Is Bitcoin still suited to low amount transactions?

[ranochigo]

i don't get why people on this topic are talking about everything except the fact that the transaction in OP had a Lock Time!
it is even possible some nodes rejected his transaction until it was in a block (hence the + 0 minutes in Included In Blocks field on blockchain.info)

Could you at least check the nlocktime and to what extent it affected the transaction?
It didn't affect the transaction at all.  Block 444307 was mined 3 hours before the transaction was broadcast. This made the transaction standard and all the nodes would relay it without an issue.

I don't think the Bitcoin system can support low value transaction now Considering the increased fees due to full blocks (and also Chinese miners mining empty blocks),

Wait, what where? From what I can tell, "Chinese" mining pools are NOT mining empty blocks or blocks with low block size deliberately. From the blocks they mined for the day, the blocks that had small size were due to the succession of blocks being found.

For OP's transaction, the fee don't even reached the 10000 satoshi standard fee even before full (and nearly full) blocks become common and would take a considerable amount of time to confirm even that... I'd recommend you to double spend the bitcoins with a higher fee this time (at least 10000 satoshi). (Just found out the tx already have 64 confirmations...) Next time send your bitcoins with at least 10000 satoshi fee if there's only 1 input and up to 2 output (the payment and your change). If more inputs are used than upgrade your fee to 20000 satoshi or more...

There is no such thing as a standard fee. The only fee requirement that is remotely as close as that is the relay fee and it varies from node to node. It is relatively difficult to doublespend with the transaction in the mempool and with no Opt-in RBF flag. I doubt newbies would want to risk and do something wrong with their private keys anyway. The wallet should calculate it for you and you shouldn't touch anything except ensuring that the specified fees/byte is of good amount.

[JasonXG]

Bitcoin is good with any size transaction. Just make sure you put enough fee / byte of information when you are transferring higher amounts of bitcoins. If the ratio is kept it will be fine.


People only say there no transaction fees because they so small. If I use my bank card I spend 0.00045 per transaction even if it is small if I withdraw cash of up to 0.045 then I spend 0.00080 on transaction fees. Bitcoin ia only 0.0001 - 0.0002 .

[bitbunnny]

Bitcoin could be used for any size transactions the question is the fee and if it's worth to pay having in mind the ratio abd the amount you are sending. And it's airways good to use recommended fee.
But don't forget that you very often also have fees on your credit cards, which are not small at all and we consider this as normal.

[abel1337]

Dust and super small transactions should be pushed to an altcoin, there is no reason to keep them on Bitcoin and pay fees higher than what you are sending to get it through in a decent amount of time.

Absolutely , Micro transaction always end up paying much more transaction fee than the quantity you were sending.

Using other wallets that has no transaction fee better to do micro transaction on that wallet.

[pawanjain]

Hi,

I have tried to send 10m BTC to a friend 1:30 ago and it has not been confirmed yet! When I check Blockchain.info, the transaction is not there yet and I see hundreds of transactions per minute appearing there. Considering that miners will choose highest fee transactions first, low amount transactions will starve for confirmation... I have chosen the fee recommended  by the satoshi client and it says that it is probable to be confirmed in the next 25 blocks (250 minutes!). It seems that there is bid of fees and high amount transactions are more keen to pay a higher fee. Therefore, I believe that that speech of no transaction cost with bitcoin has become a fairy tale...


Status: 0/unconfirmed, in memory pool, broadcast through 7 node(s)

Date: 20/12/2016 16:01
To: Murillo 1Bf1gRLpshMxEZXH6Xw6FVRWX6Zcz8BJi4
Debit: -0.01000000 BTC
Transaction fee: -0.00009840 BTC
Net amount: -0.01009840 BTC
Transaction ID: 3493f7390da8e225a44ded54c413f6c0ced3ec3d566b89c0b3e463928f4ca1aa
Output index: 0

I don't know why this happened but I had never made any big transaction than 0.01 BTC .
You should directly contact to the blockchain .

[Pitchblackroom]

I would honestly say that the transaction fees of bitcoin are what make it seem less functional than say a debit card where you can get things such as video games (In the United States) but with bitcoin the fee makes it more expensive to buy goods. Although the fee is rather tiny and its sort of flat of where other posters have said 2-15 cents, it still deters the purchasing of goods since these fees will exist.

