What we can do to confirm transactions faster?

[USA]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

[1713900861]

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[1713900861]

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[1713900861]

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[mocacinno]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

No, running full nodes wouldn't solve the amount of unconfirmed tx's in the mempool

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

No, running a miner will increase the total network's hashrate, slightly reducing the average time between blocks untill the next retargetting (2016 blocks). So in other words, adding a miner to the network will help for a very limited time, after a couple days (maximum 2016 blocks) the diff will rise and the time between blocks will once again be ~10min on average.

[talkbitcoin]

the only thing you can do is to pay higher fees for the time being until this spam attack on the network is resolved otherwise you are just going to be stuck on thousands of transactions that are paying more than you.

[USA]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

No, running full nodes wouldn't work

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

No, running a miner will increase the total network's hashrate, slightly reducing the average time between blocks untill the next retargetting (2016 blocks)

So, wait and pray when developers implement segwit and lightning network is the best?
I guess i need to start learning more about bitcoin code and try to write better code implementations myself...

[mocacinno]

So, wait and pray when developers implement segwit and lightning network is the best?
I quess i need to start learning more about bitcoin code and try to write better code implementations myself...

That's a discussion i don't want to start, but yes, segwit, LN, BU are all options/directions. Each option will have pro's and con's.
For now, you can either pay more fees, wait longer to get your tx into a block, or switch to a stable altcoin...

[talkbitcoin]

why do you keep repeating developers, they are just developing the code, it is up to the users and miners to adopt that code. and right now we are waiting for the miners to adopt a solution which you can follow in a website such as coin.dance to see how many of them are signalling what.

p.s. if you want to know about any of the solutions and see if it is good or bad, then read about it yourself from the code or ask someone whom you trust to explain it to you. otherwise you will get so many false information if you just read the comments around here.

[cr1776]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

SegWit IS implemented.

About the only thing you can do, practically, is run a miner that does so.  You and many other people.  The miners are the current block on SegWit adoption.

See, e.g.:
http://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/block_version/5y?c=block_version&r=week&t=a

[USA]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

SegWit IS implemented.

About the only thing you can do, practically, is run a miner that does so.  You and many other people.  The miners are the current block on SegWit adoption.

See, e.g.:
http://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/block_version/5y?c=block_version&r=week&t=a

There's no info that segwit implemented

[btcdevil]

the only thing you can do is to pay higher fees for the time being until this spam attack on the network is resolved otherwise you are just going to be stuck on thousands of transactions that are paying more than you.

That is the only solution for the fast transaction confirmation as until their is no other solution only higher fees transaction are getting confirm faster, as they are cleared fast by the miners as they are getting high fees to confirm the transaction.

[cr1776]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

SegWit IS implemented.

About the only thing you can do, practically, is run a miner that does so.  You and many other people.  The miners are the current block on SegWit adoption.

See, e.g.:
http://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/block_version/5y?c=block_version&r=week&t=a

There's no info that segwit implemented

There is a lot of information showing that segwit is implemented all over the internet.  E.g. if you take a look at GitHub:
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/a49b4a75a1b671492e65eed17d6894d85ea5ebfd/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.13.1.md

You can also use Google or Bing or ... to search for more references, but the code on GitHub shows the implementation.


This link:
http://data.bitcoinity.org/bitcoin/block_version/5y?c=block_version&r=week&t=a

which was included above is showing you segwit signaling from miners.  Until the miners accept it, it will not be activated.  Clearly the code is implemented, if you want to argue about that, there is no point in continuing to ask questions.

In short, segwit not being implemented is incorrect, the developers have done so.  Conversely, segwit is not activated yet, until a sufficient number of miners signal support.

[achow101]

Currently Segwit is already implemented, however it has not activated yet. This means that it can't be used yet so the benefits of segwit don't exist yet?

The only that you can do is pressure miners to 1) signal for segwit so that it activates sooner or 2) mine blocks to be as full as possible. Currently not all blocks are full, many are still empty or only partially full. If miners would mine full blocks, then part of the backlog would be reduced.

