Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[rpietila]

Having stuff stored in the most secure ledger in the world is not free, so it should not be free. I felt bad when I sent a few BTC with a 0.001 fee. (No, not because I needed to pay €0.38 - because of the miners.)

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[JayJuanGee]

No spam right now, just normal transactions.  Only 188k tx in last 24hr.

https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=30days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

This is bullshit... we need more crying and bitching that "blocks are full", not a +37% to 52% extra space that 0.65mb-0.73mb blocks allow us

you're being disingenuous... avg block size phhhh, your an asshole or an idiot, take your pick..

He may be an asshole or an idiot, but he seems to be correct regarding the blocks generally being between 65% to 75% over the past few days.... 


Is there something wrong with blockchain.info?  I agree maybe we could get better specifics from blockchain.info, but the info seems pretty on track.


Look at the median transaction confirmation time for example:

https://blockchain.info/charts/median-confirmation-time


In the past few days, hovering in the average of 7.5 to 9.5 minutes.....


Sure things could maybe be better, and we could get better information, but still bitcoin seems far from broken in terms of securing value and transacting value in a relatively expeditious time frame with a relatively low cost.

[AlexGR]

I guess the small free space normally available in a block is being "spammed".  Wonderful

free space is a thing of the past, unfortunately. Another one of satoshis ideas getting buried.

0.12 nodes don't even relay 0-fee tx.

Free transactions are nice and we can keep it that way if people don't abuse them.

Well, guess what happened.

As for 0.12, from what I understand that's under max mempool limit (which you can set as high as you want, depending your node's ram capacity).

Bitcoin Core has a heuristic 'priority' based on coin value and age. This calculation is used for relaying of transactions which do not pay the minimum relay fee, and can be used as an alternative way of sorting transactions for mined blocks. Bitcoin Core will relay transactions with insufficient fees depending on the setting of -limitfreerelay=<r> (default: r=15 kB per minute) and -blockprioritysize=<s>.

In Bitcoin Core 0.12, when mempool limit has been reached a higher minimum relay fee takes effect to limit memory usage. Transactions which do not meet this higher effective minimum relay fee will not be relayed or mined even if they rank highly according to the priority heuristic.

[adamstgBit]

This post is for everyone that claims the fee market "breaks down" by altering block size:

I don't believe the tragedy of the commons argument is a valid one because Bitcoin never existed in "the commons" as something like a lake in the first place due to one obvious reason, it's a for-profit system managed by central bankers.  For Bitcoin to not have central bankers, it would require no maximum block size and no min transaction fee.  The problem here is, one of those variables is required to be constrained to prevent spam attacks, so you'll always have central bankers in Bitcoin.

The current devs seem obsessed with utilizing block size as the spam prevention mechanism of Bitcoin solely to try and give the appearance of Bitcoin having no central bankers, when block size is only arbitrary throughput constraint.  Minimum transaction fee is the real spam prevention tool for the job.  They just haven't utilized it because they want to pretend there's no central bankers in the system when it's obviously required.

From a miner's perspective, it's in their best interest to vote for the highest minimum transaction fee that the network will bear.  From a developer's engineering viewpoint, it's in their interest to set it to a level to prevent spam or attacks from constantly filling up blocks to create a permanent backlog.  They both have authority to do so, and both of these interests clearly point to a minimum transaction fee higher than zero, so a Bitcoin dev that isn't advocating a minimum transaction fee for each block size interval isn't fulfilling his role well IMO.

If you take these previous points as fact, there will obviously not be any marginal cost doomsday event by raising block size because the system already required central bankers to work in the first place.  Whether you agree or disagree about millions of other Larimer issues, he got it right when saying Bitcoin is a decentralized business or corporation, not a public good.  My semantics might also be wrong and you might be able to classify them as "decentralized bankers".  It's kind of unknown territory.  Regardless, there is governance and profit structure built in where it's not an unmanaged dumping ground.

there doesn't need to be a min fee set

miners can just not include transactions below a min fee of there own and just ignor TX below this min fee

also the bigger the block the higher chance of getting orphaned ( if 2 poeple fine a block at the same time the smaller one will propagate faster and win) so right there the miners NEED to keep a balance between the fees they add to the block and the size it makes that block increasing chances of getting orphaned.

nothing needs to be centrally planned...

