POLL: Allow dust transactions in Bitcoin? (5430 satoshis or less)

[whiskers75]

There's a lot of hate against this, so let's see what you think....

[1715074036]

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[1715074036]

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[1715074036]

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[svbeon]

Other option: Destroy all dust with new fork.

[whiskers75]

Other option: Destroy all dust with new fork.

Added!

[royston]

one day (in the near future), when the value of bitcoin rockets to the stratosphere, you'll regret eliminating every single satoshis you ever owned.

[bg002h]

An option should be: not now, but someday, of course.

[solex]

So the OP seems comfortable to see this growth rate accelerate faster, but rather than have real-world consumer and business transactions, it is filled with spam dust junk.

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-blockchain-grows-to-8gb/

[raze]

Check out this blockchain size graph and tell me that you can't see the reasoning behind eliminating sub-cent transactions. Seriously, it's less than the fees you would normally send with a transaction. I'm happy with this decision.

[AliceWonder]

I don't like them but allow them for a fee.
I can see them being useful for hash timestamping. Personally I think there are better ways - take the sha256 sum and post it in a thread on a public forum for all to see, but I don't have a problem with them being in the blockchain if someone is willing to pay the fee and a miner accepts it.

[Eri]

Crappy options are crappy.

How about 'Do not relay dust' transaction. (i like the change). Its a start to allow the community to make what is and isnt acceptable adjustable network wide by user consensus.

[Snail2]

By eliminating dust bitcoin will stuck in the "big transactions" area and in the long run it can loose it's ability for being a widely used means of payment. In addition if its value grows high enough the amount what we today call dust could be your monthly phone bill in the future... or your monthly salary... Just remember the price of the first pizza what has been bought by using bitcoins .

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

- Need a "No idea" or "Just show me the results" option or else people will just click one to see the results.

- "Mandatory fee" doesn't even make sense because each miner will decide; there are ultimately no mandators in the Bitcoin world and I think this is a slight but important indicator of thinking about this in the wrong way a way that is inefficient. It makes people freak out because they think everything has to be consensus and unilateral. Really people will do what they want with dust transactions on their own terms, and the devs can only stay in their role as long as they continue to support the miners' ability to do just that. The new changes to lay the groundwork for a fee market to arise are a big step toward this.

[DeathAndTaxes]

By eliminating dust bitcoin will stuck in the "big transactions" area and in the long run it can loose it's ability for being a widely used means of payment. In addition if its value grows high enough the amount what we today call dust could be your monthly phone bill in the future... or your monthly salary... Just remember the price of the first pizza what has been bought by using bitcoins .

You do understand that dust is linked to min tx fee on low priority txs right?  That fee has declined by a factor of 100x from 0.01 to 0.0001 BTC as the exchange rate has risen.  There is nothing to indicate this won't continue to happen.   If the tx has economical value then miners have lowered their fees to below that and thus what was previously dust is no longer dust.  Also 0.8.2 doesn't prevent the spending of dust it simply prevents (for nodes that follow the default value) the creation of dust with the current default threshold set at 54.3% of the min fee


 Dust will always be dust. Low value regardless of if you measure it in fiat equivalence of the amount of goods and services which can be purchased.  They are worthless because it costs more to spend than it is worth spending.  This means (and the blockchain is good history of this) that it won't be spent and every node keeps it in the UXTO forever.  Nobody benefits, everyone pays additional overhead of being a peer. 

If you found a penny on the street but the only way to spend it was to mail it (say to your mortgage/rent holder) at a cost of $0.42?  Spend $0.43 to pay down $0.01 of your rent?  Would you?  Sure it has >0 value but seeing as it is worth less than the transaction cost if your only way to spend it was to mail at a higher cost you never would.  Now imagine everyone in the world had to keep track of the fact that you have that penny ... forever.  That is Bitcoin.

This polls like this only highlight a misconception of Bitcoin.  There is no "network" as if it is a single unified structure; the "network" is a loose association of independent nodes.  If you think the default dust threshold of 0.0543 mBTC (5430 satoshis) is too high then change the min mandatory fee required for your node to relay (and/or mine) low priority transactions.  The min mandatory fee on low priority txs in 0.8.2 is 0.1 mBTC (10,000 S).  The dust threshold is 54.3% of the min fee.  There is a reason for this as it is the relationship between the size of an input and the resulting transaction for the most common form (2 inputs, 1 output, 1 change output).  Still I wish the developers had gone with the slightly less precise but easier to explain 50% ("dust is half the min fee").  If you change the min mandatory fee for low priority transaction you can change the dust threshold.

