Is it possible to buy less than a full Bitcoin?

[Groovegal]

Hi everyone

I am now set up received my first Bitcoin which was earmarked to make a payment for something

BUT

I didnt realise I had to pay a transaction fee of 0.0005 Bitcoin so now I dont have enough to make my payment.  Is it possible for me to buy say half a bitcoin or less? I dont want to buy another whole one at this time as I dont need to pay for anything else.  I really only want enough to cover my transaction fee

[goodbc]

Bitcoin is divisible to up to 8 decimals, so yes.

If you need only 0.0005, post here a btc address

[nobbynobbynoob]

What Goodbc said.

You don't always have to pay the BTC0,0005 transaction fee, but sometimes you do. There is an algorithm which determines whether or not it's required.

[spndr7]

You may consider buying Litecoins (Second most popular p2p currency).Currently its valued at about 13 litecoins for a US dollar.Its price fluctuates more than bitcoins.

[BR0KK]

How is buying litecoin helping the op to make a transaction?

OP:
you o not have to pay the fee.... but if you don't the transaction will take longer to confirm

[Blazr]

Post your address and I'll send you 0.005BTC, that should cover your tx fees.

[Stephen Gornick]

Is it possible for me to buy say half a bitcoin or less? I dont want to buy another whole one at this time as I dont need to pay for anything else.  I really only want enough to cover my transaction fee

You could also try the Las Vegas approach.

You need 0.0005 so you send a 0.01 wager to SatoshiDICE with a 90% chance of winning but only a 10% payout (rough numbers).

Nine times out of ten, you'll win.  If you don't then you are down 0.0105 BTC -- still a problem but not much worse position than you were in before.

If you do want to buy a fraction of a bitcoin with credit card or PayPal, then VirWox is probably your best option.  You can buy a small amount of Second Life Lindens (SLLs), then trade those for a BTC:
 - http://www.VirWoX.com

[Anon136]

I didnt realise I had to pay a transaction fee of 0.0005 Bitcoin

transaction fees are optional. All they do is shorten the amount of time you have to wait for confirmations.

[Anon136]

What Goodbc said.

You don't always have to pay the BTC0,0005 transaction fee, but sometimes you do. There is an algorithm which determines whether or not it's required.

This is based on the size of the transaction right? if it is too small than the transaction fee is necessary but if it is large enough than the fee is not necessary.

[Raoul Duke]

Option 3:
Wait 24 hrs to be allowed to send that whole bitcoin without a fee. It should work, as long as there is no urgency to make the payment.

[Groovegal]

Hi everyone

I didnt realise it was optional to pay a transaction fee, how would I override that if it ever happens again?

Oh and thanks for those of you that offered to give me the transaction fee,  I ended up compromising and sending 0.9 Bitcoin to the receiver.  That was really nice of you though

Is there somewhere that I can find a transaction ID in the client? Or is my unique address the transaction ID?

Siobhan

[Raoul Duke]

Is there somewhere that I can find a transaction ID in the client? Or is my unique address the transaction ID?

Sure. Doubke click the transaction on your Transactions tab and a new window pops up with all the tx info.

[notme]

What Goodbc said.

You don't always have to pay the BTC0,0005 transaction fee, but sometimes you do. There is an algorithm which determines whether or not it's required.

This is based on the size of the transaction right? if it is too small than the transaction fee is necessary but if it is large enough than the fee is not necessary.

Technically, it is not required at all by the protocol.  Individual miners make their own decisions on what type of fees they require.  Higher fees will make your transaction accepted by more miners and thus processed more quickly.  Some miners accept all transactions regardless of fee so it will be processed eventually. It just might take a few blocks before it is included.

[Stephen Gornick]

I didnt realise it was optional to pay a transaction fee, how would I override that if it ever happens again?

Well, with the Bitcoin-Qt client there is no override.  If it says you must pay a fee it is because it looked at a few critieria and determined that miners will not accept your transaction unless a fee is paid.  You options are to pay the fee or not make the transaction at that time.

What psy meant with that option 3 is that if you were to wait a day and make that exact same transaction you probably could do so without paying a fee.  That's because one of the criteria the Bitcoin-Qt client considers is the age of the coins used in a transaction.   If you just received a coin and then try to quickly spend the funds, that is similar to what a disruptive attack on bitcoin might look like, so by requiring a fee for those types of transactions makes it expensive for someone to try to abuse the bitcoin network by churning transactions over and over without paying a fee.

Other clients may not have such restrictions.  Blockchain.info/wallet, for example, lets you choose "custom" mode where you get to choose the amount of a fee you pay.  If you choose 0, it will let you.   That doesn't mean your transaction will confirm in a timely manner, it just means that client isn't going to stop you from trying.

[DannyHamilton]

I didnt realise I had to pay a transaction fee of 0.0005 Bitcoin

transaction fees are optional. All they do is shorten the amount of time you have to wait for your first confirmations.

FTFY

[Anon136]

I didnt realise I had to pay a transaction fee of 0.0005 Bitcoin

transaction fees are optional. All they do is shorten the amount of time you have to wait for your first confirmations.

FTFY

thankyou i actually started wondering about that immediately after i posted

[PatrickOMFG]

I didnt realise I had to pay a transaction fee of 0.0005 Bitcoin

transaction fees are optional. All they do is shorten the amount of time you have to wait for your first confirmations.

FTFY

thankyou i actually started wondering about that immediately after i posted

Didn't know this. Good to know.

[Bendur]

Well, with the Bitcoin-Qt client there is no override.  If it says you must pay a fee it is because it looked at a few critieria and determined that miners will not accept your transaction unless a fee is paid.  You options are to pay the fee or not make the transaction at that time.

What psy meant with that option 3 is that if you were to wait a day and make that exact same transaction you probably could do so without paying a fee.  That's because one of the criteria the Bitcoin-Qt client considers is the age of the coins used in a transaction.   If you just received a coin and then try to quickly spend the funds, that is similar to what a disruptive attack on bitcoin might look like, so by requiring a fee for those types of transactions makes it expensive for someone to try to abuse the bitcoin network by churning transactions over and over without paying a fee.

Other clients may not have such restrictions.  Blockchain.info/wallet, for example, lets you choose "custom" mode where you get to choose the amount of a fee you pay.  If you choose 0, it will let you.   That doesn't mean your transaction will confirm in a timely manner, it just means that client isn't going to stop you from trying.

That's really interesting. What are the other criteria for deciding whether bitcoin-qt will require a fee? Sometimes it seems almost random to me.

[Stephen Gornick]

That's really interesting. What are the other criteria for deciding whether bitcoin-qt will require a fee? Sometimes it seems almost random to me.

A transaction can be sent without fees if both of these conditions are met:
 - It is smaller than 10 (SI) kilobytes (10.000 bytes).
 - All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.

- http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees#Minimum_transaction_fees

Then it is 0.0005 per additional KB of data.