[Andre#]

No spam right now, just normal transactions.  Only 188k tx in last 24hr.

maybe for 24 hrs but the last 30 blocks are full.  The people sending are checking the transaction now.

I thought this was the btc help center.  Am I in the correct place?

Update: They are saying:
We kindly advise that you please allow it some more time to be available.
At least through out the day.

LOL

Stop lying guys, or I'll tell JJG. He has graphs that show blocks are NOT full! 

EDIT: smiley

[AlexGR]

No spam right now, just normal transactions.  Only 188k tx in last 24hr.

maybe for 24 hrs but the last 30 blocks are full.  The people sending are checking the transaction now.

I thought this was the btc help center.  Am I in the correct place?

Update: They are saying:
We kindly advise that you please allow it some more time to be available.
At least through out the day.

LOL

Stop lying guys, or I'll tell JJG. He has graphs that show blocks are NOT full!

I synced my wallet a couple of hours ago, it was 23h behind. It downloaded 106mb and this includes some overhead.

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

[indiemax]

Having stuff stored in the most secure ledger in the world is not free, so it should not be free. I felt bad when I sent a few BTC with a 0.001 fee. (No, not because I needed to pay €0.38 - because of the miners.)

I think that says it all


I just wish they would sort the block size and get a workable plan out for all to see

Bitcoin is severely lacking confidence, that could change quickly

[ChartBuddy]

Coin



Explanation

[JayJuanGee]

No spam right now, just normal transactions.  Only 188k tx in last 24hr.

maybe for 24 hrs but the last 30 blocks are full.  The people sending are checking the transaction now.

I thought this was the btc help center.  Am I in the correct place?

Update: They are saying:
We kindly advise that you please allow it some more time to be available.
At least through out the day.

LOL

Stop lying guys, or I'll tell JJG. He has graphs that show blocks are NOT full!

There's no need to make fun of me.  

I am grappling with similar kinds of information as you (the charts on blockchain.info are good), and frequently, I request that if there is other information available, then that information should be provided. If you have some constructive criticism or better information than the charts on blockchain.info, then please provide it.

Regarding "the blocks are fullcalypse" whining, a few weeks ago, I had also done my own experiment to send through three levels of transactions that were around $1 that I published here while blocks were supposedly FULLCALYPSE, and it appears that even if blocks are showing up as nearly full the transactions are going through in relatively reasonable times with low fees (the three low transactions went through in about 1 hour for one with normal fees .0001BTC per kilobyte ($.04), and less than 10 hours for the two others with lower fees $.02 and $.004).

[bitebits]

I don't see what's wrong with avg blocksize. Should I take specific blocks to illustrate the point? And if so, what would these blocks be? The 0 bytes ones, or the 1000kb ones?

Life Law #1: You either get it or you don't. Strategy: Become one of those who gets it.

Life Law #4: You cannot change what you do not acknowledge.

Never imagined quoting Dr. Phil 

[adamstgBit]

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

look at the mem pool Alex, the answers you seek are in the mem pool.

[adamstgBit]

if alex throws a grenade at you, pull the pin out and throw it back.

[adamstgBit]

wow biggest block i have ever seen 999.91KB

there 215$ if fees in this block
 a few tx have a fee >2$

oh look i found happen to see an even bigger block today 999.92KB

WOOT i see a 999.98KB block  

top that you core devs, HA in your face.

[AlexGR]

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

look at the mem pool Alex, the answers you seek are in the mem pool.

The mempool will continue to have backlogs even with 10mb or 1gb blocks, if there is zero or near-zero cost to broadcast gigabytes of txs.

If miners are clearing them out by including them into the blocks => blockchain bloat.
If they don't => mempool bloat (much better and controlled situation compared to blockchain bloat).

[adamstgBit]

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

look at the mem pool Alex, the answers you seek are in the mem pool.

The mempool will continue to have backlogs even with 10mb or 1gb blocks, if there is zero or near-zero cost to broadcast gigabytes of txs.

If miners are clearing them out by including them into the blocks => blockchain bloat.
If they don't => mempool bloat (much better and controlled situation compared to blockchain bloat).

i give up

you keep believing that on avg blocks are only 50-75% full

[ahpku]

...
If they don't => mempool bloat (much better and controlled situation compared to blockchain bloat).