If you run a node which has a min mandatory fee of 0.10 mBTC (10,000 S) to relay transactions CONGRATULATIONS you are using the default dust threshold of 0.0543 mBTC (5430 S)    0.1 * 54.3% = 0.0543
If you run a node which has a min mandatory fee of 0.04 mBTC ( 4,000 S) to relay transactions CONGRATULATIONS you have lowered the dust threshold to 0.02172 mBTC (2172 S)    0.04 * 54.3% = 0.02172
If you run a node which has a min mandatory fee of 0.25 mBTC (25,000 S) to relay transactions CONGRATULATIONS you have raised the dust threshold to 0.1629 mBTC (16,290 S)    0.25 * 54.3% = 0.1629

[wolverine.ks]

a miner should have the choice to relay or not relay any transaction they choose and at any price they choose. yes I realize that dust is not technically prohibited. but it is also a dangerous targeting of a once successful bitcoin business. additionally, would this spamming of the block chain increase fees for everyone, and therefore increase revenue for miners, thereby increasing the security of the block chain and reducing the network deficit?

[wolverine.ks]

additionally, the argument that it costs more to spend than the transaction is worth....
you are comparing apples and oranges. one persons costs to another persons value.  additionally, there are non monetary values associated with those transactions that make it more valuable than it's face value.

[DeathAndTaxes]

additionally, the argument that it costs more to spend than the transaction is worth....
you are comparing apples and oranges. one persons costs to another persons value.  additionally, there are non monetary values associated with those transactions that make it more valuable than it's face value.

There is a difference between the freedom of speech and the requirement of someone to listen.  If you feel dust transactions are "valuable" then simply find people who are willing to relay and mine them for you.  Problem solved.   0.8.2 simply prevents nodes who don't share the "value" of massive UXTO bloat (a cost shared by all for the benefit of a few) to not actively assist you in that goal.

[Lethn]

While I don't know a huge amount about the technical stuff behind this if the 'dust' transactions are what I think they are then I think they should be kept, my reasoning being that one of Bitcoins main features are that it is easy to divide, if you restrict that then it becomes less useful and convenient. Then again, I could be entirely wrong and this is something completely different to what I'm thinking off, I was thinking that the restrictions were about people sending 0.000005 BTC amongst themselves or something.

[countryfree]

100% in favor of invalidating all transactions below one US cent. In satoshis, that means the minimum should be regularly changed, but that isn't a problem.

[RandyFolds]

So the OP seems comfortable to see this growth rate accelerate faster, but rather than have real-world consumer and business transactions, it is filled with spam dust junk.

http://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-blockchain-grows-to-8gb/

Yeah, a real world banking system would never allow consumers and businesses to carry out small transactions in the denominations they want, or keep records of those transactions. They know that anything below $1000usd is just clutter. All that data is taking up too much space, damnit, and a man's gotta eat.

edit: I sort of cracked my joke without making my point...I think hard coding a lower limit to transaction size is foolish. Blockchain bloat is very real, and growing exponentially. Limiting dust txs just delays the inevitable, and doesn't address the root of the issue, which is every node needing to possess humanity's accounting. So the options are to offload blockchain hosting to a trusted entity and start central banking anew, but 1850s central banking, where they might just maybe probably skip town with all of your hard earned color, or...I am not sure what.

DeathandTaxes, my man! Long time no see. I must say, my opinion on this did change a bit after reading your post, and opened my eyes to the true scale of this explosive growth. Would you be so kind as to do a simple man such as myself the courtesy of setting me straight on the community's current plan to curb blockchain size beyond this stopgap measure? I've been away for a while (not in jail, just not on bitcointalk).

[wiser]

It seems to me that services like coinbox.me allow you to have your cake and eat it too when it comes to tiny transactions.  Why not just go with a service like that if you are inclined to send out small transactions?  Then the recipient can just pick it up along with all his faucet earnings.

[EndTheFed321]

I vote to Accept and relay dust transactions.

[ktttn]

I imagine a more blurred and less exact and lengthy and reliable way to process very small amounts is in order.
Microtransactions are important for impoverished people.
Dust should have a way of accumulating in a useful way up to say 16 digits.
lol satoshisatoshi.
Do change addresses not result in much dust?

[justusranvier]

I vote to Accept and relay dust transactions.

Your vote is meaningless unless you're talking about how you've already changed the appropriate settings your node's bitcoin.conf file.

[Eri]

While I don't know a huge amount about the technical stuff behind this if the 'dust' transactions are what I think they are then I think they should be kept, my reasoning being that one of Bitcoins main features are that it is easy to divide, if you restrict that then it becomes less useful and convenient. Then again, I could be entirely wrong and this is something completely different to what I'm thinking off, I was thinking that the restrictions were about people sending 0.000005 BTC amongst themselves or something.

dust has nothing to do with restricting decimal usage. you can still use all the decimals if you want. its just, in a sense, limiting your ability to send transactions that will cost the recipient more to send then what you sent them. (read carefully that last part) in fact. dust really has absolutely nothing to do with decimals. its a matter of value.

would you spend 1$, to mail in a coupon, for 1 penny off a online purchase? Sure it makes that thing online 1 penny cheaper but you just lost 1$ doing it! Who would do that? This is what the change prevents.

