Are fees mandatory?

[refaelsh]

I am wondering, are fees mandatory?
1. Does the official client enforces them?
2. Does blockchaing.info wallets enforce them? I always put 0.00000000 BTC as the fee in My blackchain.info wallet but sometime is still insists on including a fee. Why is that?
3. I understand the current fee is 500 uBTC. At the current BTC price it is a noticeable fee. When and if it will go down?

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[Mike Christ]

Many transactions can be sent without a fee.  But some can't (it's a complex explanation why), and act as incentive to miners to include them in their blocks.  You don't have to include a fee, but if you don't, there's a possibility your transaction will sit in limbo for a lot longer than you'd like.  I believe the larger the transaction, the more you have to pay in a fee, but I'm not entirely sure; it's more so how complex the transaction is, how many Kb is being sent to complete it.

[BitHits]

COMPLEX EXPLANATION PLOX!

I've been researching this for like a month

From what I gather the following factors are taken into account.

Transaction Size
Input Value
Coin 'Age'

I also read this site one time that said this

Code:

priority = sum(input_value_in_base_units * input_age)/size_in_bytes

Transactions need to have a priority above 57,600,000 to avoid the enforced limit (as of client version 0.3.21)

Also this

A transaction will be sent without fees if these conditions are met:
It is smaller than 10 thousand bytes.
All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.

[DannyHamilton]

I am wondering, are fees mandatory?

No.

1. Does the official client enforces them?

If by "official client" you mean the Bitcoin-Qt reference client, then yes.

2. Does blockchain.info wallets enforce them? I always put 0.00000000 BTC as the fee in My blockchain.info wallet but sometime is still insists on including a fee. Why is that?

Blockchain.info does not enforce fees if you use the "custom" transaction feature.  I believe it does enforce some fees on non-custom transactions.

3. I understand the current fee is 500 uBTC. At the current BTC price it is a noticeable fee. When and if it will go down?

There is no predetermined time for it to go down.  At some time in the future, the developers of the reference client may choose to reduce the fee.  Only time will tell.




Bitcoin is completely voluntary:

You can choose not to pay fees on your transactions by using a wallet that does not enforce fees.

Keep in mind though that the peers you connect to can also choose to relay your transaction on the network (or not relay it) if they feel that it is is part of a DOS attack (or any other reason they may have for refusing to relay a transaction).  They may choose to make this determination however they like (including basing the decision on the size of the transaction and relative amount of fees).  They make their decision by running a wallet that enforces the transaction relaying rules that they choose. If you don't like these relay rules, you are welcome to find (or create) a wallet that will allow you to connect directly to the IP addresses of the recipient of your transaction and various miners or mining pools so that you don't have to rely on peers to relay it.

Keep in mind as well that the miners can choose to include your transaction in a block (or not include it) if they feel that it is not in their personal interest to do so (or any other reason they may have for refusing to include it).  They may choose to make this determination however they like (including basing the decision on the ratio between the fees included in the transaction and the size of the transaction).  If you don't like these mining rules, you are welcome to run a miner that will solve blocks with your transactions or find like-minded miners willing to do the same and ensure that your transactions get to them.

[the founder]

Dude,  it's wrong not to pay fees... 

Forget mandatory or not mandatory ...

[theowalpott]

Dude,  it's wrong not to pay fees... 

Forget mandatory or not mandatory ...

I disagree, miners get 25BTC per block at the moment, when the reward is significantly lower I'd be more inclined to agree with you.

[mai77]

3. I understand the current fee is 500 uBTC. At the current BTC price it is a noticeable fee. When and if it will go down?

it went down once already. But since miners profit from this rip-off, you have to find alternative ways (see my other post)

[Tacticat]

Choose your own fee based on what you believe is just.
You must be aware that you have a say in this issue. Everybody has.

Once everybody starts setting lower fees in their clients, this will become the new standard as miners will be pressured to accept the new fee used by the majority.

[prezbo]

Choose your own fee based on what you believe is just.
You must be aware that you have a say in this issue. Everybody has.

Once everybody starts setting lower fees in their clients, this will become the new standard as miners will be pressured to accept the new fee used by the majority.

Why would they be pressured into anything? They can just leave the blocks empty, and get whatever the reward is for that, if they think fee/(transaction processing cost) is too low. If it cost me more to process the transaction than it was worth I sure as hell wouldn't do it.