Mempool is now up to 25.5 MB with 22,200 transactions waiting.

[brg444]

The fee market is a consequence, not a decision.

A consequence of inaction. Intentionally not doing what was supposed to be done.

I will continue to 'appeal to my authority' you will continue to appeal to yours.

It boils down to whether you trust Satoshi, or Back.

Inaction in the face of populist rhetoric is the very strength of Bitcoin my friend.

You've really turned a corner since joining the mental ward over at bitco.in. sad 

Maybe you'll get a block size increase, but not tonight dear

[watashi-kokoto]

A consequence of inaction.

Inaction is action. Not doing anything is a change of rules!

Peace is war. freedom is slavery!

Small blockers have caused this.

EDIT: Satoshi is big blocker! Satoshi would want Bitcoin to become a paypal and go to the moon!!

[steeev]

spam spam spam

probably a tit for tat thing IF the DDOS on Classic was real just recently, and not of their own doing (which also wouldn't surprise me)

so boring to still be fending these gimps off...

[European Central Bank]

A consequence of inaction. Intentionally not doing what was supposed to be done.

I will continue to 'appeal to my authority' you will continue to appeal to yours.

It boils down to whether you trust Satoshi, or Back.

Hey, didn't you know Mr Back invented Bitcoin with inflation years before that Satoshi buffoon? He forgot about it until late 2013 but I guess he was busy.

[Lauda]

Just look at 21inc's Lightning Network, if there is any strong market demand for this kind of functionality, they will be sold out immediately. But the reality is that no one cares about this so called micro payment channel

You're spreading FUD again, even though I've explained this to you at least once. Regardless let me just leave this here once more (huge difference):

21 inc - uni-directional micropayment channels with CLTV
LN channels are bi-directional, meaning both sides can send money.
21 inc - 400$ entry fee
LN - free (standard TX fees only)

A consequence of inaction. Intentionally not doing what was supposed to be done.

No. Fee analysis show that most of these transactions are spam (fee 1-10 satoshi per byte).

[Sark]

No. Fee analysis show that most of these transactions are spam (fee 1-10 satoshi per byte).

Actually, there is now a backlog of over 6 BTC in fees. I think this may be a record - not sure. This is *not* like spam attacks that happened in the past.

[Lauda]

Actually, there is now a backlog of over 6 BTC in fees. I think this may be a record - not sure. This is *not* like spam attacks that happened in the past.

If you assume a median transaction size of 258 bytes and ~5 satoshi per byte, you end up with: 1290 satoshi per TX. Multiply this with ~33 thousand (source) unconfirmed transactions (in the 1-10 satoshi per byte range) and you end up with: 42 570 000 satoshi -> 0.4257 BTC. The fees seem to be coming from the transactions with higher fees (albeit to know for sure one would have to do an in depth analysis of median transaction size and average fee in each range).

[bargainbin]

Last I checked, there was ~$8 million US in "spam transactions." What are we up to now?

[mike81]

I guess to keep mining profitable after june we would need to see the difficulty half (not likely), value double (really not likely) or fees increase to about 0.005 BTC per transaction on average. Or a little of all 3, and that's what we're beginning to see.
I don't think increasing the blocksize is the right approach. It would only blow up the blockchain. Bitcoin needs to stay self-sustaining. If you want your transaction processed fast, pay up. If you don't want to pay a higher tx-fee then you will need to wait.
Just my opinion ofcourse...

[Sark]

I guess to keep mining profitable after june we would need to see the difficulty half (not likely), value double (really not likely) or fees increase to about 0.005 BTC per transaction on average. Or a little of all 3, and that's what we're beginning to see.

From my perspective, it seems likely we will see the difficulty increase (its not going down with ASIC designs continually coming out). We'll see the fees increase - at least at first. But the increased fees will result in a lower number of transactions, which could easily result in a price decrease.

I think that trying to force a fee market at this point in time is going to strangulate the growth and cause long term issues.

[bargainbin]

... Bitcoin needs to stay self-sustaining. ...

You do understand that it's not "self-sustaining" now, right? Transactions currently cost ~$7, and are paid by Bitcoin base money inflation (block rewards).

[Thepuj]

The miners bonus is a sweet poison because it generated mining bloat which with the current design no transaction fee can replace. (Transaction fees of 1 - 5 USD will make people flee.) The fees can only replace the miners bonus when the transaction capacity is increased by more then factor 10, better target for factor 100. From what I have read this is not easy and research should be done soon for this.

But ecological lower mining benefit would be better. At the moment mining costs about 300MW. I don't know why 100MW oder 20MW shouldn't be sufficient for this task. But this will only happen when the mining benefit drops.

[mike81]

... Bitcoin needs to stay self-sustaining. ...

You do understand that it's not "self-sustaining" now, right? Transactions currently cost ~$7, and are paid by Bitcoin base money inflation (block rewards).

As those rewards are built into the bitcoin eco-system they are an essential part of it. In my mind that still counts as self-sustaining.
At some point the rewards will be zero and by that time fees are the only incentive for miners to mine.
My point is that increasing the blocksize will only help process transactions with low fees (spam or otherwise), blowing up the blockchain and causing more people to stop running full nodes since there is almost nothing to gain from running a full node as it is.
There will always be a bunch of these low fee transactions waiting to be processed. Eventually they will be discarded by the network. Not lost, only put back into the senders wallet. A large mempool isn't a bad thing, just an incentive to pay a higher fee.