[Moogle]

Get rid of them. Anything less than a cent is a rediculous amount to srnd

[wolverine.ks]

would you spend 1$, to mail in a coupon, for 1 penny off a online purchase? Sure it makes that thing online 1 penny cheaper but you just lost 1$ doing it! Who would do that? This is what the change prevents.

if it cost the sender more than the amount sent, why would they do it indeed...

they would only send it if it were in their best interest, as determined by them.

someone might not spend $1 to send a penny coupon, but they might spend $1 to to do any of they many things you can do with a penny. sell it to a collector, melt it down for copper,  put it on a railroad track, squash it with a commemorative logo at Disney land...

there are even more things you can do with just 1 satoshi.

there are pros and cons to dust, but there are also unforeseen consequences. just be aware of that.

[True___Blue]

When BTC is trading at over $1000 all of that "dust" is going to be worth alot. If I can only use BTC to transfer large amounts of cash I would be using it much less than I am now.

[True___Blue]

I should mention also that as a Newbie I regularly use bitcoin faucet websites and now have to pay a hefty premium when I want to send BTC from the QT

[raze]

When BTC is trading at over $1000 all of that "dust" is going to be worth alot. If I can only use BTC to transfer large amounts of cash I would be using it much less than I am now.

When BTC is trading at over $1000, they'll change the rules regarding dust transactions so that it's value is sub-cent again.

Logic.

[Eri]

would you spend 1$, to mail in a coupon, for 1 penny off a online purchase? Sure it makes that thing online 1 penny cheaper but you just lost 1$ doing it! Who would do that? This is what the change prevents.

if it cost the sender more than the amount sent, why would they do it indeed...

they would only send it if it were in their best interest, as determined by them.

someone might not spend $1 to send a penny coupon, but they might spend $1 to to do any of they many things you can do with a penny. sell it to a collector, melt it down for copper,  put it on a railroad track, squash it with a commemorative logo at Disney land...

there are even more things you can do with just 1 satoshi.

there are pros and cons to dust, but there are also unforeseen consequences. just be aware of that.

You miss read what i said and your leaving out a step in the chain. Your basing your view on the original sender. not the person receiving it and being stuck with it, nor what effect that has on the blockchain. Sure their might be some reason to spend 1 satoshi where you might be willing to spend a 1$ to do it. But what you all want is to *force* users to receive these pennies and bloat the blockchain because these users in turn wont spend 1$ to send someone that penny you sent them, they find it worthless.


Better example(?)

If *I* send you 10,000 coupons at a value of 1 penny each for a total value is 100$, but the cost to mail in each coupon is 1$ would you mail them in? Those coupons may be worth 100$, but it would cost you 10,000$ to redeem them. Thats just how the blockchain and fee structure has worked all along. The problem isnt with the person spending 1 penny, its with the person receiving it. the problem is that if it costs them 1$ to use that penny, they simply wont use it. As a result the only way to prevent this unspendable dust from building up in the blockchain is to prevent it from being spent in the first place. The problem with this in bitcoin is that the blockchain cannot purge this information in the future when pruning is enabled. We will be stuck with it forever unless we all want to allow the client to start DELETING MONEY from the blockchain to save space. That obviously is NOT an option. We must be proactive about preventing unspendable transactions.

When BTC is trading at over $1000 all of that "dust" is going to be worth alot. If I can only use BTC to transfer large amounts of cash I would be using it much less than I am now.

what the client sees as 'dust' is a floating value, that means it changes based on the fee you can now set thanks to this update. That means 'dust' will always have a value below 1 penny, it doesnt matter if the value of bitcoin rises or falls.

I should mention also that as a Newbie I regularly use bitcoin faucet websites and now have to pay a hefty premium when I want to send BTC from the QT

Fact of the matter is, not enough people are using the new client to have *Any effect* on the bitcoin network yet. that 'hefty premium' you have to pay is hefty because people havnt updated to the latest version that lowers the fee from .0005 to .0001. That fee is configurable in your client now, it lets you decide what transaction you will and wont rely for the network. if people want fees lower or higher, they can download the new client and change it.

[Elanthius]

Why do people keep saying that the fee to spend dust is higher than the value of the dust itself? It is currently trivial to send transactions while paying a fee of only 1 satoshi per 1000 bytes. Dust, combined into larger transactions over 5430 satoshis, can easily be spent as long as you don't mind waiting a day or two for confirmation.