[Q?]

Currently not all blocks are full, many are still empty or only partially full.

Can you clarify what you mean by "many" and "empty"?

There are rare occasions like this (454327) but it is not many.
The rest of the blocks which are the majority are full (>998).

[ImHash]

OK now mining isn't something that we all can be a part of and as a result decision making is becoming more and more centralized.
Who are we fooling really? bitcoin is not going to stay a small community and network we'll going to get more transactions every day spam or legit.
What miners can't see is the integrity of the system as a whole in danger, if every time price going up we see more than 90k unconfirmed transactions we might as well pay a fee higher than $0.5 until price goes back down no other options for users.

[jaysabi]

the only thing you can do is to pay higher fees for the time being until this spam attack on the network is resolved otherwise you are just going to be stuck on thousands of transactions that are paying more than you.

How do spam attacks work? I'm assuming that a spam attack is a bunch of dust transactions with little or no fee, otherwise trying to contest the network with volume would be prohibitevly expensive. If that is the case, why do spam attacks work, because wouldn't the miners not select any of those transactions from the mr pool because they have a very low or absent transaction fee? (Or have I erred in my assumptions?)

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

[pooya87]

How do spam attacks work? I'm assuming that a spam attack is a bunch of dust transactions with little or no fee, otherwise trying to contest the network with volume would be prohibitevly expensive. If that is the case, why do spam attacks work, because wouldn't the miners not select any of those transactions from the mr pool because they have a very low or absent transaction fee? (Or have I erred in my assumptions?)

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

step 1: have lots of money (bitcoin) to spend.
step 2: have a filthy agenda against bitcoin
step 3: send lots of transactions

it is not necessarily dust transactions, low fee, small,.... it started out (the first spam attack i saw) with 0.0001BTC with 0.0001BTC fee and since that is too obvious to find now it is random amounts with low to high fees.

here is one of them you can see: https://blockchain.info/address/1GDhoFrzbQ6Yp9LitKEH8xnWhUjhmaQRft
e.g. 77cb8ee8d319188dc42a634e171760e7881337513f82f0aec6127768d7467abd + 9e29fbe576b7f9da279c8fe6316cff6e09f0fbd3a70a99decbac978b96e91ea4 and lots of other transactions sending random amounts all with 40 inputs to make the transaction big and one output to the same destination! with seconds apart.

you can see some more here (i'll update it whenever i find a new and interesting one) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1776143.0

[paul gatt]

the only thing that I can see, it is that you should spend more costs to the transaction, which is the only way for you to send faster without by anyone. however it is too expensive, the administrator should try to fix this. they are the owner of a large corporation, so they have to be responsible with their customers

[ranochigo]

How do spam attacks work? I'm assuming that a spam attack is a bunch of dust transactions with little or no fee, otherwise trying to contest the network with volume would be prohibitevly expensive. If that is the case, why do spam attacks work, because wouldn't the miners not select any of those transactions from the mr pool because they have a very low or absent transaction fee? (Or have I erred in my assumptions?)

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

step 1: have lots of money (bitcoin) to spend.
step 2: have a filthy agenda against bitcoin
step 3: send lots of transactions

it is not necessarily dust transactions, low fee, small,.... it started out (the first spam attack i saw) with 0.0001BTC with 0.0001BTC fee and since that is too obvious to find now it is random amounts with low to high fees.

here is one of them you can see: https://blockchain.info/address/1GDhoFrzbQ6Yp9LitKEH8xnWhUjhmaQRft
e.g. 77cb8ee8d319188dc42a634e171760e7881337513f82f0aec6127768d7467abd + 9e29fbe576b7f9da279c8fe6316cff6e09f0fbd3a70a99decbac978b96e91ea4 and lots of other transactions sending random amounts all with 40 inputs to make the transaction big and one output to the same destination! with seconds apart.

you can see some more here (i'll update it whenever i find a new and interesting one) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1776143.0

The attackers used to exploit the sigops limit in the blocks and intentionally created transaction with a high sigops. Since there is a limit in the blocks, the miner cannot have too many sigops in a block. The transactions that can be included is thus lesser.

