What's going on? Bitcoin for the rich only?

[Sithara007]

Even just a year ago bitcoin was useable... now the fees are about 10x what the banks charge.

What went wrong> And more to the point, who is responsible? What can be done to fix it?

Every Bitcoin transaction needed to use kilobyte (KB) through its network for confirmation. The way transaction fees becomes higher is you have to pay for every kilobyte needed to make the confirmation faster. It's pretty inconvenient for those people who can't afford for those ridiculous fees. But, as long Bitcoin's popularity grow even more. There will be a massive transaction circulating around its network which result into a scarcity of kilobyte. Hence, making confirmation slow and fees way up too high. The only way I see that it might get fixed is to rely on Bitcoin miners to produce blocks which is the source of kilobytes needed for the said transaction. If there is sufficient KB's that can sustain the circulation of network, it might solve the slow issues and making fees lower.

Just hope that the implementation of the lightning network will allow the inclusion of more transactions per block, and thereby reduce the number of unconfirmed transactions. But the implementation has been delayed several times now and I am not sure when that is going to happen. Anyway, it is a good sign that the number of unconfirmed transactions are getting lower now. Currently, it stands at around 126K.  

[coinhunterr]

Very good question! It seems like Bitcoin is going down a bad path, with fees always increasing... I hope they can find a way to fix this, but maybe SafeCoin is the only way forward, so it can have zero transaction fees (MaidSafe "project safer")

[nesh1]

Even just a year ago bitcoin was useable... now the fees are about 10x what the banks charge.

What went wrong> And more to the point, who is responsible? What can be done to fix it?

Every Bitcoin transaction needed to use kilobyte (KB) through its network for confirmation. The way transaction fees becomes higher is you have to pay for every kilobyte needed to make the confirmation faster. It's pretty inconvenient for those people who can't afford for those ridiculous fees. But, as long Bitcoin's popularity grow even more. There will be a massive transaction circulating around its network which result into a scarcity of kilobyte. Hence, making confirmation slow and fees way up too high. The only way I see that it might get fixed is to rely on Bitcoin miners to produce blocks which is the source of kilobytes needed for the said transaction. If there is sufficient KB's that can sustain the circulation of network, it might solve the slow issues and making fees lower.

Just hope that the implementation of the lightning network will allow the inclusion of more transactions per block, and thereby reduce the number of unconfirmed transactions. But the implementation has been delayed several times now and I am not sure when that is going to happen. Anyway, it is a good sign that the number of unconfirmed transactions are getting lower now. Currently, it stands at around 126K. 

I agree with you i personally think that bitcoin is not for the rich only but is common sense that someone who pays more fees will get their transactions done a lot faster then someone who pays less fees.

[Polipog]

Bitcoin is for all human being that can afford to connect and access it, except for those people living from extreme mountain without internet and data connection they are excemted. In some urban areas even rich or poor as long as they know how to access bitcoin they are all free to use bitcoin.

[bitfocus]

Any investment grows and if that is a good one, the price always goes sky high. The people trusted Bitcoin are the winner now, remember the initial price of Bitcoin? or the price just 4/5 months back?

now Bitcoin is one of the most popular and most returning investment so Bitcoin is sky high - but you can still join the ride, you don't need to buy a whole Bitcoin right now, you can buy some fraction of it with your idle money and be one of the winners in a couple of years.

[antagonist]

Hi,

Even just a year ago bitcoin was useable... now the fees are about 10x what the banks charge. Seems like its changing from a peer-to-peer money system for everyone into yet another convenient way for rich people to exchange funds!

What went wrong> And more to the point, who is responsible? What can be done to fix it?
Thanks
Andy

yes transaction fee too much high than bank at this area prices now ,, maybe if this is how it will be we do not think in brain tht bitcoin is currency , better if
instead of this one we view on it more as if it only main purposes actual store of value
this one more logic inside and appear more sensible way if we look at this in this way

[sharm2121]

Hi,

Even just a year ago bitcoin was useable... now the fees are about 10x what the banks charge. Seems like its changing from a peer-to-peer money system for everyone into yet another convenient way for rich people to exchange funds!