[True___Blue]

I'm away from my QT wallet right now, but I remember yesterday trying to send 0.5 BTC and I got a message saying the transaction would cost an extra 0.15 to process. I can check this again once I am near that computer again. I was under the assumption that in order to process the 0.5 transaction I was paying fees for the several previous transactions of under 5000 satoshis.

[LGT06]

When BTC is trading at over $1000 all of that "dust" is going to be worth alot. If I can only use BTC to transfer large amounts of cash I would be using it much less than I am now.

When BTC is trading at over $1000, they'll change the rules regarding dust transactions so that it's value is sub-cent again.

Logic.

How are they going to adjust the dust amount on the fly when BTC are trading at $650 USD on week and $200 USD the next week? Maybe letting miners decide what to include in the block chain instead of hard coding it into the software perhaps? I thought the whole point of this system was to let the market determine what works and to avoid using some human decree as the law of the land.

[solex]

When BTC is trading at over $1000 all of that "dust" is going to be worth alot. If I can only use BTC to transfer large amounts of cash I would be using it much less than I am now.

When BTC is trading at over $1000, they'll change the rules regarding dust transactions so that it's value is sub-cent again.

Logic.

How are they going to adjust the dust amount on the fly when BTC are trading at $650 USD on week and $200 USD the next week? Maybe letting miners decide what to include in the block chain instead of hard coding it into the software perhaps? I thought the whole point of this system was to let the market determine what works and to avoid using some human decree as the law of the land.

It will get changed with new versions of software and the devs will average the recent fx rate to determine the dust value.
It is utterly irrelevant that the dust value might be equivalent to 0.65c one week and 0.2c the next. If Bitcoin is a world-beating currency then dicking around with sub-cent transactions is like mostly using your Ferrari to go down your driveway to collect your mail.

[DeathAndTaxes]

How are they going to adjust the dust amount on the fly when BTC are trading at $650 USD on week and $200 USD the next week? Maybe letting miners decide what to include in the block chain instead of hard coding it into the software perhaps? I thought the whole point of this system was to let the market determine what works and to avoid using some human decree as the law of the land.

It isn't hardcoded it is based on min mandatory tx fee.  If a node is set to only relay/mine low priority tx with a min mandatory of 0.1 mBTC (10,000 S) then the dust is 54.3% of that (5430).  IF a node is set to relay/mine low priority txs with a min mandatory fee of 0.01 (1,000 S) then the dust is 54.3% of that (543 S).  If a node is set to relay/mine low priority txs with a min fee of 0 mBTC (0 S) then the dust is 54.3% of that (0 S).

If miner X won't accept include low priority tx without a fee of Y then that same miner will reject tx which attempt to create transactions that are less than half of Y.

[freethink2013]

When BTC is trading at over $1000, they'll change the rules regarding dust transactions so that it's value is sub-cent again.

Logic.

Sounds a bit like what happened in cypress tbh. I honestly don't think the attraction of bitcoin was that "they" could change the rules as they go.

[DeathAndTaxes]

When BTC is trading at over $1000, they'll change the rules regarding dust transactions so that it's value is sub-cent again.

Logic.

Sounds a bit like what happened in cypress tbh. I honestly don't think the attraction of bitcoin was that "they" could change the rules as they go.

If that sounds "like Cypress" then you probably need to read more.

Example.
Today in v0.8.2 the default min fee on low priority tx is 0.1mBTC (10,000 S) and thus the dust threshold is 5,430 S.
Current exchange rate ~$100 thus the min fee on low priority tx is ~$0.01 and dust threshold is ~$0.005 (half a penny).

Some day in the future the exchange rate has risen to $2,500 and thus some future version of the client has lowered the min mandatory fee on low priority tx to 0.004 mBTC (400 S).  This makes the dust threshold 217 S.  The purchasing power of those amounts are still ~$0.01 and $0.005.

Now how exact is that "like Cypress"?

[mmeijeri]

I'm undecided, but I'm also worried about the impact on the use of coloured coins.

[solex]

Wow. You are patient D&T

I'm undecided, but I worry about the impact on the use of coloured coins.

This is the sort of business which off-chain solutions can do (like fidelity-bonded chaum banks). If off-chain doesn't work for this - then it is a complete failure and we had better hope that Bitcoin scaling software solutions can deal with a super-big blockchain.

[freethink2013]

When BTC is trading at over $1000, they'll change the rules regarding dust transactions so that it's value is sub-cent again.

Logic.

Sounds a bit like what happened in cypress tbh. I honestly don't think the attraction of bitcoin was that "they" could change the rules as they go.