I'm not sure if this problem was completely migrated or not.

[Kemarit]

How do spam attacks work? I'm assuming that a spam attack is a bunch of dust transactions with little or no fee, otherwise trying to contest the network with volume would be prohibitevly expensive. If that is the case, why do spam attacks work, because wouldn't the miners not select any of those transactions from the mr pool because they have a very low or absent transaction fee? (Or have I erred in my assumptions?)

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

step 1: have lots of money (bitcoin) to spend.
step 2: have a filthy agenda against bitcoin
step 3: send lots of transactions

it is not necessarily dust transactions, low fee, small,.... it started out (the first spam attack i saw) with 0.0001BTC with 0.0001BTC fee and since that is too obvious to find now it is random amounts with low to high fees.

here is one of them you can see: https://blockchain.info/address/1GDhoFrzbQ6Yp9LitKEH8xnWhUjhmaQRft
e.g. 77cb8ee8d319188dc42a634e171760e7881337513f82f0aec6127768d7467abd + 9e29fbe576b7f9da279c8fe6316cff6e09f0fbd3a70a99decbac978b96e91ea4 and lots of other transactions sending random amounts all with 40 inputs to make the transaction big and one output to the same destination! with seconds apart.

you can see some more here (i'll update it whenever i find a new and interesting one) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1776143.0

If I made add, they can also creates a loop by sending low to high fees back to itself,
overloading the bitcoin network.

Nice catch there pooya87. I'm also amaze how someone will try or attempt to
disrupt the network by doing spam attack. I don't know what benefits someone
doing this to blockchain. However, I think if we have identified a rouge wallet
doing this, can we just block his bitcoin wallet to stop his malicious intent to
clogged the bitcoin network which make legitimate transaction wait for hours
or even days just to process the transaction?

 

[Yogafan00000]

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

My favourite conspiracy theory is that it's some miner(s) who flood the network with transactions, forcing legitimate users to increase their fees in their normal transactions.

This works because the miner can just collect his own fees back. (of course only on the blocks they mine)  It also explains the hold up on scaling solutions.  Scaling solutions break their scam.

No proof, just fun speculation.

[BuySomeBitcoins]

The list of miners against Segwit is way too long.

[bohr]

As of today there is not much we can do, some solutions have been proposed and now we are waiting for the activation of segwit, the only thing to do now is to add a big transaction fee besides that, there is not much to do.

[Q?]

Currently not all blocks are full, many are still empty or only partially full.

Can you clarify what you mean by "many" and "empty"?

There are rare occasions like this (454327) but it is not many.
The rest of the blocks which are the majority are full (>998).

Sorry for bumping this, but was this ignored or missed?

[Technologov]

>Sorry for bumping this, but was this ignored or missed?

Missed ? No.

Indeed most of the blocks are full (>998), and the few smaller blocks are produced half-empty due to the Great Chinese Firewall, which blocks some Bitcoin transactions.

[jaysabi]

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

My favourite conspiracy theory is that it's some miner(s) who flood the network with transactions, forcing legitimate users to increase their fees in their normal transactions.

This works because the miner can just collect his own fees back. (of course only on the blocks they mine)  It also explains the hold up on scaling solutions.  Scaling solutions break their scam.

No proof, just fun speculation.

This doesn't seem cost effective unless fees stay elevated way longer than the flooding attack lasts. There's no way to break even on it during the attack unless you mine every block, so the only way for it to make fiscal sense is if the fees stay elevated long enough after the stack for you to recoup your original cost, which is likely in the millions of dollars. Seems like a pretty big gamble.

[Q?]

> Sorry for bumping this, but was this ignored or missed?

This is not Reddit

the few smaller blocks are produced half-empty due to the Great Chinese Firewall, which blocks some Bitcoin transactions.

HAHA thanks for the joke. Keep trying though.

Your post history shows your real filthy agenda towards bitcoin.

