Transaction Fees are SPIKING !

[lumeire]

...

frankuestein just wrote:

"BTC won't be lost forever.

Some third party services, merchants or even people like you and me using a wallet like Electrum can set an expiry date for a payment request. An example of a use case could be to prevent customers from submitting payments after the quoted price is no longer valid.

That's why your bitcoins won't be lost and wallet addresses don't expire. In case you send bitcoins to a third party service like kraken or you use a payment gateway like coinbase, you'll have to follow its rules and this is not bitcoin's 'fault'."


Bitmixer.io for one has addresses that expire in 24 hours.  They then DELETE the address & account info.  As far as I know, that means any BTC arriving late is GONE.  And that would be terrible for the unwary who might lose a big chunk of money when the blockchain is stopped-up...

I think that the point franckuestein wanted to make is that the Bitcoins are still there, at the address they were sent to. If that service deletes the private keys, well... Taking franckuestein words, "you'll have to follow their rules"

That's why it's better to do direct transactions, this way you have all the control.

@ontopic Microtransactions over the BTCBTCBTC network are dead. Come to think that it was the micro-economy that pushed BTCBTCBTC in the limelight during the early days, it was supposedly its bread-and-butter.

[tvbcof]

...
Basically, we now have a market of sellers dictating prices (read monopoly, or rather oligopoly), with LN it will be a market of buyers. Miners are evil, and they should be gotten rid of (as they are now)

I've always thought that it would be cool to have a growing selection of algorithms which could be used interchangeably to solve a block.  Those algorithms which are over-utilized would be progressively weighted in some manner (increasing refund of transaction fees perhaps?)

(edit:  Actually, each algo could easily have it's own difficulty which would be the most straightforward solution.)

This would make it less practical to whip up ASIC chips and as a consequence could put independents back into the mining game.  Basically anyone running a full node may as well throw some CPU power against it.

With interchangeable algorithms other possibilities to discourage superior resource attacks are possible.  For instance, for high confidence transactions a user might wait until {m} of {n} algorithm types have been used.  This would make it so that an attacker would have to achieve domination over multiple classes of miner.

I wouldn't say that the miners are 'evil', or if they are, they could be a lot worse.  They are self-interested which is perfectly understandable.  But they should be careful because fucking them over if the community decides they deserve it is but a hard-fork away.

[Amph]

These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee).

Wut?

The fee market is working perfectly. I pay more, I get a confirmation ahead of those who pay less. I pay less, I wait in line behind those who have paid more.

Oh my, the mayhem of getting what I pay for!

which isn't ideal at all, it will only start a race where who pay more get confirmation quickly, and this is exactly the reaosn why the fee are increasing, not because of spamming or miners wanting them bigger

TX fee should have been a fixed rate, there should be a way to ignore the added sum from imput and output, maybe it's doable maybe not, but it would definitely get rid of a lot of problems

[sportis]

These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee).

Wut?

The fee market is working perfectly. I pay more, I get a confirmation ahead of those who pay less. I pay less, I wait in line behind those who have paid more.

Oh my, the mayhem of getting what I pay for!

which isn't ideal at all, it will only start a race where who pay more get confirmation quickly, and this is exactly the reaosn why the fee are increasing, not because of spamming or miners wanting them bigger

TX fee should have been a fixed rate, there should be a way to ignore the added sum from imput and output, maybe it's doable maybe not, but it would definitely get rid of a lot of problems

According to the way I see the things I have a different view. I don't agree with a predetermined amount of satoshis per byte or a fixed rate according the inputs and outputs of the transaction size. People give value to bitcoin and miners secure the network. This is a free market and bitcoin users can decide if they want to stay in bitcoin world or to go somewhere else that is, using alt coins. This does not mean that I agree with the very high fees in order someone to see in a reasonable time a confirmed transaction. On the other side I want to have a choice. Therefore although I know that LN networks are indeed an off-chain solution should be exist and everyone has the right to do his choice.