Imagine adding more taxes onto goods being purchased with Bitcoin, it will probably make it seem less likely as an exchange medium if that is the case.

[bitcoinisbest]

If you are transferring without any fees then certainly you can do minimum transaction with the risk that it may take days to confirm those type of transactions. Well on other hand minimum generally ht fees is 0.0002 so ideally you have transact a good amount so that % of fees of your transaction amount is bare minimum

[Pursuer]

bitcoin was never the best for very small transaction amounts although it have always been cheap. and now the situation is worse because of the fee wars. the blocks are full and the number of unconfirmed transactions are growing fast so we have to compete with each other by including more and more fees and it is making transactions more expensive.

[mobnepal]

This https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ can help you to understand what is the recommended fee to get your transaction confirmed within next block. I always use fee enough to make my transaction confirmed in next block and i don't mind to pay a little bit more to get it confirmed rather than waiting for several hours.

Good way to minimize the size/fee is to only have one input and try to send micro payments to multiple address in one transaction rather than sending them one by one.

[Juggy777]

Hi,

I have tried to send 10m BTC to a friend 1:30 ago and it has not been confirmed yet! When I check Blockchain.info, the transaction is not there yet and I see hundreds of transactions per minute appearing there. Considering that miners will choose highest fee transactions first, low amount transactions will starve for confirmation... I have chosen the fee recommended  by the satoshi client and it says that it is probable to be confirmed in the next 25 blocks (250 minutes!). It seems that there is bid of fees and high amount transactions are more keen to pay a higher fee. Therefore, I believe that that speech of no transaction cost with bitcoin has become a fairy tale...


Status: 0/unconfirmed, in memory pool, broadcast through 7 node(s)

Date: 20/12/2016 16:01
To: Murillo 1Bf1gRLpshMxEZXH6Xw6FVRWX6Zcz8BJi4
Debit: -0.01000000 BTC
Transaction fee: -0.00009840 BTC
Net amount: -0.01009840 BTC
Transaction ID: 3493f7390da8e225a44ded54c413f6c0ced3ec3d566b89c0b3e463928f4ca1aa
Output index: 0

Definitely yes I use it for small and big transaction all the time. And if you are aware of the recent PayPal change which you have to transact minimum of 1$, it has made Bitcoin small transaction more user friendly. Then in your case transactions take time dude, some days quick some days slow. So check in a while it will be confirmed.

[passivebesiege]

If some one want much faster transaction,they paid much higher fee so they will receive it faster, if your not in a rush there's no problem to use low fee to send funds to any one. I only use local online wallet to save some of the fee and its much easier to use for to me to send fund to other people have transaction with me.

[Kakmakr]

Dust and super small transactions should be pushed to an altcoin, there is no reason to keep them on Bitcoin and pay fees higher than what you are sending to get it through in a decent amount of time.

Why a Alt coin? Both parties know each other, so they just signup with Xapo or another off-chain solution and transfer the money at almost ZERO fees and it is instant. You can keep it in Xapo, but if you want to use it for something else, you will have to take it back on the Blockchain, and that will cost you some miners fees. A lot of people have Xapo, so you can pay with off-chain services like this or you can use their debit card. < This has fees >

Atleast this way, it stays within Bitcoin and no obscure Alt coin. ^hmmmm^

[Quantus]

1) Secure
2) low fees
3) Decentralized

You can only pick two.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If your priority is not security and decentralization then maybe you should be using a different cryptocoin.  

Bitcoin was never meant to be free. High fees protect the network from spam and ensure the security of our mining network to protect us from double spends and government takeovers.

Small block size protect us from centralization and denial of service attacks on our network nodes. 

I don't think lightning networks or side chains are a good option ether, they operate with lower standards of security.

Our only real option is to wait and survive long enough until the world wide internet can accommodate a low latency high bandwidth connection at low cost to all people.

This will take at least 10 more years.  

Until then the community will have to micro manage block size to the best of our ability.

[crairezx20]

If some one want much faster transaction,they paid much higher fee so they will receive it faster, if your not in a rush there's no problem to use low fee to send funds to any one. I only use local online wallet to save some of the fee and its much easier to use for to me to send fund to other people have transaction with me.