[2double0]

Sorry if I am misunderstanding here, but are confirmations not directly related to the fee that is attached to the transaction? And if that's the case, then we definitely need to increase the miners' fee in order for the network to run smooth as well as those transactions get confirmed in an hour or two. That's what I have been seeing after the price hike.

[ranochigo]

>Sorry for bumping this, but was this ignored or missed?

Missed ? No.

Indeed most of the blocks are full (>998), and the few smaller blocks are produced half-empty due to the Great Chinese Firewall, which blocks some Bitcoin transactions.

No.

The transactions cannot be removed by anyone without affecting the merkle root of the transaction. If the merkle root is changed, the block header will be changed. If the block header is changed, the SHA256 hash of the block header is also changed and will thus result in the block not meeting the target.

Sorry if I am misunderstanding here, but are confirmations not directly related to the fee that is attached to the transaction?

The first confirmation is. The time it takes can be longer depending on the time taken to find a block and if the miner wants to include your transaction.

[2double0]

Sorry if I am misunderstanding here, but are confirmations not directly related to the fee that is attached to the transaction?

The first confirmation is. The time it takes can be longer depending on the time taken to find a block and if the miner wants to include your transaction.

So, does it mean that miners' fee should be considered as one of the important factors here, right?
I have been told by my friend that if we use at least 0.0002 per KB for a transaction during these days, we will surely get it confirmed in the least time.

[ranochigo]

The first confirmation is. The time it takes can be longer depending on the time taken to find a block and if the miner wants to include your transaction.

So, does it mean that miners' fee should be considered as one of the important factors here, right?
I have been told by my friend that if we use at least 0.0002 per KB for a transaction during these days, we will surely get it confirmed in the least time.

Miner's fee is the important factor. The confirmation will only happen if a miner mines a block so that is also important.

I have been told by my friend that if we use at least 0.0002 per KB for a transaction during these days, we will surely get it confirmed in the least time.

No, its more like 0.0015BTC/KB. The average fee really varies and it is better to use https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ to estimate your fees.

[tomtomtom7]

My favourite conspiracy theory is that it's some miner(s) who flood the network with transactions, forcing legitimate users to increase their fees in their normal transactions.

This works because the miner can just collect his own fees back. (of course only on the blocks they mine)  It also explains the hold up on scaling solutions.  Scaling solutions break their scam.

No proof, just fun speculation.

It doesn't work because although he collects his own fees, he doesn't collect additional fees for the space that these transaction use. As fees only need to be marginally higher then others, the end result is always less income then when including real transactions.

[Mvaporis1961]

100k unconfirmed transactions and developers still not implemented segwit and lightning network.
Well if developers not implementing things we need for Bitcoin what can we do to confirm transations faster?

Should we run full node?
Full node helps other users to download blockchain and verify transactions but i never heard that it helps to confirm transactions faster

Should we run miner?

I am interested to run full node and miner but seems that more miners and full nodes won't help we need segwit and lightning network to be implemented faster and more nodes and miners won't help to confirm transactions faster?

i think you should go in run a miner(rig) because now a day bitcoin being a famous or more popular as long as it can let us earn by our own hand, the demand of it will be raise up and it means there will be more user, lot of user caused of more transactions so it makes bitcoin transaction slower as not having enough rig for block confirmation. I wish someday i can buy also a rig for bitcoin. Advance Congrats if you invest at bitcoin mining rig.

[shield132]

Full nodes you need for to take back your unconfirmed bitcoins as I know. There exist one bitcoin transaction accelerator and that's viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator <-- Lauda posted that website in one thread as he claimed it worked and also some people has tested it already here and they claim it works, I have used it once but can't say really if it really accelerates but try yourself two different transaction with same amount and fee.

[Aareon]

stable altcoin...

right...