[Reid]

Well I guess those who are spamming it are really doing their jobs now.
It is a mess now with all that transactions and that is the reason it keeps on spiking.
Miners are going to need to up their game and they would need a lot of fees for that.
This is really a chaos now in the bitcoin world.

[deisik]

These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee).

Wut?

The fee market is working perfectly. I pay more, I get a confirmation ahead of those who pay less. I pay less, I wait in line behind those who have paid more.

Oh my, the mayhem of getting what I pay for!

People don't see the forest for the trees

And you seem to be one of them. If we are to consider Bitcoin as money, Bitcoin should facilitate exchange, not hinder it. That's what essentially makes money money. In this way, money is purely utilitarian, and its utility depends on how well it facilitates the exchange (of goods or whatever). Unsurprisingly, the money which incurs less expenses associated with transactions would have more utility in comparison with the money which demands more costs for its use. Thereby, your assumption that you should pay more is against the very concept of money. There is basically nothing to argue with since that should be evident to anyone more or less familiar with economics

[Holliday]

These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee).

Wut?

The fee market is working perfectly. I pay more, I get a confirmation ahead of those who pay less. I pay less, I wait in line behind those who have paid more.

Oh my, the mayhem of getting what I pay for!

People don't see the forest for the trees

And you seem to be one of them. If we are to consider Bitcoin as money, Bitcoin should facilitate exchange, not hinder it. That's what essentially makes money money. In this way, money is purely utilitarian, and its utility depends on how well it facilitates the exchange (of goods or whatever). Unsurprisingly, the money which incurs less expenses associated with transactions would have more utility in comparison with the money which demands more costs for its use. Thereby, your assumption that you should pay more is against the very concept of money. There is basically nothing to argue with since that should be evident to anyone more or less familiar with economics

Facilitating exchange is only one aspect of money, and one that first requires a store of value. Bitcoin's unique properties which enable a decentralized network to maintain an immutable ledger providing for censorship-proof transactions is what gives Bitcoin it's value. Ignoring those unique properties while trying to solely improve the ability to facilitate exchange will be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

You also ignore real world resources and real world friction in your analysis.

Free, instant transactions are pointless if I need to ask a third party for permission or assistance. That's real friction which hinders exchange. And let's be honest, there is no such thing as "free", you will pay one way or another.

Then we have the block chain, the distributed network of nodes, and proof of work, you know, the combination of which creates the possibility of censorship-proof transactions. Maintaining and securing the network has costs, and those costs have been paid by the block subsidy since the dawn of Bitcoin, but that has to transition to fees.

Simply put, appending the block chain has a cost, and that cost has to be paid. I prefer those costs be paid directly because it keeps the system honest. It's clear that the block subsidy has obscured the truth from many early adopters.

So yes, all things equal, paying less is better than paying more. However, you haven't given any alternatives to transaction fees for the real costs which provide the very utility you desire. "Establish hubs" doesn't explain anything. If you mean building a layer on top of Bitcoin, which allows the underlying protocol to retain the very properties which give it value, fine, we are in agreement.

[Holliday]

TX fee should have been a fixed rate, there should be a way to ignore the added sum from imput and output, maybe it's doable maybe not, but it would definitely get rid of a lot of problems

I think there has been enough evidence throughout history that price fixing is a complete failure which always makes things worse.

[megynacuna]

TX fee should have been a fixed rate, there should be a way to ignore the added sum from imput and output, maybe it's doable maybe not, but it would definitely get rid of a lot of problems

I think there has been enough evidence throughout history that price fixing is a complete failure which always makes things worse.

True but in this case something needs to be done about it before the whole world grows weary if Bitcoin fees and the delayed confirmations and abandon its usage completely.

[n0ne]

Transaction fee is spiking in relation to the price increase. This doesn't mean that the fee is high. Now even the increased fee doesn't gets priority in the queue. As for concerned its good to hold on or use confirmation catalyst websites that speed upon transactions.

[deisik]

These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee).

Wut?

The fee market is working perfectly. I pay more, I get a confirmation ahead of those who pay less. I pay less, I wait in line behind those who have paid more.

Oh my, the mayhem of getting what I pay for!

