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

[arklan]

this transaction backlog is just getting insane. i mean really out of control. but i don't really see what we could do about it. what i mean is, even with segwit or BU's solution to scaling, couldn't these type of spam attacks just continue?

[savetherainforest]

I can feel the concern trolling level rising....

New perspective on the whole situation...    


It just feels like we have been here before!

[bitserve]

That put aside, there is a massive spam attack again. Mempool jumped by over 100-150k in <24 hours.
 

I do agree with the conclusion that these major back ups are largely caused by spam attacks, so yeah, delays and rising fees can piss people off, but also inability to move coins can also cause coin shortages and rising BTC prices because exchanges run out of coins (when the coins cannot be easily moved).

Coins can be easily moved if you pay the right fee and don't do anything stupid like sending unconfirmed funds as input.

The people, even if them all combined, moving 0.1BTC to an exchange with an underpaid fee have no significant impact on prices.

The people moving bigger amounts, tens or hundreds of coins, sometimes even thousands, are the ones that can have an impact on the price.

If someone moving that amounts cannot pay 30cents-1dollar (those with bigger stashes don't need long tx's with multiple imputs) then the world is way fucked than I thought.

No, I don't think that's the cause of the price going up. In fact, it is the reason why price is not going higher.

[bitserve]

this transaction backlog is just getting insane. i mean really out of control. but i don't really see what we could do about it. what i mean is, even with segwit or BU's solution to scaling, couldn't these type of spam attacks just continue?

Yes, and they will.

If you check the backlog, there are lots of transactions that are trying to spend unconfirmed funds, with fees so low that will never confirm, even with 0 fees... There are lots of clearly spammy ones, so they are and will keep unconfirmed because that's how they need to be.

Right now you can still get your transaction into the next block simpky by paying the right fee. So only problem that there is right now is if fees are or aren't too expensive. I, for one, think it is a too expensive fee for small transactions.

When LN is into place I wouln't mind to pay this fee for medium to big transfers of funds, and using LN for small/micro ones. But, anyway, it will also have the effect of reducing the fee also for blockchain txs. Maybe that's why some/most miners are against it.

[metacoin]

High fees and a long transaction backlog indicate demand for block space. Personally I prefer using Bitcoin as a payment method because the experience is much better than using any analogous method. The situation we are in is not surprising. Bitcoin is far superior to any other payment method.

It is perfect for exactly the type of transactions I use it for: finding the best deal on Earth for a server and being able to pay for it, even if the company is overseas, or hiring someone from another country to do translation work, investing in a project, donating to a charity. The list goes on. None of these things come even close to paying for coffee and if I am limited to using the legacy banking institution for my morning coffee and afternoon lunch that's fine with me. If I truly wanted to I could easily use petty cash for local day-to-day purchases by turning Bitcoins into cash via an ATM or local traders within a block from where I live or where I work.

I have had issues with paying legitimate overseas companies with my credit card due to automatic fraud protection and I have had issues with eBay and other similar services regarding chargebacks, payment disputes, and other high-friction painpoints that simply do not exist in the context of Bitcoin (as long as you are an honest merchant).

I suspect I'm not alone in this case -- others are figuring out how much better Bitcoin is than traditional means of transmitting value -- and it is reflected in the price, volume, and transaction backlog. Would it be better if it were fixed? Yeah, probably. Is it affecting anyone who cares about *why* Bitcoin is effective? Probably not in any significant way.

[JimboToronto]

I prefer using Bitcoin as a payment method because the experience is much better than using any analogous method. The situation we are in is not surprising. Bitcoin is far superior to any other payment method.

I got a distress email from an old friend today from Mexico. A severe storm ripped off her roof and flooded her electrical system. I wanted to help:

Do you have any way to receive and convert bitcoins? If you could email me the QR code to the public key to a Bitcoin wallet I could have funds to you in minutes.

Here's her answer:

i am giggling at bitcoin thank you, our nearest resemblance of a bank machine is thirty miles away
the fastest way would be western union, i hate them but they do get the job done for the price.

Cost $15CAD with Western Union. What a ripoff. 

[bitserve]

WTF!

Talking about fees I have just made my first Monero transaction, from Kraken to Poloniex. As I always do to check everything is ok, I have sent one single XMR, before sending the rest.

Ok, here comes the shocking part:

XXXXX   05-17-17 XXXXXX +XXXX   Monero   ɱ0.95000   ɱ0.05000 Success
   
WTF again!? A 5% fee?

I have never had any problem with fees paid by Kraken (it doesn't let you specify it) with BTC or any other coins so I have to assume that there are other coins with MUCH WORSE transactions fees?

This is crazy.

P.S.: Considering XMR is now around 25€, that's 1.25€....

[yefi]

I think that the whale pumpers have just about squeezed all of the 'free ride' they can out of the alts. Now that XRP (the pinnacle of shitcoin) has finally been pumped, there are literally no more alts that anyone might care about to pump.  Unless they're saving Auroracoin, Feathercoin, or Maxcoin for the last hurrah? Lol

I'm not seeing any evidence yet that the pumpfest is over. The inflexion point could be sharp however.

[JayJuanGee]

That put aside, there is a massive spam attack again. Mempool jumped by over 100-150k in <24 hours.
 

I do agree with the conclusion that these major back ups are largely caused by spam attacks, so yeah, delays and rising fees can piss people off, but also inability to move coins can also cause coin shortages and rising BTC prices because exchanges run out of coins (when the coins cannot be easily moved).

Coins can be easily moved if you pay the right fee and don't do anything stupid like sending unconfirmed funds as input.

I doubt that the empirical data actually supports this assertion.