If that sounds "like Cypress" then you probably need to read more.

Example.
Today in v0.8.2 the default min fee on low priority tx is 0.1mBTC (10,000 S) and thus the dust threshold is 5,430 S.
Current exchange rate ~$100 thus the min fee on low priority tx is ~$0.01 and dust threshold is ~$0.005 (half a penny).

Some day in the future the exchange rate has risen to $2,500 and thus some future version of the client has lowered the min mandatory fee on low priority tx to 0.004 mBTC (400 S).  This makes the dust threshold 217 S.  The purchasing power of those amounts are still ~$0.01 and $0.005.

Now how exact is that "like Cypress"?

Maybe. But a currency that requires people to 'read more' is never going to be a currency that's widely accepted.

Here's how it's like cypress: a small group of people can suddenly decide to change things without consumers having any recourse. Currencies aren't about 'reading more' they are about usability and trust. Me and the rest of the world don't want to read more. We want to buy and sell stuff. Any hurdle you put in front of us is to the detriment of your currency.

It doesn't have to be like cypress to put people off but if it feels/sounds like it people will be put off. External intervention/meddling sets off my spidey senses. If you can't figure out a way to deal with the dust with out banning it then we may as well give up now. As someone posted above the 'dust' becomes significant if bitcoin's price rises. Makes me laugh that one of the accepted solutions is that people should stop using bitcoin and use litecoin instead. Seriously, I think some of you can't see the forest for the trees. You are dooming this currency.

Here's a saying I've always found to be true: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

imho that's what's happening now.

Look at the poll results. I'm not alone.

[Rant2112]

The fundamental problem is negative externalities.

The dust-spender doesn't pay the cost of the transaction.

There should be a default transaction cost that's a best-guess of the actual cost of a dust transaction.  Mining software should default to reject transactions with smaller fees.

[Rant2112]

Is it possible for the network to reject a mined block if it doesn't include a high enough sum of transaction fees?

In other words - if a miner accepts too-low of a fee is it possible for the rest of the network to reject that miner's solution?

[giszmo]

I'm slightly confused not to see a single mention of colored bitoins in this thread.

Colored bitcoins take one transaction as the genesis transaction of, lets say, a stock. Now the output of this transaction has dust value to you but maybe great value to a stock owner.

A contract like "I hearby declare that this 1,000,000 Satoshis deposited via transaction A in address B represent stocks of my company XY and everybody holding them has the right on dividends and voting" would allow me to run stocks of my company based on what is 0.01Ƀ worth of bitcoins to you but a million stocks to me and my fellows. How can you declare storing these stocks not economical?

I guess this kind of alternative uses for Bitcoin were intended and do good to the overall legitimacy of Bitcoin. Sure, if we not only "destroy the banks" but at the same time "destroy the stock exchanges", the establishment might get slightly mader, so maybe we should keep this bullet for the next round.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Is it possible for the network to reject a mined block if it doesn't include a high enough sum of transaction fees?

In other words - if a miner accepts too-low of a fee is it possible for the rest of the network to reject that miner's solution?

No.  That is why this is all a much ado about nothing.

If people want to create sub dust transactions, then they can find people willing to relay and mine them.   Problem solved.  The dust threshold is merely a default.  It doesn't invalidate any blocks. 

The reality (and the need for the gnashing of teeth and FUD about the death of Bitcoin) is some people simply WANT to spam the network with transactions which will NEVER be redeemed.  They also want to do it for free and have the cost of keeping those transactions in the UXTO forever paid by someone else.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I'm slightly confused not to see a single mention of colored bitoins in this thread.

Colored bitcoins take one transaction as the genesis transaction of, lets say, a stock. Now the output of this transaction has dust value to you but maybe great value to a stock owner.

A contract like "I hearby declare that this 1,000,000 Satoshis deposited via transaction A in address B represent stocks of my company XY and everybody holding them has the right on dividends and voting" would allow me to run stocks of my company based on what is 0.01Ƀ worth of bitcoins to you but a million stocks to me and my fellows. How can you declare storing these stocks not economical?

I guess this kind of alternative uses for Bitcoin were intended and do good to the overall legitimacy of Bitcoin. Sure, if we not only "destroy the banks" but at the same time "destroy the stock exchanges", the establishment might get slightly mader, so maybe we should keep this bullet for the next round.

Then find someone willing to relay and mine it.  Problem solved.

Nothing in 0.8.2 PREVENTS you from doing that.  Some people might not share your view that it is a beneficial use of a critical resource.  Should they be forced to relay and mine your transactions?

0.8.2. doesn't make any transaction regardless of size prohibited.  No block will be rejected even if it is 100% full of spammy garbage. 