People don't see the forest for the trees

And you seem to be one of them. If we are to consider Bitcoin as money, Bitcoin should facilitate exchange, not hinder it. That's what essentially makes money money. In this way, money is purely utilitarian, and its utility depends on how well it facilitates the exchange (of goods or whatever). Unsurprisingly, the money which incurs less expenses associated with transactions would have more utility in comparison with the money which demands more costs for its use. Thereby, your assumption that you should pay more is against the very concept of money. There is basically nothing to argue with since that should be evident to anyone more or less familiar with economics

Facilitating exchange is only one aspect of money, and one that first requires a store of value. Bitcoin's unique properties which enable a decentralized network to maintain an immutable ledger providing for censorship-proof transactions is what gives Bitcoin it's value. Ignoring those unique properties while trying to solely improve the ability to facilitate exchange will be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

You also ignore real world resources and real world friction in your analysis.

Free, instant transactions are pointless if I need to ask a third party for permission or assistance. That's real friction which hinders exchange. And let's be honest, there is no such thing as "free", you will pay one way or another.

Then we have the block chain, the distributed network of nodes, and proof of work, you know, the combination of which creates the possibility of censorship-proof transactions. Maintaining and securing the network has costs, and those costs have been paid by the block subsidy since the dawn of Bitcoin, but that has to transition to fees.

Simply put, appending the block chain has a cost, and that cost has to be paid. I prefer those costs be paid directly because it keeps the system honest. It's clear that the block subsidy has obscured the truth from many early adopters.

So yes, all things equal, paying less is better than paying more. However, you haven't given any alternatives to transaction fees for the real costs which provide the very utility you desire. "Establish hubs" doesn't explain anything. If you mean building a layer on top of Bitcoin, which allows the underlying protocol to retain the very properties which give it value, fine, we are in agreement.

Honestly, I don't see much sense behind this verbiage

Could you formulate in a few sentences what exactly you disagree with? I specifically didn't mention Lightning Network (primarily because I mention it too often nowadays), but it will just place the miners where they should be. Right now, they are heavily abusing their powers (which is understandable), that's why they should be deprived of this power, and that's what LN basically does. What it does is turning a seller market (read a monopoly) where prices are dictated by a few sellers with many buyers into a mostly buyer market with many sellers and many buyers. That's another why your post about fee market working perfectly is utterly misguided. Basically, there is no free market in respect to fees to talk about

[szpalata]

Transaction fee is spiking in relation to the price increase. This doesn't mean that the fee is high. Now even the increased fee doesn't gets priority in the queue. As for concerned its good to hold on or use confirmation catalyst websites that speed upon transactions.

Transaction fees are ever increasing but it doesn't mean if it exceeds our limit we shouldn't complain. It's getting out of hand and these monetization of our beloved cryptocurrency should stop. It seems it is making some big people rich and the rest of us are at their mercy.

[requester]

so why this unstability is happening in bitcoin and we need a stable and smooth bitcoin network. because we are hoping for  a better future of bitcoin and for that we need a smooth runing network.

[erikalui]

The transaction fees are high (they consume 8% of the transaction amount) and I don't see it increasing due to the high price of bitcoins. The transaction size is itself increasing. Where earlier we used to have a fixed fee of 0.0001 BTC enough for any transaction amount below 0.1 BTC, now it requires me to send 0.0008 BTC for the same amount. If it's the price, then it should have been the opposite.

This article explains everything: http://www.nigeriatoday.ng/2017/02/bitcoin-transaction-fees-are-up-more-than-1200-in-past-two-years/

as a legendary member you should already know that transaction fee has been being calculated based on the size of transaction in bytes for a very long time now.

so statements such as "fee as 8% of the transaction amount" and "paying high fee for same amounts" does not make any sense, and are wrong for the most part. and it is best to avoid saying them.

also the transaction sizes are not increasing, they are the same size on average as they were before. but there are exception that you may have seen and also the spam attack had some pretty big txs.