What went wrong> And more to the point, who is responsible? What can be done to fix it?
Thanks
Andy

I agree to you, you can get high bitcoin if you invest in bitcoin . You can earn bitcoin in some site or apps but its  little and its long process to have bitcoin and the fees are to high.

[Geemy]

the thread in june 2017 , no in jan 2018 what are you think about fees now , it's really unstable and going high . i hope this problem will get solve soon .

[daglordjames]

i think for me is not only for rich because theres too many ways to earn bitcoins and its not very easy to get bitcoins.

[Lamisa asfiya]

Bitcoin is becoming a bank day by day. We need a lot of money so that the transaction is fast to transit now. Before Bitcoin I was surprised. That is why the transaction was immediate. I did not know everything well to do. Sell ​​my Bitcoin and look for other and use it for others in the future. So that the future fees are low.

[yambub]

Hi, this problem seems to be resolving a bit now. Recently I've been able to get away with pretty low fees and a fast transaction. Not like it used to be but still about the same cost as using something like Skrill. If you check the mempool size before sending, you can get a good idea of how things are.

I found johoes mempool charts useful, you can change parameters like period and currency in the top bar, this one is showing the last 3 months. When it is low it's a good time to send.
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,3m

[Danlopz]

Stop spreading FUD mate. Fees are not very high. That is true that they were really more inexpensive in the past, but now they have just gone from barely free to little costly. And banks charge way more, in addition to be very slow and be a threat to your financial freedom.

Bitcoin hanya uang digital dan sudah memiliki komunitas besar. Ada banyak bisnis yang mau menggunakan bitcoin untuk transaksi mereka karena lebih murah daripada transaksi fiat. Tetapi karena biaya tidak stabil, bisnis akan menunggu dan menonton mode. Nilai fee hanya naik dan naik. Kecenderungan itu benar-benar dapat membuat bitcoin diperbolehkan hanya untuk orang kaya.

[gordeevaverona]

Why do you think that bitcoin is only for the rich? It is not necessary to buy one bitcoin right away, you can buy a bitcoin part for the amount you are calculating, or take courses on trading and earn on growth and fall of bitcoin

[fargoway]

what do you mean? You can buy 0.01 BTC or even less, there is no problem. Considering this thread was started almost a year ago, you had a chance to invest in it and become rich

[Cointertrade]

I think not, for me not enough money can also be rich by collecting coins that we can with a little bit follow the project.

people think bitcoin is for the rich only but for me no not at all because im a poor person but still im doing and working in bitcoin, bitcoin is for the people who want to grab what bitcoin can give and we all know that bitcoin is a  life changer.

[kyucryp]

I also think like you. With the current bitcoin value, only rich people can buy a lot of bitcoins. For people who are not rich, want to buy bitcoin with a very large number, I think it is difficult. Maybe what you can do is buy a little. Maybe that's what you can do and search bit by bit by signature work or something like reward campaigns or by mining.

[MAJICOIN]

Bitcoin is not only for rich people average people can also use bitcoin and crypto and for common people they can earn  through different ways and trading is also available for every one and rich people if use they will invest in bitcoin and through their money they can make profit in this currency and we can use bitcoin for different payments also while rich people can just to hold this for future bitcoin is equally good for us.

[boddy.dy]

I guess that is not true that bitcoin is for rich only. I can agree with that bitcoin is somehow for those people who has money but not that plenty of money. Bitcoin those not require a lot of money because you can invest even you start on small amount only. And sure enough if you will start on small amount and you will be good or successful that small amount will go huge. Maybe we can say that bitcoin users are rich because there are really good profit here if we will just take a good strategy on how or when we will do the buying and selling especially if we are in trading.

[Lang09]

Bitcoin is for everyone, anyone even those who arent rich can have bitcoin they only need to learn how to earn it, not anyone can afford to buy whole bitcoin, but everyone can buy portion of bitcoin(satoshis) and with that portion of bitcoin even if small if managed and traded well can grow.

[Chaelbrin]

Well, lets talk about that matter. Bitcoin is open for amy social status as long as you are tech Illiterate and know how to deal and close a transaction it will do. Not just for rich.