Future Transaction Fees

[OrientA]

How would you change the fee, since bitcoin is a P2P network? Does someone go around asking people, "Hey! Stop paying 0.0001 as your tx fee! The meta is now 0.00001!"? Or do we have to switch to a totally different Bitcoin client?

This is all quite confusing to me, as you can see, I'm a mere Jr Member. Enlighten me.

The fee is not fixed. In the core client, there is recommended fee, such as 0.0001btc/kB. But you do not have to pay that. You can choose your fee. In the busy times, it is better to pay higher fees to get faster confirmation. In the not so busy times, you can reduce the fee to lower than the recommended fees and can still get confirmed.

[Small]

Why do you use fiat as a reference, it is hard for anyone to set a reliable exchange as a source. Transaction fees are decided mostly by the miner and they can choose to accept those with higher fees and ignore those with lower fees. The only fees which you must follow for a non-free transaction is the relay fee. But again, nodes can adjust them.

[Slark]

As far as I know transaction fee has nothing to do with the amount of bitcoin you are sending. You are paying for transferring data.
If your transaction is compiled from single input your fees will be lower than sending BTC collected from many sources before.

[fzfrl]

You do not understand the basics of Bitcoin/bitcoin.
The miner's fee can be adjusted in the future, to equal the new appropriate miners fee.
The decimal is not fixed, but adjustable, if and when needed.

For example, if 1BTC is equal to $1,000,000 USD (we all wish),
 then the miners fee will be adjusted to around 0.0000001 BTC or 10 Satoshis.

[Small]

Transaction fees has been adjusted many times before, so we just have to adjust it again when bitcoin price increased.
There aren't any problem for adjust transaction fees, but usually it takes time for everyone to change their default transaction fees (especially when transaction fee is increased).

FYI, total input and output also decide a transaction fee in transaction

Transaction fees have never been determined by the network, only the relay fee. It can be changed since users can compile the code themselves and it is easier now with arguments to use. Miners are the only ones deciding the transaction fees to accept. They call the shots.

[saturn643]

Transaction fees has been adjusted many times before, so we just have to adjust it again when bitcoin price increased.
There aren't any problem for adjust transaction fees, but usually it takes time for everyone to change their default transaction fees (especially when transaction fee is increased).

FYI, total input and output also decide a transaction fee in transaction

Transaction fees have never been determined by the network, only the relay fee. It can be changed since users can compile the code themselves and it is easier now with arguments to use. Miners are the only ones deciding the transaction fees to accept. They call the shots.

Actually the market does. If a miner doesn't accept low transaction fees, then they will be making less Bitcoin. At this time it is kind of irrelevant, but in the future, transaction fees will become more important and something that miners won't want to miss.

[Patatas]

The reason cryptocurrencies were made so that they can overcome this problems ! Don't worry about the mining fees ,as long as we have enough miners we are safe also I don't think we are ever running out of minners .Cheers mate .

[odolvlobo]

How would you change the fee, since bitcoin is a P2P network? Does someone go around asking people, "Hey! Stop paying 0.0001 as your tx fee! The meta is now 0.00001!"? Or do we have to switch to a totally different Bitcoin client?

This is all quite confusing to me, as you can see, I'm a mere Jr Member. Enlighten me.

It is complicated because there is no set fee.

Each miner decides which transactions they will include in a block, and the fee paid by a transaction is a major part of the decision. The decision process used by most miners has typically been the one implemented in Bitcoin Core, but I don't think that is the case any more.

Some wallets now look at transactions waiting to be included in the next block and use that information to determine how much of a fee to pay. Currently, Mycellium has been telling me to pay around 0.0002. Blockchain requires the user to enter a fee, and I currently pay between 0.0001 and 0.0005 depending on how important the transaction is. Other wallets might just use a fixed fee set by the developer.

[snakus44]

Do you think once mining can become decentralized again, for instance, if every laptop computer comes with an asic mining chip, couldn't the electricity used to power your laptop replace any fees that one would have to pay?

[saturn643]

Do you think once mining can become decentralized again, for instance, if every laptop computer comes with an asic mining chip, couldn't the electricity used to power your laptop replace any fees that one would have to pay?

No, that is not the point of fees. The fees are an incentive to miners to include a transaction in their blocks. If there are no fees, then there is no incentive for them to include your transaction. It is basically a bribe, not a mandatory thing you need to have, just something recommended.

[PolarPoint]

Before the time bitcoin reaches $2000, we would have another transaction fee adjustment. No need to worry about that. If for some reason fees didn't drop, there will be many off chain solutions to handle smaller payments.

[jaberwock]

The fee depends on the size of the transaction, not the amount of BTC sent. You may send billions and have the same transaction size.

And the fee is more or less a free market, if prices rise, then miners will be willing to receive less bitcoins to include your transaction in blocks, and the other will be obligated to do the same or have no block to mine

[snakus44]

Do you think once mining can become decentralized again, for instance, if every laptop computer comes with an asic mining chip, couldn't the electricity used to power your laptop replace any fees that one would have to pay?

No, that is not the point of fees. The fees are an incentive to miners to include a transaction in their blocks. If there are no fees, then there is no incentive for them to include your transaction. It is basically a bribe, not a mandatory thing you need to have, just something recommended.