I understand that the size of a transaction is the same as before but I can see that because of the spam transactions, the confirmations are taking even longer if we set a fee of 0.0001 BTC compared to what was the state last year. I sometimes see that transactions of a small amount have a size of 500+ bytes than other big amount transactions depending on the number of inputs and outputs and hence I end up paying more fee compared to what I used to pay earlier.


And well, being a legendary member, I still need to learn many details about transactions. I use wallets like xapo and coinbase and hence never paid attention to the size as I had not to pay a fee. It's when I started seeing so many transactions of mine not getting confirmed soon, I read about it.

[BitcoinHodler]

The transaction fees are high (they consume 8% of the transaction amount) and I don't see it increasing due to the high price of bitcoins. The transaction size is itself increasing. Where earlier we used to have a fixed fee of 0.0001 BTC enough for any transaction amount below 0.1 BTC, now it requires me to send 0.0008 BTC for the same amount. If it's the price, then it should have been the opposite.

This article explains everything: http://www.nigeriatoday.ng/2017/02/bitcoin-transaction-fees-are-up-more-than-1200-in-past-two-years/

as a legendary member you should already know that transaction fee has been being calculated based on the size of transaction in bytes for a very long time now.

so statements such as "fee as 8% of the transaction amount" and "paying high fee for same amounts" does not make any sense, and are wrong for the most part. and it is best to avoid saying them.

also the transaction sizes are not increasing, they are the same size on average as they were before. but there are exception that you may have seen and also the spam attack had some pretty big txs.

[cjmoles]

Bitcoin won't go mainstream until instant transactions are made possible

Hefty transaction fees are actually only a tip of an iceberg. To facilitate cheap and fast transactions transactional banks (aka hubs) should be established over the blockchain. These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee). Some people will obviously get up in arms at this idea and likely start protesting vigorously against it. I understand their butthurt but I advise them to think twice (before spurting curses and epitaphs), and first time to think how mining (i.e. essentially confirmations of transactions) is already centralized without the possibility of turning back

You are absolutely spot on. The miners are harming the reputation of Bitcoin by demanding too much too early. They fail to understand that we need to increase our user-base, before demanding anything from the users. If the transactions are getting confirmed after 2 days or 3 days, then a lot of users may find another method to transfer their funds.

Okay....I think what we are arguing about here is a bit convoluted.  I believe that this argument fits more into the long debated argument of "distribution" vs "decentralization."  The bitcoin network is a combination of the two network configurations: the ledger is distributed and the miners are (arguably) decentralized.  It's the balance and interrelation of the two configurations that triggers the extreme perceptions here.  It seems to be a difference in perspective that drives the divide. The perception of that division can also be attributed to the other long debated argument of "means of exchange" vs "store of value."  Can the network support both use cases with the efficiency required to sustain both cases simultaneously?  Could one case be sacrificed for the other without causing a disruption in the network?  Are they mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive....etc?  What is the balance?  It's all a matter of perspective, right?

[deisik]

Bitcoin won't go mainstream until instant transactions are made possible

Hefty transaction fees are actually only a tip of an iceberg. To facilitate cheap and fast transactions transactional banks (aka hubs) should be established over the blockchain. These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee). Some people will obviously get up in arms at this idea and likely start protesting vigorously against it. I understand their butthurt but I advise them to think twice (before spurting curses and epitaphs), and first time to think how mining (i.e. essentially confirmations of transactions) is already centralized without the possibility of turning back

You are absolutely spot on. The miners are harming the reputation of Bitcoin by demanding too much too early. They fail to understand that we need to increase our user-base, before demanding anything from the users. If the transactions are getting confirmed after 2 days or 3 days, then a lot of users may find another method to transfer their funds.

Okay....I think what we are arguing about here is a bit convoluted.  I believe that this argument fits more into the long debated argument of "distribution" vs "decentralization."  The bitcoin network is a combination of the two network configurations: the ledger is distributed and the miners are (arguably) decentralized.  It's the balance and interrelation of the two configurations that triggers the extreme perceptions here.  It seems to be a difference in perspective that drives the divide. The perception of that division can also be attributed to the other long debated argument of "means of exchange" vs "store of value."  Can the network support both use cases with the efficiency required to sustain both cases simultaneously?  Could one case be sacrificed for the other without causing a disruption in the network?  Are they mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive....etc?  What is the balance?  It's all a matter of perspective, right?