However just because you have FREEDOM of speech doesn't mean others have an OBLIGATION to listen.  Likewise just because you can create spammy garbage doesn't mean that other nodes should be forced to relay it.

[giszmo]

I'm slightly confused not to see a single mention of colored bitoins in this thread.

Colored bitcoins take one transaction as the genesis transaction of, lets say, a stock. Now the output of this transaction has dust value to you but maybe great value to a stock owner.

A contract like "I hearby declare that this 1,000,000 Satoshis deposited via transaction A in address B represent stocks of my company XY and everybody holding them has the right on dividends and voting" would allow me to run stocks of my company based on what is 0.01Ƀ worth of bitcoins to you but a million stocks to me and my fellows. How can you declare storing these stocks not economical?

I guess this kind of alternative uses for Bitcoin were intended and do good to the overall legitimacy of Bitcoin. Sure, if we not only "destroy the banks" but at the same time "destroy the stock exchanges", the establishment might get slightly mader, so maybe we should keep this bullet for the next round.

Then find someone willing to relay and mine it.  Problem solved.

Nothing in 0.8.2 PREVENTS you from doing that.  Some people might not share your view that it is a beneficial use of a critical resource.  Should they be forced to relay and mine your transactions?

0.8.2. doesn't make any transaction regardless of size prohibited.  No block will be rejected even if it is 100% full of spammy garbage. 

However just because you have FREEDOM of speech doesn't mean others have an OBLIGATION to listen.  Likewise just because you can create spammy garbage doesn't mean that other nodes should be forced to relay it.

Well then the 0.8.2 doesn't solve any problem. If you don't make the fees scale with the costs, things make no sense. Anybody may include garbage and take a fee or not for that and for all eternity people have to deal with this extra data. We should just assume to have full blocks and miners should include transactions based on the fee in relation to the costs for the network and not in relation to some assumed economic value of that particular transaction.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Well then the 0.8.2 doesn't solve any problem. If you don't make the fees scale with the costs, things make no sense. Anybody may include garbage and take a fee or not for that and for all eternity people have to deal with this extra data. We should just assume to have full blocks and miners should include transactions based on the fee in relation to the costs for the network and not in relation to some assumed economic value of that particular transaction.

Well do.  MOST miners and nodes are NOT going to relay uneconomical garbage.  The reason is the UXTO is the critical resource it can't be pruned and to perform high speed validation it should be in memory (or as much in memory as possible).  The creation of outputs that likely will never be spent bloats the UXTO and that makes the entire network less efficient.  Miners pay a perpetual cost that can't be pruned away.  If they are rational they won't include spammy garbage.

[EmperorBob]

A contract like "I hearby declare that this 1,000,000 Satoshis deposited via transaction A in address B represent stocks of my company XY and everybody holding them has the right on dividends and voting" would allow me to run stocks of my company based on what is 0.01Ƀ worth of bitcoins to you but a million stocks to me and my fellows. How can you declare storing these stocks not economical?

Just scale it up so that the per-share amout of satoshis is higher than the dust threshold. So instead of one satoshi per share, make it 10,000 (Approx. 1 penny at this time) per share. Then everything works again. Since, by you own admission, these shares have non-negligible economic value, tying up a larger (still very small) amount of money to each share doesn't harm you at all.

[Hyena]

I raise this thread from the dead because as a developer, I am being affected by this issue and I want to make my opinion heard even if some people have already decided that this issue has been resolved already.

I choose ACCEPT AND RELAY  because the sender pays to the miner anyway according to the final size of the transaction. it is the size used up in the block chain and only that size in combination with the fee paid to miners that should matter. The sender should be free to do whatever they want in the transaction as long as they pay the minimal fee to miners.

But why would anyone send such a small amount of bitcoins that couldn't be spent? Easy: to save a Proof of Existence in the block chain! Why not use OP_RETURN you might ask? Because anything behind OP_RETURN is non-standard anyway and can be pruned later. Proof of Existence is meant to be forever, and must not be pruned in any way ever.

[solex]

I raise this thread from the dead because as a developer, I am being affected by this issue and I want to make my opinion heard even if some people have already decided that this issue has been resolved already.

I choose ACCEPT AND RELAY  because the sender pays to the miner anyway according to the final size of the transaction. it is the size used up in the block chain and only that size in combination with the fee paid to miners that should matter. The sender should be free to do whatever they want in the transaction as long as they pay the minimal fee to miners.

But why would anyone send such a small amount of bitcoins that couldn't be spent? Easy: to save a Proof of Existence in the block chain! Why not use OP_RETURN you might ask? Because anything behind OP_RETURN is non-standard anyway and can be pruned later. Proof of Existence is meant to be forever, and must not be pruned in any way ever.

