choose your tx to be added to the next block out of all the tx's in the mempool waiting along side your tx.. does it have a fee, is it from or going to a recognised and prefered service?

greed has finally taken over freedom...
https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=30days
this proves that there is more than enough space to add more transactions to each block,.. that delays in confirmations is not the fault of block limits. but of greedy and prejudicial miners who choose which tx's should pass, rather then just letting them all in first come first serve.

[makcik]

Bitcoin has got some important reputation in China now. And many people are involved in mining there too. Fortunately, unlike some other brainwashed countries, china promotes usage of digital currencies.
And as a support, BTCC's BlockPriority has made transactions tax free for market with small blocks. All you have to do is send your transaction report to BTCC's mining pool. And that's enough for rapid confirmation. This step all in all is going to boost bitcoin in china a lot.