Yup. Not getting your tx included ain't the end of the world. Your coin comes back to you in 72 hrs, so you can try again. Or use a sidechain/off-chain payment solution, like Visa or PayPal

[AlexGR]

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

look at the mem pool Alex, the answers you seek are in the mem pool.

The mempool will continue to have backlogs even with 10mb or 1gb blocks, if there is zero or near-zero cost to broadcast gigabytes of txs.

If miners are clearing them out by including them into the blocks => blockchain bloat.
If they don't => mempool bloat (much better and controlled situation compared to blockchain bloat).

i give up

you keep believing that on avg blocks are only 50-75% full

This is not a religious issue to involve "beliefs".



All blocks added today and yesterday (including the 1mb one that got orphaned on 401626), divided by their count.

Block data from:

https://blockchain.info/blocks/1457468990441 March 8 - avg 682kb
https://blockchain.info/blocks/1457555390441 March 9 - avg 766kb*

* Up to 401913. It doesn't include the 0mb block in 401915.

[adamstgBit]

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

look at the mem pool Alex, the answers you seek are in the mem pool.

The mempool will continue to have backlogs even with 10mb or 1gb blocks, if there is zero or near-zero cost to broadcast gigabytes of txs.

If miners are clearing them out by including them into the blocks => blockchain bloat.
If they don't => mempool bloat (much better and controlled situation compared to blockchain bloat).

i give up

you keep believing that on avg blocks are only 50-75% full

This is not a religious issue to involve "beliefs".



All blocks added today and yesterday (including the 1mb one that got orphaned on 401626), divided by their count.

Block data from:

https://blockchain.info/blocks/1457468990441 March 8 - avg 682kb
https://blockchain.info/blocks/1457555390441 March 9 - avg 766kb

0.21KB blocks in there... did the mem pool backlog get cleared for a second?

[Andre#]

There's no need to make fun of me.  

I am grappling with similar kinds of information as you (the charts on blockchain.info are good), and frequently, I request that if there is other information available, then that information should be provided. If you have some constructive criticism or better information than the charts on blockchain.info, then please provide it.

Sorry for making fun of you (I couldn't resist). But average block size isn't a good metric. Empty blocks (and also soft limits) skew the result a lot, that's the reason why ChartBuddy takes that into account. Also, like in the rush hour, there are particular time windows that traffic spills over, e.g. when only 3 or 4 blocks in an hour are found. So there are isolated periods of delays, and the required fees go up and down with it. On top of that, not all wallets have good fee prediction algorithms (and some don't at all -- I think blockchain.info still uses a flat fee).

All this explains there are some users who have bad experiences, while other don't have any. If I send txs, I use my Mycelium wallet, which works like a breeze. Like you, I never have serious delays. I do sometimes pay high fees, though. My record fee has been 128 sat/B (0.000621 BTC in total) on 21 January.

But that doesn't mean that there's no capacity problem developing. Nor that there are no bad user experiences because of it. And those damage the reputation of Bitcoin. New users have to know too much of the workings of Bitcoin to protect themselves from having a bad experience. About transaction sizes, rate per byte, double checking cointape.com . It's damaging.

Saying "there's no problem (yet) -- so no need to worry" just doesn't cut it. We saw it coming for a year already, it's happening now, and it will get worse.

[AlexGR]

Blocks full = 130mb+ per day (theoretical max 144mb).

look at the mem pool Alex, the answers you seek are in the mem pool.

The mempool will continue to have backlogs even with 10mb or 1gb blocks, if there is zero or near-zero cost to broadcast gigabytes of txs.

If miners are clearing them out by including them into the blocks => blockchain bloat.
If they don't => mempool bloat (much better and controlled situation compared to blockchain bloat).

i give up

you keep believing that on avg blocks are only 50-75% full

This is not a religious issue to involve "beliefs".



All blocks added today and yesterday (including the 1mb one that got orphaned on 401626), divided by their count.

Block data from:

https://blockchain.info/blocks/1457468990441 March 8 - avg 682kb
https://blockchain.info/blocks/1457555390441 March 9 - avg 766kb

0.21KB blocks in there... did the mem pool backlog get cleared for a second?

Actually I counted up to block 401913, so the 0mb block (two blocks later) wasn't in the March 9 average. The next two drop the avg down to 762.