Bitcoin DOOMED to have high transaction fees

[Mad7Scientist]

The idea was mentioned in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=553639.0 in 2014, but now it looks like it may be finally happening.

The mining cartel may exist, and they will fill any extra room in the blockchain with zero fee or small fee transactions to ensure that blocks are full and people are then forced to pay higher fees to get accepted in the blockchain by both the cartel miners and those outside of the cartel. They could have their mining software configured to accept zero fee transactions from themselves while rejecting zero fee transactions from others.

If the mining cartel is big enough then the money that they make from this is enough to pay smaller transaction fees to fill up blocks mined by non cartel members to ensure that they have high fees too isn't it?

I've noticed full 1MB blocks go by and by and then there will be one smaller block. What are these smaller blocks? Isn't the pending transaction pool really big right now? Did they configure their miner to only accept high fee transactions?

No matter how big the blocks get from SegWit or hard forks they can always fill them up until people are forced to pay high fees.

The only thing stopping this is when people stop doing Bitcoin transactions to avoid the fees, then the cartel lowers their prices.

[BitcoinBarrel]

What you're describing doesn't exactly make sense with paid transaction accelerator services. The Free Market will always find a way.

[BitcoinBallerina]

The idea was mentioned in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=553639.0 in 2014, but now it looks like it may be finally happening.

The mining cartel may exist, and they will fill any extra room in the blockchain with zero fee or small fee transactions to ensure that blocks are full and people are then forced to pay higher fees to get accepted in the blockchain by both the cartel miners and those outside of the cartel. They could have their mining software configured to accept zero fee transactions from themselves while rejecting zero fee transactions from others.

If the mining cartel is big enough then the money that they make from this is enough to pay smaller transaction fees to fill up blocks mined by non cartel members to ensure that they have high fees too isn't it?

I I remember correctly, I've noticed full 1MB blocks go by and by and then there will be one smaller block. What are these smaller blocks? Isn't the pending transaction pool really big right now? Did they configure their miner to only accept high fee transactions?

No matter how big the blocks get from SegWit or hard forks they can always fill them up until people are forced to pay high fees.

The only thing stopping this is when people stop doing Bitcoin transactions to avoid the fees, then the cartel lowers their prices.

I remember when first learning about Bitcoin how everyone said transactions were so cheap compared to other methods and for this reason to buy Bitcoin.

IT is ironic how now the price of transactions is more than standard fiat methods like credit card or PayPal. I sure hope this changes.

[Mad7Scientist]

Could it be that the cartel miners are only accepting transactions with high fees, and they're filling up the rest of the space in the blocks with bogus transactions to make it look like the blocks are full and that they are justified in charging the high fees? It's the same concept just more simple to implement.

The non cartel mined blocks are then filled in the usual way in addition to low fee spam transactions sent out by the cartel.

[AGD]

This topic is outdated. Fees went back to normal a long time ago. Now stop this FUD, willya.

[dejavvu]

Interestingly enough I read somewhere that fees went back to normal after AlphaBay shut down. Funny stuff

[joebrook]

This topic is outdated. Fees went back to normal a long time ago. Now stop this FUD, willya.

Even though fees reversed back to normal some time ago I have been paying attention least a dollar for most of the transaction that I used, I am just afraid that it's going to be stuck in a endless loop whiles people wait for it to be confirmed.

[BartS]

Interestingly enough I read somewhere that fees went back to normal after AlphaBay shut down. Funny stuff

Nope the fees went back to normal several days or even weeks before, what it happen is that whoever was spamming the network has stopped, may be they stop because with the imminent segwit activation it is no longer a wise economic decision to keep the spam going on the network.

[Donaldturp]

Interestingly enough I read somewhere that fees went back to normal after AlphaBay shut down. Funny stuff

Nope the fees went back to normal several days or even weeks before, what it happen is that whoever was spamming the network has stopped, may be they stop because with the imminent segwit activation it is no longer a wise economic decision to keep the spam going on the network.

You already know who was spamming the blockchain network of bitcoin. Take a guess please, they were the guys trying to divide bitcoin into subgroups. Bitcoin is free and stay free, never forget this. Satoshi's philosophy won't be changed by others. Transaction fees will be more fait in the future hopefully.

[Herbert2020]

it will all come down to how much they are earning from their operation without doing shenanigans. for example right now when they mine a block they earn 12.5BTC which is about 31000-32000 USD without considering the fees.
this amount will be halved soon and then halved again and again. eventually fees will be all they can hope for unless price continues rising (as it was so far) so that 1.5625BTC is equal to $30,000-$40,000

that day if the number of transactions they handle hence the total amount of fee is less that their desirable amount they will start they spam attack machine that they have been testing and perfecting for the past 3 years.
the worst part is, that day it will kill bitcoin. it won't help them at all.

the solution is not simple either. it is not just increase the block size to have more tx and have total fee, there are a lot of problems with that. i hope we can come up with something before that day comes.

[BartS]

Interestingly enough I read somewhere that fees went back to normal after AlphaBay shut down. Funny stuff

Nope the fees went back to normal several days or even weeks before, what it happen is that whoever was spamming the network has stopped, may be they stop because with the imminent segwit activation it is no longer a wise economic decision to keep the spam going on the network.

You already know who was spamming the blockchain network of bitcoin. Take a guess please, they were the guys trying to divide bitcoin into subgroups. Bitcoin is free and stay free, never forget this. Satoshi's philosophy won't be changed by others. Transaction fees will be more fait in the future hopefully.

