[2017-08-08] Bitcoin Mempool Growing Due to Low-Fee Transactions

[Kanapka]

The number of unconfirmed transactions is quickly mounting once again. Some are asserting this to be a spam attack by BCH supporters, although there is no proof to back that up. Luckily, it seems that network fees have not been affected in a significant manner so far.

Bitcoin Mempool Fills Up Quickly

It seems that in the case of Bitcoin, the mempool will hardly ever be empty. That is a positive sign showing that people are broadcasting transactions on the network. Once SegWit locks in, an increasing number of transactions will become less and less of a problem. Until then, we may have another mempool issue on our hands if the number of unconfirmed transactions continues to increase at the current rate.

At the time of writing, there were over 13,000 unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions. That number is not all that large, considering the network had to deal with nearly 200,000 such transactions just a few months ago. However, it is rather odd that there were very few unconfirmed transfers 24 hours ago and things have been slowly picking up. It is possible that the mounting Bitcoin price may have something to do with this.

As one might expect, people have been moving their coins to and from exchanges when the price has moved in either direction. Although these transactions normally do not create noticeable backlogs, in this case they will be intermixed with other unconfirmed transactions. According to Reddit, we are witnessing another “spam attack” on the network due to someone — or perhaps multiple entities — sending dust transactions back and forth to clog up network blocks. If that is indeed the case, it would not be the first time it has happened.

t is hard to blame this issue on people who may not even have anything to do with it. Considering the mempool has been filling up a lot slower than it could have if this were a proper spam attack, it is hard to figure out what is really going on. That being said, the mounting number of unconfirmed transfers has been accelerating. We started writing this article at 13,000 and are now up to 14,000 a few paragraphs later.

There are a lot of transactions with fees of less than 5 satoshi per byte. This has drawn some parallels to the previous spam attacks Bitcoin users have been having to deal with in recent months. It is possible someone else is behind this new attack as well. Once the “attack vector” is known publicly, it only takes one or two individuals with malicious intent to recreate the scenario and flood the network.

It seems that network blocks clear out approximately 10% of the waiting transactions right now, indicating that this is only a minor issue at best. If the problem persists, however, it may portend another major spam attack against the Bitcoin network. Doing so would not make much economic sense, but it never has in the past either.

https://themerkle.com/bitcoin-mempool-slowly-grows-due-to-low-fee-transactions/

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[veleten]

pretty sure it is BCC supporters who are behind the mempool spam
it has happened before-most of the network clog ups were due to the copious ampunts of low value large transactions
this is done to prove the "point" that 8 mb blocks is the solution to all of the bitcoin problems
unfortunately for Bitcoin Cash supporters,they are losing the economical dominance war with bitcoin (as if they could ever have won it)
and are resorting to underhand tactics yet again

[Xavofat]

it has happened before-most of the network clog ups were due to the copious ampunts of low value large transactions

Do people really need to be this illogical?  If you look at blockchain.info's unconfirmed transactions, you can see the transactions as they come in.  Pretty much none of them look like spam demand at all.

Also, if you look at 21.co's transaction fee thing, you can see that the vast majority of transactions are being sent with high fees, and even those that don't have high fees are getting confirmed.

Regardless, sending with a low fee does not equate to spam.  Ideally, everyone would send with low fees because it would make it better for real priority transactions, but when the network is clogged that's not going to happen.

unfortunately for Bitcoin Cash supporters,they are losing the economical dominance war with bitcoin (as if they could ever have won it)
and are resorting to underhand tactics yet again

Hilariously enough, there was actually a transaction malleability attack on Bitcoin Cash, but no one is saying "Bitcoin supporters are resorting to underhand tactics", because they realise that it would be dumb to say that.

[peter0425]

I think transaction fee at 120 sat/byte is perfectly fine. I think because we need a total of 6 confirmations before you actually receive bitcoin has something to do with the mempool backlog. I think before we only need less than that to be able to receive it right away. But 6 confirmations sometimes took like 1 hour to be able to see your bitcoin go to your wallet. As for me their is no spam attack coming from the other side, its that the transaction is taking too long for confirmation to take place.

[buwaytress]

People are just returning to normal BTC use. The previous fears were unfounded and a lot of sideline observers are back in. Median tx fee for the past weeks have been in the low <60s, but I only see 35 0 fee txs and about 12k below 20 sats/byte in the past 24 hours... Hardly looks like a coordinated spam attack, not when compared to the massive dust spends of the past.

Just when I was beginning to get used to adding an extra 0 after my decimal for static fee/byte