bitcoin fees have quadrupled, and this is just the beginning

[Adelajda]

The increase in bandwidth is MUST at this stage because no one would pay such high fees every time. There are plenty of things available at the price of current average bitcoin transaction fees so technically using fiat currencies is more profitable at this moment especially on local level. Being a bitcoin fan I would use bitcoin for some time until it is not putting a hole in my pocket and I guess everyone other will do the same.

It is not about increasing the bandwidth ,it is about increasing the block limit and both are entirely different thing. Hope you will read about that before commenting as you are in the bitcoin world for some time. The increase in fees is a concern for small transactions and people have to adapt and plan on sending everything in a batch to save the fees.

[squatz1]

This is definitely an interesting development, I have a feeling a lot of the spam attacks might be orchestrated by a source that benefits directly or is removed by a degree or two from high fees.

It's a cascading effect, if the fees ever start to get low again they can just have another attack and push it back up to maintain average priority costs.

Genius in one way, when you think about it.

The one thing you have to think about when people begin to see an increase in the price of transaction fees is the point that some people are always going to attempt to pay more in order to get their transaction done faster and faster, this will simply just lead to the average transaction fee increasing so people will just have to keep paying more and more for the same time of transaction.

It's going to show an exponential growth of the transaction fees and we're easily going to go over quadrupling if nothing is put forward in order to lower this fees and make transaction times much faster to allow mass adoption.

[Sled]

This is an alarming news because this is will be one of the cause of bitcoin to fall from its peak because of high and more expensive fees if the developers or team behind bitcoin will not reduce then this threat will be stronger and somehow the time will come that we can't handle too much expensive fees and we don't have a choice but to migrate to another coin.

[sportis]

https://blockchain.info/charts/transaction-fees

For much of 2016, fees in total were < 50 BTC/day.  Now, they are over 200.
(that's a 4x increase, not even factoring in the increased bitcoin price!)

For the dumbasses who wanted a "fee market", you got it.   
It will only get worse from here.

Hint:  Unless bandwidth increases, fees will rise to be the same as other alternatives
like paypal,moneygram ,etc, which will destroy the incentive for people
to adopt bitcoin.

The way I see it even though the block size increases, there is no a reasonable solution in transaction fees and network confirmation. That is, there will be no dramatic improvement because it has already increased the number of bitcoin users and consequently the number of daily transactions and in many cases the transactions size. For example, if we consider that the nowadays median number of transactions in 1MB blocksize is approximately 3.3 tx/sec an increase of the block about 2X or 4X or bigger would we believe that would be an effective solution?  Imho for small transactions only off-chain scaling solutions, although these implementations require changes to the underlying protocol, could be cost-effective and quick solutions.

[maydna]

This is an alarming news because this is will be one of the cause of bitcoin to fall from its peak because of high and more expensive fees if the developers or team behind bitcoin will not reduce then this threat will be stronger and somehow the time will come that we can't handle too much expensive fees and we don't have a choice but to migrate to another coin.

maybe in future if the conditions is not change, we can see that the fee is increase more high so there is need to be fix from the developer and the teams and the fees can be back to normal again. the fees for transaction is really makes us to thinking twice before we want to send our bitcoin and i think it is better to use normal fees or maybe little high than normal fees so we don't have to wait too long to be seen in the network and we can get confirmed in short time.

[biggee]

For me this isn't so much an issue of the fee's being too high (although they certainly are starting to take the living piss, especially for small payment amounts), but more about what  to actually set as the fee so your transaction gets confirmed.

If it's constantly changing how is your normal everyday person supposed to keep up with it and ensure that they are selecting the correct amount?

[Holliday]

For me this isn't so much an issue of the fee's being too high (although they certainly are starting to take the living piss, especially for small payment amounts), but more about what  to actually set as the fee so your transaction gets confirmed.

If it's constantly changing how is your normal everyday person supposed to keep up with it and ensure that they are selecting the correct amount?

Bitcoin is a system where the user has complete control over his funds, and therefore must take full responsibility.

If you do some basic research (use a website which has all the info already provided for you), you should have no issue what-so-ever choosing the correct fee for the size of your transaction and how fast you want it to confirm.

If you want other people to take responsibility for your choices, you'll have to pay for that service. As with all services, YMMV.

[shinratensei_]

The increase in bandwidth is MUST at this stage because no one would pay such high fees every time.

Currently, there are some of the plans by the bitcoin developers. We just need the blocksize increase to make a block can be containing more transaction. It will keep the fees are in the stable condition. Because i always pay a dollar for every transactions.

[youdamushi]

Bitcoin is a system where the user has complete control over his funds, and therefore must take full responsibility.

If you do some basic research (use a website which has all the info already provided for you), you should have no issue what-so-ever choosing the correct fee for the size of your transaction and how fast you want it to confirm.