There have been a lot of speculations about who was behind the attack , the most logical one to me is that the miners were the ones behind it, a spam attack will be very costly if you did not control a good portion of the hash power so all points to the miners being the ones behind it.

[olushakes]

The idea was mentioned in this thread https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=553639.0 in 2014, but now it looks like it may be finally happening.

The mining cartel may exist, and they will fill any extra room in the blockchain with zero fee or small fee transactions to ensure that blocks are full and people are then forced to pay higher fees to get accepted in the blockchain by both the cartel miners and those outside of the cartel. They could have their mining software configured to accept zero fee transactions from themselves while rejecting zero fee transactions from others.

If the mining cartel is big enough then the money that they make from this is enough to pay smaller transaction fees to fill up blocks mined by non cartel members to ensure that they have high fees too isn't it?

I've noticed full 1MB blocks go by and by and then there will be one smaller block. What are these smaller blocks? Isn't the pending transaction pool really big right now? Did they configure their miner to only accept high fee transactions?

No matter how big the blocks get from SegWit or hard forks they can always fill them up until people are forced to pay high fees.

The only thing stopping this is when people stop doing Bitcoin transactions to avoid the fees, then the cartel lowers their prices.

You made an interesting argument but the issue I see here is that there is nothing to back it up just some form if dots matching and bitcoin itself is not making it easy due to anonymity. Over the months this argument ensued others have maintained that its just an attack while some have argued that its a deliberate manipulation of the system to get a reaction which is finally what happened and I say the cabals referred to here are not the winners but the majority of others who played into their hands and make them have their way in relation to bitcoin.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Interestingly enough I read somewhere that fees went back to normal after AlphaBay shut down. Funny stuff

Nope the fees went back to normal several days or even weeks before, what it happen is that whoever was spamming the network has stopped, may be they stop because with the imminent segwit activation it is no longer a wise economic decision to keep the spam going on the network.

Yeah, exactly,  and that wasn't "a long time ago".  There's also no guarantee fees won't skyrocket next week either.   I recall trying to sell about $50 worth of bitcoin and my damn wallet was saying I had to pay like $8 to send it low priority.   Needless to say I did not do the sale.  That was last month I think, so we are by no means out of the woods. 

And what happens when btc reaches $100k?  20k satoshis is going to be a big deal then.

[xcajun21]

To whom are these transactions going to? If one exchanged for fiat,  could happen once a month or less, but this network congestion is happening any second... It does hurt the image of the bitcoin that miners are behind this...

[Trela]

Interestingly enough I read somewhere that fees went back to normal after AlphaBay shut down. Funny stuff

Nope the fees went back to normal several days or even weeks before, what it happen is that whoever was spamming the network has stopped, may be they stop because with the imminent segwit activation it is no longer a wise economic decision to keep the spam going on the network.

You already know who was spamming the blockchain network of bitcoin. Take a guess please, they were the guys trying to divide bitcoin into subgroups. Bitcoin is free and stay free, never forget this. Satoshi's philosophy won't be changed by others. Transaction fees will be more fait in the future hopefully.

There have been a lot of speculations about who was behind the attack , the most logical one to me is that the miners were the ones behind it, a spam attack will be very costly if you did not control a good portion of the hash power so all points to the miners being the ones behind it.

Not only miner, if rich man and big boy want the price of cryptocurrency falldown for helps them buying, they will co-operate with miner and create a big Team with many people have very more money, maybe hundreds millions dollar or even billions dollar!

[btc78]

I'm just new in the crypto world but I would say that I didn't find high transaction fees issue for me. If you want your transaction get faster confirmation then its logical to pay high fees right? So I don't know why is people complaining about high transaction fees if you can control how much you want to pay the miners to include your transaction in a block.

[Cereberus]

While transaction fees maybe high in recent times, lately there have been a drop in such fees. Whenever the network is not super busy transaction fees tend to go down. In the beginning Bitcoin was not created to have low fees, but to be a better payment method than conventional payment methods which it is.

[qiman]

I can barely do transactions now under 100-200 USD in Bitcoin otherwise the fees are still pretty high for my liking. I always send them advanced as well, never regular as I am afraid they might get stuck if I put them in regular send mode.

[shimbark123]

I think what you are saying might not really happen. After the segwit or the split of bitcoin. Transaction will be faster and the fee would be lessen also. Don't believe in that. It is just rumors so that if we sell our bitcoins now with low price. They will rejoice and buy low bitcoins.

[Iranus]

I can barely do transactions now under 100-200 USD in Bitcoin otherwise the fees are still pretty high for my liking.

Really?  Because you can send transactions with fees of about 20,000 satoshi and get confirmation pretty easily.  At most you're talking about 0.5% on a transaction of $100, with the median transaction size.

PayPal charges fees of about 3%, with static fees of 25 cents in the US and 20p in the UK, with only slightly better convenience.  Are those fees too high for your liking?

Yeah, exactly,  and that wasn't "a long time ago".  There's also no guarantee fees won't skyrocket next week either.   I recall trying to sell about $50 worth of bitcoin and my damn wallet was saying I had to pay like $8 to send it low priority.   Needless to say I did not do the sale.  That was last month I think, so we are by no means out of the woods. 

SegWit will most likely lock in this difficulty period and activate the next.  The problem won't be 100% solved forever, but it'll get better.  That sort of transaction could also move to LN for convenience if necessary.

And what happens when btc reaches $100k?  20k satoshis is going to be a big deal then.

I doubt the fee would still be 20k satoshi at that point.  The fee market is based on what users are willing to pay.