[BuySomeBitcoins]

Full nodes you need for to take back your unconfirmed bitcoins as I know. There exist one bitcoin transaction accelerator and that's viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator <-- Lauda posted that website in one thread as he claimed it worked and also some people has tested it already here and they claim it works, I have used it once but can't say really if it really accelerates but try yourself two different transaction with same amount and fee.

does work, but it is not a solution, and the service is not usefull now that half bitcoins use it.

[layoutph]

Same here, its so disappointing. I sent a bitcoin from a wallet, but still unconfirmed since February. What is the best possible solution to this? Is there a 3rd party site where it can pump or make the miners mine a specific unconfirmed block? Is this possible?

https://blockchain.info/address/3AoWPw5D6xYrDV8iSv4mP4fLsJfKZhaZGJ

[BuySomeBitcoins]

Same here, its so disappointing. I sent a bitcoin from a wallet, but still unconfirmed since February. What is the best possible solution to this? Is there a 3rd party site where it can pump or make the miners mine a specific unconfirmed block? Is this possible?

https://blockchain.info/address/3AoWPw5D6xYrDV8iSv4mP4fLsJfKZhaZGJ

49.38 sat/B - man you need at least 100 sat/B

Try to use viabtc but it is freaking impossible to submit because half the population is using it.

[btcdevil]

Same here, its so disappointing. I sent a bitcoin from a wallet, but still unconfirmed since February. What is the best possible solution to this? Is there a 3rd party site where it can pump or make the miners mine a specific unconfirmed block? Is this possible?

https://blockchain.info/address/3AoWPw5D6xYrDV8iSv4mP4fLsJfKZhaZGJ

49.38 sat/B - man you need at least 100 sat/B

Try to use viabtc but it is freaking impossible to submit because half the population is using it.

I have tried twice Viabtc link in the last 10 days and all my transaction got confirmed very soon, Viabtc is very usefull tool to get fast confirmation of transaction for even small fee transaction also. Try it.

[bones261]

You can be a whale. You could put a fee of .01 BTC when moving around 1000 BTC and would likely get the transaction confirmed rather quickly. The .01 fee wouldn't bother you at all. It would be chump change. $13.00 to move $1.3 million, no biggie.
If you must buy a cup of coffee with BTC. Try this one. http://www.most-expensive.coffee/

[matt11235]

the Great Chinese Firewall, which blocks some Bitcoin transactions.

Do you have a source for this? It seems strange that it would only block some transactions.

[tazmania]

I think it will also depend on what wallet you are using as if you are using multibit then there is no option of adding extra fees and it will take a long time to confirm even a week as I have experienced the same thing in the past so now I am using electrum wallet where you can increase the fees according to your level of emergencies and it hardly takes 10 to 15 minutes for transactions to get confirmed.

[jaysabi]

I wish blockchain.info told you the size of your transaction prior to sending. It is currently not possible to tell how large your transaction is (as far as I know) for the purpose of estimating or calculating the fee you should attach. The suggested amount it uses doesn't provide the basis for the calculation either.

[zvs]

I wish blockchain.info told you the size of your transaction prior to sending. It is currently not possible to tell how large your transaction is (as far as I know) for the purpose of estimating or calculating the fee you should attach. The suggested amount it uses doesn't provide the basis for the calculation either.

your post made me check the whole 'suggested fee' thing.  

I am using (windows client) v0.12.1 and it suggests 0.00446029 BTC/kb per transaction for 'estimated to begin within 25 blocks'.  This was about a minute after block 456032, dunno how fluid that is and how often it changes.  The 0.00446029 being a bit bizarre since it's quite a bit above the 0.0020604~ that was paid for the cheapest transaction in 456032.  Cheapest in 456033 is 0.0015821.    Oh, it did just change.  Now it's 0.0045942.  Anyway, I sent transaction @ 0.0016001 and it did take 3 blocks to confirm, probably should have looked a bit longer, re; I based the price on block 456030 which was block #4 in a 10m period or so.

Transaction size -- the windows clients reports the total fee calculation and then you're given the option of sending or not, or at least it does with the custom setting per kilobyte.  Unsure if suggested setting does, as I've never used that.

