Miners: Demand more in fees from the userbase by blocking spam transactions

[tacotime]

My solution for the Satoshi Dice spam is here:
1) Pools or big solo miners remove all transactions from blocks they mine that don't have at least a 0.01 BTC fee attached to them
or
2) which don't have at least 0.01 BTC per each output.

You might set these values arbitrarily to something else, it doesn't matter, this is the easy solution in my opinion.

People keep arguing it's in the best interest of the miners to take all transaction fees, no matter if they are miniscule or not. This is not true.  Miners are not submissive nodes in the network that follow the client userbase blindly, they are the network.  When clients start to see that it takes days for their transactions to go through, they will start paying greater fees or stop making these spam transactions.

Note that this seldom hurts the vast majority of users in the network, who will almost always make transactions with outputs of more than 0.01 BTC.  They don't need to pay any greater fees and their commerce is unimpeded, while spammers like Satoshi Dice are made to pay you more.

[1714971214]

1714971214

[1714971214]

1714971214

[1714971214]

1714971214

[1714971214]

1714971214

[Stephen Gornick]

My solution for the Satoshi Dice spam is here:
1) Pools or big solo miners remove all transactions from blocks they mine that don't have at least a 0.01 BTC fee attached to them
or
2) which don't have at least 0.01 BTC per each output.

So SatoshiDICE could respond by paying a miner which controls just 3% of all hashing strength to include all of SatoshiDICE transactions.  On average this operator with 3% of capacity will would get a block four times a day (once every six hours).  

[solex]

My solution for the Satoshi Dice spam is here:
1) Pools or big solo miners remove all transactions from blocks they mine that don't have at least a 0.01 BTC fee attached to them
or
2) which don't have at least 0.01 BTC per each output.

So SatoshiDICE could respond by paying a miner which controls just 3% of all hashing strength to include all of SatoshiDICE transactions.  On average this operator with 3% of capacity will would get a block four times a day (once every six hours).  

Actually, that would be perfect as it would cap SD flow at 3%*MaxBlockSize/AvgBlockSize of Bitcoin's capacity leaving the rest for everyone else. Nice.

[tacotime]

Actually, that would be perfect as it would cap SD flow at 3%*MaxBlockSize/AvgBlockSize of Bitcoin's capacity leaving the rest for everyone else. Nice.

Right.  There is no easy way around it for SD; they have to pay someone more.  Not only this, but if SD has tons of spam transactions like they do now, they'll never fit into 6 blocks per day and will have to start overflowing into the next block, leaving users for days without any confirmation of unsuccessful gambling.

[solex]

Actually, that would be perfect as it would cap SD flow at 3%*MaxBlockSize/AvgBlockSize of Bitcoin's capacity leaving the rest for everyone else. Nice.

Right.  There is no easy way around it for SD; they have to pay someone more.  Not only this, but if SD has tons of spam transactions like they do now, they'll never fit into 6 blocks per day and will have to start overflowing into the next block, leaving users for days without any confirmation of unsuccessful gambling.

Now, tacotime, please let me explain why you have found the nuclear option, but I do think we need to consider softer options as well.

The nuclear option will produce a high amount of fees, but, because the block reward is so high in dollar terms ($1150 at present) Bitcoin does not need a fees arms race when it is trying to gain wider acceptance on the internet and bricks and mortar shops.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149577.msg1595451#msg1595451

Also, I do think that zero fees have their place too:

Okay, here we go.

So as I promised, I created the "NFTF" (short of No Forced TX Fee) section on Github.
This isn't going to be anything big & professional, just few lines of code changed comparing to the standard client.

I did it, because i was unsatisfied with standard client forcing people to pay fees, even when they are not necessary at all.
I wrote many complaints about this on multiple topics on this forum, and for unknown reasons the main developers do not want either to remove this broken algorithm, or to improve it. Mining cartel ? CIA-related conspiracy ? Who knows & Who cares. I don't know and I don't care so I am going my own way.

[nwbitcoin]

out of interest, would this be a good time to discuss fees in general?

0.01 btc seems a lot to me, the original white paper talked about fees of a cent per transaction.

isn't 0.01 btc closer to 50c?

maybe we could bring both SD and fees into line at the same time?

just my 0.0005 btc

[DeathAndTaxes]

out of interest, would this be a good time to discuss fees in general?

0.01 btc seems a lot to me, the original white paper talked about fees of a cent per transaction.

0.01 BTC (per kb) isn't required for any tx.  

just my 0.0005 btc

Ironically that is the mandatory fee for low priority tx (high priority tx have no mandatory fee).

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

[solex]

isn't 0.01 btc closer to 50c?

5 cents actually.
But even this amount is unnecessary (if it wasn't for the transaction flooding situation we are seeing) because the 25 BTC block reward is very high in US$ terms and will stay that way for years. Hell, now you can even buy a whole new computer for solving 1 block, unimaginable in 2010.

It would be nice to see Bitcoin savage the payment processing marketplace with negligible cost transactions. That is, fees rising gently in the medium-term. Unless apps which use Bitcoin as a messaging system are controlled then it won't happen smoothly, and nuclear options become closer to implementation.

Redo your math.  It is 1/100th of BTC/USD, so about $0.44 at current rate.

Edit: indeed, about 44c of course!

[Stephen Gornick]

isn't 0.01 btc closer to 50c?

5 cents actually.

Redo your math.  It is 1/100th of BTC/USD, so about $0.44 at current rate.

Except that is not the mandatory fee assessed low priority transactions.   If you have low priority transactions, you will be assessed 0.0005 BTC per 10KB.   If you have a high priority transaction, there is no mandatory fee.

This has been this way since version 0.4 or something like that. 

If you are being asked to pay a 0.01 BTC fee it is because you have a low priority transaction that is huge.   How does one avoid this?   Stop using bitcoin as a micropayments network.  If someone is sending you bitcoin dust (like SatoshiDICE does for losing payouts), then stop patronizing that service.

[solex]

This is becoming very serious.

http://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=30589099

The thrust of the OP is addressing the most urgent issue affecting Bitcoin right now.