So what if instead of a transaction based reward for mining, the inclusion of a petty amount of hash power gets you free transactions?  The ability to participate in the network, broadcasting zero cost transactions becomes the incentive.  Maybe that's kind of what the lightening network is trying to do. I just don't see how bitcoin will survive mining centralization.  At least the bitcoin that I have grown to appreciate.  

[blackmachinegun]

i never care with bitcoin transaction fee,i always looking for the smalest transaction fee,even your data is happen to me,i just make a small transaction in every trade or sent,just for avoid the transaction fee
but someday i will consider it,maybe when bitcoin price up to $1000 per bitcoin

[saturn643]

Do you think once mining can become decentralized again, for instance, if every laptop computer comes with an asic mining chip, couldn't the electricity used to power your laptop replace any fees that one would have to pay?

No, that is not the point of fees. The fees are an incentive to miners to include a transaction in their blocks. If there are no fees, then there is no incentive for them to include your transaction. It is basically a bribe, not a mandatory thing you need to have, just something recommended.

So what if instead of a transaction based reward for mining, the inclusion of a petty amount of hash power gets you free transactions?  The ability to participate in the network, broadcasting zero cost transactions becomes the incentive.  Maybe that's kind of what the lightening network is trying to do. I just don't see how bitcoin will survive mining centralization.  At least the bitcoin that I have grown to appreciate.  

But is that really worth the cost of running a miner? Transaction fees are around 3 cents. The savings do not offset the cost of having to pay the electricity for the miner, maintaining the miner, and buying the miner itself. Unless you are sending massive amounts of transactions every day with huge fees, then the cost of running your own miners would outweigh the benefits of having free transactions.

[Amph]

Do you think once mining can become decentralized again, for instance, if every laptop computer comes with an asic mining chip, couldn't the electricity used to power your laptop replace any fees that one would have to pay?

No, that is not the point of fees. The fees are an incentive to miners to include a transaction in their blocks. If there are no fees, then there is no incentive for them to include your transaction. It is basically a bribe, not a mandatory thing you need to have, just something recommended.

So what if instead of a transaction based reward for mining, the inclusion of a petty amount of hash power gets you free transactions?  The ability to participate in the network, broadcasting zero cost transactions becomes the incentive.  Maybe that's kind of what the lightening network is trying to do. I just don't see how bitcoin will survive mining centralization.  At least the bitcoin that I have grown to appreciate.  

i think you're consufing "less decentralization" with "real centralization" there is no centralization right now and there will not be in the future

only because china is owning the majority of the network it does not mean that we are centralized, even if china was owning 100% this is still not centralization, if all the farm are pointing at different pool, and the owner is not the same guy

also what you're sayig it's not possible, you want that a laptop pay the fee buy providing enough hash to cover the fee itself, every laptop with an asic chipset would generate a tiny fraction of the current fee, so not feasible

[Small]

Transaction fees has been adjusted many times before, so we just have to adjust it again when bitcoin price increased.
There aren't any problem for adjust transaction fees, but usually it takes time for everyone to change their default transaction fees (especially when transaction fee is increased).

FYI, total input and output also decide a transaction fee in transaction

Transaction fees have never been determined by the network, only the relay fee. It can be changed since users can compile the code themselves and it is easier now with arguments to use. Miners are the only ones deciding the transaction fees to accept. They call the shots.

Actually the market does. If a miner doesn't accept low transaction fees, then they will be making less Bitcoin. At this time it is kind of irrelevant, but in the future, transaction fees will become more important and something that miners won't want to miss.

Technically, if mining becomes so centralized that majority of the power goes to one or even a small amount of pool, they can all agree on which is the minimum fees to include and force the network to pay the higher fees. The only thing that is close to paying small is the small amount of space reserved for free transactions.

[saturn643]

Transaction fees has been adjusted many times before, so we just have to adjust it again when bitcoin price increased.
There aren't any problem for adjust transaction fees, but usually it takes time for everyone to change their default transaction fees (especially when transaction fee is increased).

FYI, total input and output also decide a transaction fee in transaction

Transaction fees have never been determined by the network, only the relay fee. It can be changed since users can compile the code themselves and it is easier now with arguments to use. Miners are the only ones deciding the transaction fees to accept. They call the shots.

Actually the market does. If a miner doesn't accept low transaction fees, then they will be making less Bitcoin. At this time it is kind of irrelevant, but in the future, transaction fees will become more important and something that miners won't want to miss.

Technically, if mining becomes so centralized that majority of the power goes to one or even a small amount of pool, they can all agree on which is the minimum fees to include and force the network to pay the higher fees. The only thing that is close to paying small is the small amount of space reserved for free transactions.

True, but mining will not become that centralized. Miners will abandon that pool if it comes anywhere close to reaching 50% of the mining power. This has happened in the past.

[AndySt]

The division into parts (satoshi) no one traded and the large amount involved in the transaction the greater will be the amount of the fee. In the future the system will only exist at the expense of the fee from transactions.

[USB-S]

Fees are not set in stone, we can alter them as bitcoin develops. However as the hashing power is constantly increasing and if we could not sustain that hashing power, then I guess mining farms need to shut down. This will likely happen in 20 years time.