[thejaytiesto]

Only small improvements can be made like segwit, schnorr sigs, compact blocks etc... those are ultimately optimizations and ways to "compress" and deal with the available blocksize faster. Once we run out of that, we need to increase the blocksize too, but it is stupid that segwit is getting blocked, we need both.

And ultimately, no amount of those will allow us to compete against VISA and other centralized payment networks without lightning network anyway. We need Everything.

[zedicus]

If you are not patient enough to wait until the transaction is confirmed. Try making your fees increased and do not base on the regular fee. But, if you are only transacting low amount. The transaction should be confirmed easily. But, if the transaction has a big amount, you should put a higher fees also to make the transaction faster. There are also other ways to confirm your transaction faster, you can try to look at this site:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/3-solutions-instant-bitcoin-confirmations/

[locopao]

Anyone tried this accelarator? https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/
Supposed to help transactions confirmed faster.
I tried it many times but i always get a "Submissions are beyond limit. Please try later" message. Does it really work? I don't know...

Also some people suggest to change the old school wallet such as multibit to a new one (ledger, greenaddress, etc)

I use multibit and the transactions take ages to get just one confirmation, even with higher than usual fees.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

So, wait and pray when developers implement segwit and lightning network is the best?
I quess i need to start learning more about bitcoin code and try to write better code implementations myself...

That's a discussion i don't want to start, but yes, segwit, LN, BU are all options/directions. Each option will have pro's and con's.
For now, you can either pay more fees, wait longer to get your tx into a block, or switch to a stable altcoin...

If this is a spammer as someone suggested, and the spammer chooses to make TXs that are not SegWit or LN - wouldn't the same problem still exist? Even after SegWit is activated, isn't there still only 1MB available for the non signature part of transactions?

[jaysabi]

I wish blockchain.info told you the size of your transaction prior to sending. It is currently not possible to tell how large your transaction is (as far as I know) for the purpose of estimating or calculating the fee you should attach. The suggested amount it uses doesn't provide the basis for the calculation either.

your post made me check the whole 'suggested fee' thing.  

I am using (windows client) v0.12.1 and it suggests 0.00446029 BTC/kb per transaction for 'estimated to begin within 25 blocks'.  This was about a minute after block 456032, dunno how fluid that is and how often it changes.  The 0.00446029 being a bit bizarre since it's quite a bit above the 0.0020604~ that was paid for the cheapest transaction in 456032.  Cheapest in 456033 is 0.0015821.    Oh, it did just change.  Now it's 0.0045942.  Anyway, I sent transaction @ 0.0016001 and it did take 3 blocks to confirm, probably should have looked a bit longer, re; I based the price on block 456030 which was block #4 in a 10m period or so.

Transaction size -- the windows clients reports the total fee calculation and then you're given the option of sending or not, or at least it does with the custom setting per kilobyte.  Unsure if suggested setting does, as I've never used that.

I've noticed that the fee/b suggested by blockchain.info's is far above what you would think to pay based on information available from thsi site: http://bitcoinfees.21.co/  You can only figure out the fee/b though after you send a transaction because then you can see what the transaction size was, and divide it by the fee to see the rate. It doesn't often seem to be close to the site listed above. I think they overestimate though so transactions go super fast, which is good for speed but bad for cost efficiency.

[jaysabi]

Only small improvements can be made like segwit, schnorr sigs, compact blocks etc... those are ultimately optimizations and ways to "compress" and deal with the available blocksize faster. Once we run out of that, we need to increase the blocksize too, but it is stupid that segwit is getting blocked, we need both.

And ultimately, no amount of those will allow us to compete against VISA and other centralized payment networks without lightning network anyway. We need Everything.

Yes, this especially. Private payment networks run by Visa and Mastercard blow bitcoin out of the water in terms of speed and cost. The more I see how bitcoin is developing, the less I see it ever achieving anywhere close to parity on either of these issues. Which means bitcoin is likely, taken on a wider view, is a novelty or fad that is likely to flame out eventually. I don't predict that to happen necessarily, but that idea is not foreign to me any longer. I see it having merit and wouldn't be surprised if people become disillusioned with the unfulfilled promise of bitcoin and abandon it slowly over time.