Well the fee for me its not a problem if i am dealing to someone daily i just use the coinbase since the transaction fee is free but for a large transaction i am using electrum which is my main wallet where i stored all my bitcoin..
Coinbase is just for my daily use and local wallet like coins.ph is i use it too for daily use because they are not asking for the fee for every transaction..

[Jasad]

Dust and super small transactions should be pushed to an altcoin, there is no reason to keep them on Bitcoin and pay fees higher than what you are sending to get it through in a decent amount of time.

actually what for sending a little amount?
i will stick to keep using bitcoin no matter how small the transaction it is (a reasonable transaction of course)
altcoin are not as popular as bitcoin , that is the problem ,
0.001 the lowest transaction i usually do and i think it is a reasonable amount instead 0.0001 or so.

[dawnpot]

Dust and super small transactions should be pushed to an altcoin, there is no reason to keep them on Bitcoin and pay fees higher than what you are sending to get it through in a decent amount of time.

actually what for sending a little amount?
i will stick to keep using bitcoin no matter how small the transaction it is (a reasonable transaction of course)
altcoin are not as popular as bitcoin , that is the problem ,
0.001 the lowest transaction i usually do and i think it is a reasonable amount instead 0.0001 or so.

Yes the processing fees are negligible; almost 0% processing fees.

[franky1]

1) Secure
2) low fees
3) Decentralized

You can only pick two.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If your priority is not security and decentralization then maybe you should be using a different cryptocoin.  

Bitcoin was never meant to be free. High fees protect the network from spam and ensure the security of our mining network to protect us from double spends and government takeovers.

Small block size protect us from centralization and denial of service attacks on our network nodes.  

I don't think lightning networks or side chains are a good option ether, they operate with lower standards of security.

Our only real option is to wait and survive long enough until the world wide internet can accommodate a low latency high bandwidth connection at low cost to all people.

This will take at least 10 more years.  

Until then the community will have to micro manage block size to the best of our ability.

i pick 1 and 2.. because number 3 is not a problem..

i laugh when people say the blocksize is massive..

um hello. 7 years of borderless payments of millions of people is the size of.....dramatic pause....... a fingernail


as for saying high fee's protect against spam.. well define spam. because it seems many think that developing countries hourly wage is spam. even a weeks wage should be deemed spam
also CODE can avert real spam. such as not allowing someone to resend funds the same day/ within x blocks. or limiting sig-ops of transactions. and many other CODE techniques..

using economics fails because if it requires X just to get through the relay network everyone is gonna pay X. thus thats already pushing the fee upward. then the 'average estimate' mechanism, again everyone pay that so again pushes the price up without even considering spam.
and then lastly "average estimates" are not instantly reactive to low demand times and thus keep the price up even when there isnt demand

economic 'pricing' is not the solution to spam. its a barrier of entry/utility

[Xester]

Bitcoin could be used for any size transactions the question is the fee and if it's worth to pay having in mind the ratio abd the amount you are sending. And it's airways good to use recommended fee.
But don't forget that you very often also have fees on your credit cards, which are not small at all and we consider this as normal.

It is discouraging to see small amounts with small fees tends to be the last priority in bitcoin transactions. As bitcoin price grew more bigger as time goes bye small transactions also increases in fees. But this is not a bad news, it really means that bitcoin becomes more in demand. But I am still hoping that transactions will be lesser than it is now.

[Quantus]

I disagree that centralization is not an issue.

Long term security requires all users to be able to run and host full nodes on home computers and at low cost.

Server hosting companies in America just like in China, like Amazon and Google are under the control of their host governments.  If we are to be truly sovereign unto our selfs and beyond the reach of all possible intervention from world governments we need to run our network on our own hardware in our own homes.

The greatest cost in hosting a full node is not storage but bandwidth, the size of the blockchain is virtually free to store but to transmit that data at low latency to more then 8 peers continuously is very expensive to low income users.

If you doubt my claims run a full node for one month at your home and watch in horror as your ISP disconnects your internet for some violation in the terms of service agreement or charges you $200 pulse dollars in bandwidth fees.

The majority of the worlds population is limited to 1mb download speeds and 1/5 of that in upload speed.

I agree that there are software engineering solutions that can help combat spam but they in and of them selfs are not a solution.

[rababo]

Yes, Bitcoin is still suited to any amount transactions. You can send small amount bitcoin, but it may takes some time to be confirmed due to low fees to pay. You can set to higher fees to get faster confirmed transactions.