I've always some trouble getting the size of my transaction though :/

Finding the right fee isn't a problem I agree on that, or at least finding the right fee/bytes isn't hard.
But finding the right fee for the transaction means you know exactly the size of it ^^'

[biggee]

For me this isn't so much an issue of the fee's being too high (although they certainly are starting to take the living piss, especially for small payment amounts), but more about what  to actually set as the fee so your transaction gets confirmed.

If it's constantly changing how is your normal everyday person supposed to keep up with it and ensure that they are selecting the correct amount?

Bitcoin is a system where the user has complete control over his funds, and therefore must take full responsibility.

If you do some basic research (use a website which has all the info already provided for you), you should have no issue what-so-ever choosing the correct fee for the size of your transaction and how fast you want it to confirm.

If you want other people to take responsibility for your choices, you'll have to pay for that service. As with all services, YMMV.

That maybe true but that is also going to be a major problem when it comes to widespread adoption if they don't sort something out.

I'm no computer noob by any stretch of the imagination, but have only been a BTC user for about 8 months. If I'm having issues trying to work this out how do you suppose somebody that has no clue whatsoever about these things is going to manage?

IMO the single thing preventing more people from using BTC right now, from what I've learned over the past 8 months, is that certain aspects of it (like this) are so unnecessarily complicated and user unfriendly for newcomers. For instance, why not just have a few set in stone staged fee's (depending on how fast you want it confirmed) as standard. They shouldn't rise as the value of BTC goes up or drop as it's value goes down.

Sure this might prevent people from spending smaller amounts of BTC but that's starting to happen with the inflated fees and the USD value of BTC now anyway. If BTC ends up going where some people are predicting the TX fees alone could potentially cost hundreds or thousands of dollars which is just going to render the whole thing completely out of reach for the vast majority of people on the planet and the dream of decentralized currency is going to end up in the hands of a few multi national corporations, in other words, the same shit we have with the banks / fiat right now.

[Holliday]

That maybe true but that is also going to be a major problem when it comes to widespread adoption if they don't sort something out.

I'm no computer noob by any stretch of the imagination, but have only been a BTC user for about 8 months. If I'm having issues trying to work this out how do you suppose somebody that has no clue whatsoever about these things is going to manage?

IMO the single thing preventing more people from using BTC right now, from what I've learned over the past 8 months, is that certain aspects of it (like this) are so unnecessarily complicated and user unfriendly for newcomers. For instance, why not just have a few set in stone staged fee's (depending on how fast you want it confirmed) as standard. They shouldn't rise as the value of BTC goes up or drop as it's value goes down.

Sure this might prevent people from spending smaller amounts of BTC but that's starting to happen with the inflated fees and the USD value of BTC now anyway. If BTC ends up going where some people are predicting the TX fees alone could potentially cost hundreds or thousands of dollars which is just going to render the whole thing completely out of reach for the vast majority of people on the planet and the dream of decentralized currency is going to end up in the hands of a few multi national corporations, in other words, the same shit we have with the banks / fiat right now.

Mainstream adoption is a pipe dream by those who want to use Bitcoin as a get rich quick scheme. Unfortunately, not that many people care about freedom in today's world. The typical response to a problem is to ask the government for help. Bitcoin is the antithesis of that attitude.

These issues aren't unnecessarily complicated. Quite the contrary, the design choices are very necessary to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. The very thing which gives it value!

Security and convenience are on opposite sides of a sliding scale. The closer you move towards one, the further you get from the other. Sometimes a brilliant engineer designs something which can sidestep this scale and bring you a bit of both.

Security __________|__________Convenience

Hundreds of thousands of dollars?! How much will a single Bitcoin be worth if transactions cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? How are we going to get there? How long is that going to take? That's a lot of time for solutions to some of these problems to be designed.

[biggee]

That maybe true but that is also going to be a major problem when it comes to widespread adoption if they don't sort something out.

I'm no computer noob by any stretch of the imagination, but have only been a BTC user for about 8 months. If I'm having issues trying to work this out how do you suppose somebody that has no clue whatsoever about these things is going to manage?

IMO the single thing preventing more people from using BTC right now, from what I've learned over the past 8 months, is that certain aspects of it (like this) are so unnecessarily complicated and user unfriendly for newcomers. For instance, why not just have a few set in stone staged fee's (depending on how fast you want it confirmed) as standard. They shouldn't rise as the value of BTC goes up or drop as it's value goes down.

Sure this might prevent people from spending smaller amounts of BTC but that's starting to happen with the inflated fees and the USD value of BTC now anyway. If BTC ends up going where some people are predicting the TX fees alone could potentially cost hundreds or thousands of dollars which is just going to render the whole thing completely out of reach for the vast majority of people on the planet and the dream of decentralized currency is going to end up in the hands of a few multi national corporations, in other words, the same shit we have with the banks / fiat right now.