For all practical considerations this division doesn't seem to bear well on reality

These "configurations" as you call them are in fact just one setup (at least, so far). The ledger may be distributed across many millions of nodes but these are irrelevant ultimately since only those copies are binding which are used by miners themselves (and which they change by adding transactions). Really, what's the purpose of a copy of the blockchain (in respect to your point, of course) if you can't do anything with it? In other words, the nodes that are not actively participating in mining can be written off entirely. I guess that wouldn't affect Bitcoin in any substantial degree if they all went offline (though I may be mistaken on this)

[JasonXG]

The transaction fees have gone crazy lately and what once was enough to cover the miner fee is now not going to cut it it will take a day or 2 even not at all. Even higher transaction fees scam often lag behind but mostly larger payments are still quick under 15 minutes.

Just remember bitcoin has gone up in USD value so it makes it even more costly.

[cjmoles]

Bitcoin won't go mainstream until instant transactions are made possible

Hefty transaction fees are actually only a tip of an iceberg. To facilitate cheap and fast transactions transactional banks (aka hubs) should be established over the blockchain. These will put an end to miners' hegemony and mayhem in respect to which transactions should be included into the blockchain and at which price (i.e. fee). Some people will obviously get up in arms at this idea and likely start protesting vigorously against it. I understand their butthurt but I advise them to think twice (before spurting curses and epitaphs), and first time to think how mining (i.e. essentially confirmations of transactions) is already centralized without the possibility of turning back

You are absolutely spot on. The miners are harming the reputation of Bitcoin by demanding too much too early. They fail to understand that we need to increase our user-base, before demanding anything from the users. If the transactions are getting confirmed after 2 days or 3 days, then a lot of users may find another method to transfer their funds.

Okay....I think what we are arguing about here is a bit convoluted.  I believe that this argument fits more into the long debated argument of "distribution" vs "decentralization."  The bitcoin network is a combination of the two network configurations: the ledger is distributed and the miners are (arguably) decentralized.  It's the balance and interrelation of the two configurations that triggers the extreme perceptions here.  It seems to be a difference in perspective that drives the divide. The perception of that division can also be attributed to the other long debated argument of "means of exchange" vs "store of value."  Can the network support both use cases with the efficiency required to sustain both cases simultaneously?  Could one case be sacrificed for the other without causing a disruption in the network?  Are they mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive....etc?  What is the balance?  It's all a matter of perspective, right?

For all practical considerations this division doesn't seem to bear well on reality

These "configurations" as you call them are in fact just one setup (at least, so far). The ledger may be distributed across many millions of nodes but these are irrelevant ultimately since only those copies are binding which are used by miners themselves (and which they change by adding transactions). Really, what's the purpose of a copy of the blockchain (in respect to your point, of course) if you can't do anything with it? In other words, the nodes that are not actively participating in mining can be written off entirely. I guess that wouldn't affect Bitcoin in any substantial degree if they all went offline (though I may be mistaken on this)

Those who run the full node clients help keep the miners honest.  They independently validate each block of transactions to make sure the block confirmed by the miner is valid.  This allows the nodes to "trust" the block without "trusting" the miner who confirmed it.  It is an important "check" on the network to prevent bad actors from manipulating the ledger....Right?  Another nuance, maybe: confirmation vs validation?

[useless4]

Well I guess those who are spamming it are really doing their jobs now.
It is a mess now with all that transactions and that is the reason it keeps on spiking.
Miners are going to need to up their game and they would need a lot of fees for that.
This is really a chaos now in the bitcoin world.

yeah it kinda is and the fees are going to go up and up if nothing changes, we need the segwit to happen as soon as possible in order to not lose bitcoin users as if the fees keep increasing people will start using fiat instead of bitcoins once again. I hope that the devs will do something to fix it, I mean it is just ridiculous to pay 30k fees when you send 30k satoshi as a transaction isn't it?