[forah545]

https://tradeblock.com/bitcoin/


Need a blocksize increase now. But we're all retarded. People will stop using BTC when it takes 3 days for their tx's to confirm

people can't stop accepting btc soon for easy expense like restaurants or even in real life... how you can trust some one rebroadcast a tx?!

[mike81]

The miners bonus is a sweet poison because it generated mining bloat which with the current design no transaction fee can replace. (Transaction fees of 1 - 5 USD will make people flee.) The fees can only replace the miners bonus when the transaction capacity is increased by more then factor 10, better target for factor 100. From what I have read this is not easy and research should be done soon for this.

But ecological lower mining benefit would be better. At the moment mining costs about 300MW. I don't know why 100MW oder 20MW shouldn't be sufficient for this task. But this will only happen when the mining benefit drops.

It will be interesting to see what happens in june when the reward drops to 12.5 BTC per block. Mining difficulty seems to stay at a level where on average it pays for the power that is used. Difficulty increases only with more power-efficient mining gear. With that in mind and with no other sudden change in value or tx-fees (or powercost if you want to be thorough) we will see the difficulty drop. With less miners i worry about someone taking 50% of the network. That, combined with the worry of full nodes shutting down because of a 100% increase in bandwidth and storage they need makes me feel higher transaction fees are a good thing.

[Meuh6879]

PAY the fees ...

Mempool is for loosers (0-fees).

[bargainbin]

... Bitcoin needs to stay self-sustaining. ...

You do understand that it's not "self-sustaining" now, right? Transactions currently cost ~$7, and are paid by Bitcoin base money inflation (block rewards).

As those rewards are built into the bitcoin eco-system they are an essential part of it. In my mind that still counts as self-sustaining.
At some point the rewards will be zero and by that time fees are the only incentive for miners to mine.
My point is that increasing the blocksize will only help process transactions with low fees (spam or otherwise), blowing up the blockchain and causing more people to stop running full nodes since there is almost nothing to gain from running a full node as it is.
There will always be a bunch of these low fee transactions waiting to be processed. Eventually they will be discarded by the network. Not lost, only put back into the senders wallet. A large mempool isn't a bad thing, just an incentive to pay a higher fee.

>As those rewards are built into the bitcoin eco-system
Those rewards are a part of the bitcoin protocol, not some *ecosystem. One fucking word, learn it if you must use it.
The block rewards are there *specifically* to allow miners *not* to rely on tx fees this early in the game.

You should also understand that the miners are free to reject any transaction right now -- nothing stopping them from rejecting junk transactions.

[Acidx]

Never had to wait 3 days for a transaction... that's insane. If you are waiting 3 days for a transaction you are paying a shitty or just no fee, so that's you deserve if you want to go the super cheap way. If you want to be just cheap and not super cheap, pay the default fee and the transaction will be confirmed in a matter of minutes.

Indeed, damn you africa and other development countries that just started using bitcoin for the low fee transactions, being able to feed their families on a daily basis with their 4$ a day salary working in another developing country, creating stadiums that wealthy people can watch the top athletes shooting a ball around and passing it to each other. Damn you for being so cheap and not wanting to pay 44 usd cents of your 4$ income in fees like you did with western union. You cheap, silly bastards, go use another coin with network stability and trust and almost 0 cost fees if you wanna be so cheap.

[mike81]

>As those rewards are built into the bitcoin eco-system
Those rewards are a part of the bitcoin protocol, not some *ecosystem. One fucking word, learn it if you must use it.
The block rewards are there *specifically* to allow miners *not* to rely on tx fees this early in the game.

You should also understand that the miners are free to reject any transaction right now -- nothing stopping them from rejecting junk transactions.

My sincere apologies. Bitcoin protocol it is.

Block rewards are the incentive to mine at the moment, but we're not 'early in the game' anymore. Come June the reward will be cut in half for the second time.
I understand miners can reject junk transactions. They can also be selective. They should be, and they are. So now transactions with low fees are waiting to be processed, if they are processed at all. My point was that this is a good thing and blowing up the blocksize to counter a high mempool size is not a good sollution in my opinion.

[mike81]

Never had to wait 3 days for a transaction... that's insane. If you are waiting 3 days for a transaction you are paying a shitty or just no fee, so that's you deserve if you want to go the super cheap way. If you want to be just cheap and not super cheap, pay the default fee and the transaction will be confirmed in a matter of minutes.

Indeed, damn you africa and other development countries that just started using bitcoin for the low fee transactions, being able to feed their families on a daily basis with their 4$ a day salary working in another developing country, creating stadiums that wealthy people can watch the top athletes shooting a ball around and passing it to each other. Damn you for being so cheap and not wanting to pay 44 usd cents of your 4$ income in fees like you did with western union. You cheap, silly bastards, go use another coin with network stability and trust and almost 0 cost fees if you wanna be so cheap.

Or don't pay the high fees and wait a little longer...