You are looking at a small picture, not the big picture. Also please re-read all D&T's posts.

The block limit needs to be increased and IBLT implemented within new block propagation before micro-tx become even more common.

Then this thread might deserve to be raised from the dead.

[Gyrsur]

can someone post the link to Gavin statemant about this?

[luv2drnkbr]

I raise this thread from the dead because as a developer, I am being affected by this issue and I want to make my opinion heard even if some people have already decided that this issue has been resolved already.

I choose ACCEPT AND RELAY  because the sender pays to the miner anyway according to the final size of the transaction. it is the size used up in the block chain and only that size in combination with the fee paid to miners that should matter. The sender should be free to do whatever they want in the transaction as long as they pay the minimal fee to miners.

But why would anyone send such a small amount of bitcoins that couldn't be spent? Easy: to save a Proof of Existence in the block chain! Why not use OP_RETURN you might ask? Because anything behind OP_RETURN is non-standard anyway and can be pruned later. Proof of Existence is meant to be forever, and must not be pruned in any way ever.

To be fair, the blockchain can only be validated if tx's aren't pruned.  So the full blockchain must still exist with *some* miners/users, otherwise the whole security of the system collapses.  So while OP_RETURN outputs will be pruned by most nodes, they will still exist and be able to be verified.  All users must have the option to download and verify the entire blockchain from the beginning, otherwise the system isn't secure.  And in order for users to be able to do that, it has to always be available somewhere.

[Lauda]

Accepting and relaying them right now would be a mistake.
On the other hand doing so in the future is necessary.

[Hyena]

I raise this thread from the dead because as a developer, I am being affected by this issue and I want to make my opinion heard even if some people have already decided that this issue has been resolved already.

I choose ACCEPT AND RELAY  because the sender pays to the miner anyway according to the final size of the transaction. it is the size used up in the block chain and only that size in combination with the fee paid to miners that should matter. The sender should be free to do whatever they want in the transaction as long as they pay the minimal fee to miners.

But why would anyone send such a small amount of bitcoins that couldn't be spent? Easy: to save a Proof of Existence in the block chain! Why not use OP_RETURN you might ask? Because anything behind OP_RETURN is non-standard anyway and can be pruned later. Proof of Existence is meant to be forever, and must not be pruned in any way ever.

You are looking at a small picture, not the big picture. Also please re-read all D&T's posts.

The block limit needs to be increased and IBLT implemented within new block propagation before micro-tx become even more common.

Then this thread might deserve to be raised from the dead.

I have read the posts again but they didn't tell me anything that I already didn't know. However, somehow something made me change my mind about it and I now support the idea of having this dust threshold. It doesn't solve the problem but it wins us some time. There will be a day when the block chain is simply so big that only a few nodes could host it. The conflict here is that some people want Bitcoin to be forever and others (such as myself) simply acknowledge the fact that Bitcoin will become unsustainable and something else will take its place. If we look at the situation from the point of view that Bitcoin is going to die anyway then dust transactions should be allowed. If we want to push Bitcoin's death as far into the future as possible then we should not allow dust transactions. That's why I wouldn't allow dust transaction --- to buy us more time.

My speculation is that Bitcoin will die because of its technical limitations (ASIC mining sucks and the block chain is growing too fast, also current TPS is not sustainable in the long term). Peercoin's block chain is just 400 MiB and it will remain in that magnitude for long time due to the fact how they have solved the transaction fee problem. Thus, Peercoin is the ultimate store of value and not Bitcoin (said jokingly but then followed by a serious look in the eye). Also, Peercoin has Proof of Stake mining, so anyone could have an ASIC (hint: PoS ASIC is a Raspberry Pi). For everyday use cryptocurrency, Sunny King's community has developed the NuBits project and thanks to NuShares the shareholders can vote on all sorts of things --- the aspect Bitcoin community obviously lacks. Essentially all network related decisions should be voted on and votes be weighted by the share of coins the voter owns. For example, if I have 1 bitcoin, then it gives me 1 vote on any Bitcoin related development decision. As a NuShares shareholder I can vote for issues like that (to allow or disallow dust transactions and what not).

Finally, should the NuBits block chain grow too large the shareholders could just come together and vote how to solve the problem. One solution is resetting the block chain and then redistributing the nubits to their owners. This is the future and in the future block chain's size is not an issue. Also, Open Transactions should solve much of the block chain's size problems. Right now I feel bitcoin development decisions are made by some privileged people who are obviously prone to corruption.

[Gyrsur]

can someone post the link to Gavin statemant about this?

did a tx of 0.00005429 with fee of 0.01

it is included into a block.