Mainstream adoption is a pipe dream by those who want to use Bitcoin as a get rich quick scheme. Unfortunately, not that many people care about freedom in today's world. The typical response to a problem is to ask the government for help. Bitcoin is the antithesis of that attitude.

These issues aren't unnecessarily complicated. Quite the contrary, the design choices are very necessary to the decentralized nature of Bitcoin. The very thing which gives it value!

Security and convenience are on opposite sides of a sliding scale. The closer you move towards one, the further you get from the other. Sometimes a brilliant engineer designs something which can sidestep this scale and bring you a bit of both.

Security __________|__________Convenience

Hundreds of thousands of dollars?! How much will a single Bitcoin be worth if transactions cost hundreds of thousands of dollars? How are we going to get there? How long is that going to take? That's a lot of time for solutions to some of these problems to be designed.

I agree with what you say with regards to security and convenience but how decentralized do you honestly think Bitcoin is going to be in 10 or 20 years time when the only people that can afford to mine it will be billion dollar corporations?

Oh and I said hundreds "or" thousands, not "of"

And if some of the predictions out there come true - $100k BTC for example, then those TX fee's which are buttons right now are gonna have your trousers right down!

[chiajw1]

Maybe fees are replacing the halving of bitcoin mining. I mean, the volume of bitcoin and also the hashrate increased significantly.

The increased demand, though, has pushed Bitcoin up against its block size limit.

I mean you can just set the fees lower but your transaction will be marked as low priority and held up, that means a longer confirmation time and who wants that? Actually it is quite good for the bitcoin for having more people adopting it, but with the price of higher fees with halving every 4 years or so.

[Holliday]

Oh and I said hundreds "or" thousands, not "of"

Whoops! LOL. Oh well, my point still stands, just reduce the time frame.

I agree with what you say with regards to security and convenience but how decentralized do you honestly think Bitcoin is going to be in 10 or 20 years time when the only people that can afford to mine it will be billion dollar corporations?

And if some of the predictions out there come true - $100k BTC for example, then those TX fee's which are buttons right now are gonna have your trousers right down!

I don't think many people here today are going to be complaining much if one Bitcoin is worth $100k, regardless of the fees to send it.

[biggee]

Oh and I said hundreds "or" thousands, not "of"

Whoops! LOL. Oh well, my point still stands, just reduce the time frame.

I agree with what you say with regards to security and convenience but how decentralized do you honestly think Bitcoin is going to be in 10 or 20 years time when the only people that can afford to mine it will be billion dollar corporations?

And if some of the predictions out there come true - $100k BTC for example, then those TX fee's which are buttons right now are gonna have your trousers right down!

I don't think many people here today are going to be complaining much if one Bitcoin is worth $100k, regardless of the fees to send it.

Haha very true, but I guess that depends on how much things cost in the future.

You could be a millionaire today, but would you be happy paying 10 grand to wire some money to somebody?

[Doms]

If the fees keep increasing by the year, and the transactions more than double, by the time the common masses know about bitcoin, there wouldn't be any incentive to use it as a form of currency. The ones who are going to benefit are those who have bitcoin as an investment because five years down the line, we could be talking of bitcoin prices not lower than $5000.

[Wind_FURY]

The question is : Are we paying more, because Bitcoin reached capacity or are we paying more because someone is spamming the network to fake congestion for their hidden agenda? 

Clearly we have reached capacity -- check the size of blocks, they are all 998, 999 etc.

Then why do the miners avoid activating Segwit or do the hard fork to Bitcoin Unlimited? Instead it is possible that someone from their side is spamming the network. Did last year's halving hurt their profit and earnings?

There is another thread somewhere, where some are saying "its spam" and others are saying its actually some kind of 'komodo' service (I havent investigated deeply).

I will have to look into that later before I can make a comment. I do not even know what "komodo" means except for the giant lizard found in Borneo.

In any case, I think if we continue to see periods of congestion become more frequent, and unconfirmed backlogs grow larger, the situation will be brought to a head and something will give one way or another. 

Of course. A real compromise must take place. From what I heard activating Segwit and then a hard fork to larger block sizes is good because Segwit fixes many issues Bitcoin presently has. 

[Botnake]

If the fees keep increasing by the year, and the transactions more than double, by the time the common masses know about bitcoin, there wouldn't be any incentive to use it as a form of currency. The ones who are going to benefit are those who have bitcoin as an investment because five years down the line, we could be talking of bitcoin prices not lower than $5000.

What can I say? If that time will happen I will surely be rich with bitcoin. I have my investment ready to cash out the moment I see that price, it's good to be optimistic all the time as who would have thought that we can break that all time high price of bitcoin just early this year.
With the recent success in terms of value and adoption, I think bitcoin will not be back on the price lower than $1,000 after this year.

[requester]

yes right. we really need a solution for this as early as possible and now i cant transact small small amount like $5 or because it charges me about $0.5 to $1 for that aand everytime i cant afford such high fees.