In other words, I doubt that merely increasing the fee solves the spam problem and causes your transaction to go through in a timely or expected manner.

No, I don't think that's the cause of the price going up. In fact, it is the reason why price is not going higher.

Sure if the price is not moving too much, you can make these kinds of assertions, but in the end, we don't really know for sure if there were coins that were delayed in being moved and therefore delayed in being dumped in order to lower the price.

[marcus_of_augustus]

I can feel the concern trolling level rising....

FUDster alerts going off all over the place.

[Torque]

I can feel the concern trolling level rising....

FUDster alerts going off all over the place.

Yeah, I noticed this little pattern. r/bitcoin normally averages around a couple hundred users at any given time. Whenever it goes above a 1000 users, they're all troll accounts concern-trolling and posting FUD. Currently at 2811 users... lol

Edit: Now at 3682, lol

[bitserve]

I doubt that the empirical data actually supports this assertion.

In other words, I doubt that merely increasing the fee solves the spam problem and causes your transaction to go through in a timely or expected manner.

Yes, increasing the fee does surely almost guarantee it.

It doesn't solve the spam problem though... as spam will keep increasing the number of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool... but that's something that won't affect your properly  generously paid transaction.

For illustration, this is like a BUS system transportation, in which, when the BUS is empty, people can board for free or for a small fee, but paid travellers can always buy their seat.

When there is enough paying people to fill the BUS, all the rest can keep in the queue but there's no place for them, so they have to wait. If there is more people willing to pay that capacity in the BUS, you can always pay more than the rest to make sure you get your seat. As long as you are willing to pay enough, your seat is garanted, no matter how many are crowding outside waiting for their free/cheap ride.

Now take into account that many of people waiting outside in the queue doesn't really want to get onto the bus, they are just in the crowd complaining about how expensive the BUS now is, that they can't get on it for free anymore, and that they have been waiting for days to get a cheap seat.... while the paying passengers are just flowing as always (paying a higher fee as before though).

Sure if the price is not moving too much, you can make these kinds of assertions, but in the end, we don't really know for sure if there were coins that were delayed in being moved and therefore delayed in being dumped in order to lower the price.

Even if they were delayed... they were delayed since when?

Even if you consider a 2 days delay (what?!) that does mean that after two days all the coins arrive at the exchanges and its only the next ones that are yet to be received. So theres not much impact from that, just some lag (again the two days figure is an extreme exageration).

Unless you are considering that this fee/delay problem is something new that just hapenned since the last hours/days.

[podyx]

What the fuck is going on with ripple.

It's gone up 60x the last 2 months. Why have I not heard anything about it?

[marcus_of_augustus]

I can feel the concern trolling level rising....

FUDster alerts going off all over the place.

Yeah, I noticed this little pattern. r/bitcoin normally averages around a couple hundred users at any given time. Whenever it goes above a 1000 users, they're all troll accounts concern-trolling and posting FUD. Currently at 2811 users... lol

Edit: Now at 3682, lol

FUDstorm, concern trolling, TX spam DDOS and then dump ... pretty consistent attack modus operandi now, wonder how long it will remain effective?

[JayJuanGee]

I doubt that the empirical data actually supports this assertion.

In other words, I doubt that merely increasing the fee solves the spam problem and causes your transaction to go through in a timely or expected manner.

Yes, increasing the fee does surely almost guarantee it.

Probably better to just cut our losses here and agree to disagree.

When the system is not being spam attacked, there are almost no fees.  I mean you can get transactions through by paying very minimal fees.  I have experimented with this and have also seen information of the transactions of others.

When spam attacks are going on, you can pay high fees and your transactions will not go through.  I have experienced this several times.  I know it is anectdotal, but still, I have no doubts that others are having similar problems of paying regular or high fees and their transactions are still stuck (most likely due to spam attacks)
 

Sure if the price is not moving too much, you can make these kinds of assertions, but in the end, we don't really know for sure if there were coins that were delayed in being moved and therefore delayed in being dumped in order to lower the price.

Even if they were delayed... they were delayed since when?

Even if you consider a 2 days delay (what?!) that does mean that after two days all the coins arrive at the exchanges and its only the next ones that are yet to be received. So theres not much impact from that, just some lag (again the two days figure is an extreme exageration).

Unless you are considering that this fee/delay problem is something new that just hapenned since the last hours/days.

You seem to be assuming a lot.  Yeah, more experienced folks are not going to be caught with their pants down too often because they are going to be prepared, but sometimes when the price is moving, folks want to move their coins and to off load them, but could be delayed for a few days because of the blockage.

You cannot just assume no impact without any facts.  If there is a delay, there are likely various impacts, whether those impacts make significant differences would be up to extensive analysis - because it is not easy to argue about conclusion if we cannot even agree on facts or even the significance of various facts.

[Paashaas]

Today is my niece birthday, she's 8 years now.

I got a cool gift for here, i'll make a vacuum plastic shielded paper wallet with 0.05 ore 0.1 Bitcoin on it.

She needs to keep it for atleast 10 years, so when she turns 18 she can buy a part of here drivers license.

I'll update it later with a foto 

[Ted E. Bare]

That is a nice gift Paashaas. Always fun to share bitcoins with your loved ones.

[Ted E. Bare]

Is this the start of the pump to 2k USD? Look at those volume bars.

[podyx]

Is this the start of the pump to 2k USD? Look at those volume bars.

Meanwhile ripple has gone from about $15 to $1k in the last 2 months in relation to bitcoin price

[bitserve]

Meanwhile ripple has gone from about $15 to $1k in the last 2 months in relation to bitcoin price

Healthy organic growth, don't you think?

I didn't make any money on its way up, but I will do on its way down