[mocacinno]

I can also add that BlockCypher has created technology that enables merchants to confirm transactions in mere seconds with 99.9% confidence.
It is like Amazon Web Services for Bitcoin. Their platform exposes web services to help developers build, monitor and secure Bitcoin applications.

This sounds really, really, really strange to me... To get a 99,9% chance of getting your transaction into the next block (= confirmation), you'll need 99,9% of the miners to add this tx to the block they're currently solving.
This means that this company should be cooperating with 99,9% of the miners...

Even then, if they promise to confirm a transaction in mere seconds, they're lying. The diff adjustment makes sure that the average time between blocks is ~10minutes. This means that on average, if a transaction is in 99,9% of the blocks currently worked on by miners, it'll have an average waiting time of ~5min.

If you have a really, really high fee, your broadcasted tx will be added to most of the miner's blocks, altough i do not believe you'll ever reach 99,9%, since some miners (or pools) seem to be mining empty blocks from time to time... But if you add a ridiculous high fee, you wouldn't need an external company anyways.

[coinfirst]

The confirming speed is limited on the size of block and the block generation period if there are no seg or ligtht.

[X7]

Activate Segwit

[soy]

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

My favourite conspiracy theory is that it's some miner(s) who flood the network with transactions, forcing legitimate users to increase their fees in their normal transactions.

This works because the miner can just collect his own fees back. (of course only on the blocks they mine)  It also explains the hold up on scaling solutions.  Scaling solutions break their scam.

No proof, just fun speculation.

Follow the money does make sense.  

Reminds me of a national chain that sells a lot of nice Rhode Island Red chicks every year.  They lay eggs for 2 or a little more years.  While French Black Copper Marans will sometimes lay eggs for 5 years but you won't find those in the store.

[soy]

Only small improvements can be made like segwit, schnorr sigs, compact blocks etc... those are ultimately optimizations and ways to "compress" and deal with the available blocksize faster. Once we run out of that, we need to increase the blocksize too, but it is stupid that segwit is getting blocked, we need both.

And ultimately, no amount of those will allow us to compete against VISA and other centralized payment networks without lightning network anyway. We need Everything.

Yes, this especially. Private payment networks run by Visa and Mastercard blow bitcoin out of the water in terms of speed and cost. The more I see how bitcoin is developing, the less I see it ever achieving anywhere close to parity on either of these issues. Which means bitcoin is likely, taken on a wider view, is a novelty or fad that is likely to flame out eventually. I don't predict that to happen necessarily, but that idea is not foreign to me any longer. I see it having merit and wouldn't be surprised if people become disillusioned with the unfulfilled promise of bitcoin and abandon it slowly over time.

I'm getting on in years, retired now.  When I first found Bitcoin the quality of its limited total quantity seemed extremely attractive.  I mean that inflation isn't quite like hearing my grandmother in the late 1970's talking about NYC rent in the '20's but I have watched the money supply increase over the years, credit cards allowing us to spend tomorrow's income today, and dollars getting much less valuable.  How many countries have impossible inflation? Venezuela, Argentina.  And what's going to happen if Italy decides to get out of the EU or even just go back to the lira?  Or if a terrorist sets off a kiloton nuclear weapon in some major city?  I don't see spending btc on a cup of coffee but as a hedge against inflation.  That shouldn't change.

[dodgecharger]

If you are not patient enough to wait until the transaction is confirmed. Try making your fees increased and do not base on the regular fee. But, if you are only transacting low amount. The transaction should be confirmed easily. But, if the transaction has a big amount, you should put a higher fees also to make the transaction faster. There are also other ways to confirm your transaction faster, you can try to look at this site:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/3-solutions-instant-bitcoin-confirmations/

The amount of needed fees to get tx included in the next blocks is not based on the amount of the sending, it is about the size of the transactions. More inputs or outputs will increase the to size.