Network congestion is a feature and not a bug

[Samarkand]

As most of you already know the mempool is full right now with roughly 99000 unconfirmed transactions.
Some of this is due to miners switching to Bitcoin Cash for the moment, but even without these shifts
of hashpower the mempool would be rather full at the moment.

However, I increasingly view a full mempool as a brilliant feature of Bitcoin and not as a bug.
A competitive fee market requires occasional congestion of the network/mempool, which is particularly relevant for the time in the future
when the block reward is negligible and the incentives of the miners are largely determined by the transaction fees.

A recently released research paper of the Bank of Finland makes a similar argument. If anyone is interested
in further reading about this topic, you can read the paper at the following link:
https://helda.helsinki.fi/bof/bitstream/handle/123456789/14912/BoF_DP_1727.pdf;jsessionid=D762A63DC58856EF904C0C46421871BE?sequence=1

[franky1]

fee's are not a requirement for mining for 100 years

so for 99 years its a bug that makes users hate using bitcoin

[Samarkand]

fee's are not a requirement for mining for 100 years

so for 99 years its a bug that makes users hate using bitcoin

You are aware that the block reward will be reduced every ~4 years? After the next halving
it will already be at 6.25 BTC per block. If the BTC price is high enough that might not be a problem,
because the incentives for the miners will be high enough.

However, what happens if BTC price is lower than it is today and the block reward halving arrives?
What happens in ~15 years when the block reward is only 0.78125 BTC per block?

You are severely underestimating the importance of transaction fees in order to secure the network as
the block rewards decrease. Occasional congestion is a feature, because it is a critical prerequisite
for a working fee market, which will be necessary to secure the BTC network.

[dothebeats]

It only benefits the miners in the long run, and the users of the coin that expected affordable and hassle-free transaction would just switch to other alternatives or just stick using to their lovely cash. It's a bug that halts transfers and annoys too many people forcing them to just pay an accelerator (with no guarantees) or pay more fees to get their tx confirmed fast.

[Red-Apple]

network congestion leads to unsatisfied users, and these users will stop using bitcoin, it also opens up room for other cryptocurrencies to take the place of bitcoin. less usage, less adoption, lower price, lower number of transactions no network congestion, lower fees, lower price some more and with lower block reward it becomes impossible to mine bitcoin and not lose money, miners leave, hashrate drops, blocks will be found with delays, more network congestion, difficulty drops, it becomes easier to use mine bitcoin again, network congestion is solved.

bitcoin will live but will also lose a lot of usability.

so far this has been always temporary, and altcoin has been mostly useless pump and dumps. but things won't stay like this forever.

[Samarkand]

network congestion leads to unsatisfied users, and these users will stop using bitcoin, it also opens up room for other cryptocurrencies to take the place of bitcoin. less usage, less adoption, lower price, lower number of transactions no network congestion, lower fees, lower price some more and with lower block reward it becomes impossible to mine bitcoin and not lose money, miners leave, hashrate drops, blocks will be found with delays, more network congestion, difficulty drops, it becomes easier to use mine bitcoin again, network congestion is solved.

bitcoin will live but will also lose a lot of usability.

so far this has been always temporary, and altcoin has been mostly useless pump and dumps. but things won't stay like this forever.

Have you considered the possibility that Bitcoin´s best use case is being a store of value due to the propositions
that make it a sound form of money?

Using Bitcoins to pay for your coffee is stupid, a commodity that grows in value over time - as BTC does - should be saved for the
long term. Less usage therefore may actually be a good thing as people realize that they better hoard it instead of spending.

The opportunity cost of spending your precious Bitcoins for everyday purchases is just too big. Just look at the guys
who paid thousands of BTC for a pizza or other perishable goods. They would be set for life if they would have just
held their BTC holdings.

[Red-Apple]

Have you considered the possibility that Bitcoin´s best use case is being a store of value due to the propositions
that make it a sound form of money?

yes i have considered it and i refuse to accept bitcoin as a "store of value". and i am sure i am not alone when i say the main reason why i use bitcoin, buy bitcoin, and like bitcoin is because it is a currency not a store of value.
and the bitcoin paper by satoshi even says bitcoin is a peer to peer money not a peer to peer store of value.

Using Bitcoins to pay for your coffee is stupid, a commodity that grows in value over time - as BTC does - should be saved for the
long term. Less usage therefore may actually be a good thing as people realize that they better hoard it instead of spending.

i never said i want to use bitcoin to pay for coffee!

The opportunity cost of spending your precious Bitcoins for everyday purchases is just too big. Just look at the guys
who paid thousands of BTC for a pizza or other perishable goods. They would be set for life if they would have just
held their BTC holdings.

those guys who paid 10000 bitcoin for two pizzas understood bitcoin much better than anyone today and they knew bitcoin is valuable as long as it is a currency. which is why they used it as a currency.

[seaqrioy]

B: well, now the transfer fee of BTC is already quite high. If we can't do it again, I'm afraid we can't afford to transfer the money, especially when making small transfers.The S2X was a great idea, but it was delayed because of interest.

[franky1]

fee's are not a requirement for mining for 100 years

so for 99 years its a bug that makes users hate using bitcoin

You are aware that the block reward will be reduced every ~4 years? After the next halving
it will already be at 6.25 BTC per block. If the BTC price is high enough that might not be a problem,
because the incentives for the miners will be high enough.

However, what happens if BTC price is lower than it is today and the block reward halving arrives?
What happens in ~15 years when the block reward is only 0.78125 BTC per block?

You are severely underestimating the importance of transaction fees in order to secure the network as
the block rewards decrease. Occasional congestion is a feature, because it is a critical prerequisite
for a working fee market, which will be necessary to secure the BTC network.

you seem to misunderstand alot.. also i have been involved in bitcoin alot longer than you.
what you need to understand is the mining becomes more efficient as time goes on.
what you need to understand is that miners would even mine at a loss because they will gain later
what you need to understand is when some pools drop off there is then more of a slice of the pie for the rest

also if there is only 1mb base block that core want to keep. then thats only 2500 legacy or 4500 segwit tx's
which segwit does 75% discount. meaning fees are equivalent to 1113-2500 tx's a block(at legacy comparison).

so if you think that pools with 12.5btc@$6400 deserve atleast $80k every ~10 mins
and u think that while remaining at 1mb base to keep a network congestion alive.. that pools deserve to keep at $80k or above
then you are literally saying that when the next halving occurs, if btc was still $6400 that the tx fee total should be $40k to subsidise the halving

meaning 1113-2500 tx's = $36-$16 per tx

what would have been much better. is if core while agreeing that 4mb weight is acceptable.. actually gave4mb base block

meaning 10,000 legacy tx's, meaning fee's of at most $4 in the scenario above.

..

any way i truly laugh that core say 2mb is bad but then say 4mb weight is good. purely for their silly bloat features they want
anyway i laugh that they say network congestion is good as it raises the fee pretending pools need the money. while then discounting their silly features

but hey. im betting you have given up wearing a thinking cap of unbiased thought, while reading this message and instead put on a core defence cap and ready to reply with a bitchy post about how core are your gods and you trust their motives.
if so.. dont bother,
 i have heard all the wishy washy sheep defence moans of core devotee's. its nothing new and nothing original

because comments about 'congestion is good' is the economics propaganda of the core crowd trying to twist cores agenda to sound good. when in actuality its not