EDIT:

dust is new defined below 546 satoshis but it depends

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/a0417b8cc840ff6f49b4fb1f8ceef54f8e3d0df1/src/primitives/transaction.h#L145

[solex]

I raise this thread from the dead because as a developer, I am being affected by this issue and I want to make my opinion heard even if some people have already decided that this issue has been resolved already.

I choose ACCEPT AND RELAY  because the sender pays to the miner anyway according to the final size of the transaction. it is the size used up in the block chain and only that size in combination with the fee paid to miners that should matter. The sender should be free to do whatever they want in the transaction as long as they pay the minimal fee to miners.

But why would anyone send such a small amount of bitcoins that couldn't be spent? Easy: to save a Proof of Existence in the block chain! Why not use OP_RETURN you might ask? Because anything behind OP_RETURN is non-standard anyway and can be pruned later. Proof of Existence is meant to be forever, and must not be pruned in any way ever.

You are looking at a small picture, not the big picture. Also please re-read all D&T's posts.

The block limit needs to be increased and IBLT implemented within new block propagation before micro-tx become even more common.

Then this thread might deserve to be raised from the dead.

I have read the posts again but they didn't tell me anything that I already didn't know. However, somehow something made me change my mind about it and I now support the idea of having this dust threshold. It doesn't solve the problem but it wins us some time. There will be a day when the block chain is simply so big that only a few nodes could host it. The conflict here is that some people want Bitcoin to be forever and others (such as myself) simply acknowledge the fact that Bitcoin will become unsustainable and something else will take its place.

Interesting post, I have always found your opinions rational and informed.

When I first found out about Bitcoin I was super-excited about its potential. Super-excitement which lasted about two weeks until I learned about the limits on throughput and storage. I have remained just "excited" about it since, tempered with the knowledge that so much needs to be done. Although, a huge amount has been done, Bitcoin Core 0.9 is vastly superior to Satoshi's 0.1, and soon we will see 0.10 with headers-first for rapid node bootstrapping and synchronization. Greg Maxwell uses the term "low hanging fruit" to describe the range of known technical changes which can improve Bitcoin generally and its volume handling. Also, IBLT has fantastic potential, including reducing the 10 minute lag on blockchain consensus to nearly real-time, by enforcing a high degree of consensus on unconfirmed transactions. Bitcoin rides Moore's Law like a surfer on a wave.

Most of the alts have the luxury of low transaction volume which is basically investors buying, selling and shuffling their wallets. All of them will struggle under serious real-world user volumes (if they ever get it).

I remain very optimistic that Bitcoin can develop to become a significant factor in the world economy.

[Hyena]

Also, IBLT has fantastic potential, including reducing the 10 minute lag on blockchain consensus to nearly real-time, by enforcing a high degree of consensus on unconfirmed transactions. Bitcoin rides Moore's Law like a surfer on a wave.

Most of the alts have the luxury of low transaction volume which is basically investors buying, selling and shuffling their wallets. All of them will struggle under serious real-world user volumes (if they ever get it).

I remain very optimistic that Bitcoin can develop to become a significant factor in the world economy.

That IBLT is an interesting concept and indeed has fantastic potential.

The only way the good old Bitcoin can survive is to change and evolve. The latter is hard without a hard fork. Many people will oppose a hard fork, especially if it would ruin ASIC mining. On the other hand, people would support a hard fork when they can keep their original wealth. This is where most of the altcoins went wrong --- they started to compete with Bitcoin totally. Instead, they should have made Bitcoin's private keys compatible with their coin. For example, the first block of a new altcoin should include all bitcoin addresses that have at least 0.0001 bitcoins. That's why I hate Ethereum and love Aethereum .

In theory, Bitcoin could remain the most dominant cryptocurrency if  it was willing to evolve at the cost of hurting ASIC miners. If Bitcoin decided to take such a radical step that to introduce Peercoin's hybrid proof of work/stake model then I would support it for the greater good. I also think that the Bitcoin's block chain itself could be improved.

For example, instead of dragging all blocks with the network starting from the first block the network should gradually forget the oldest blocks. If there are any unspent outputs in the block that is about to be forgotten then they could be included in the next block in some special way like refreshing the outputs. After 1000 blocks the about-to-be-deleted block would be actually deleted.

So, unless Bitcoin people are willing to take such radical steps to improve the network I will remain pessimistic about Bitcoin. If, however, the community accepts such steps then my optimism will grow. Knowing how things work in this world I would say that by now too much money and interests are tied in this whole Bitcoin thing and we will suffer from serious consequences of being conservative about the changes to the protocol.

I have made some parts of my post bold. I didn't explain these ideas in detail to keep it short. However, if you have more (technical) questions about my ideas then feel free to ask.

[Hyena]

can someone post the link to Gavin statemant about this?

did a tx of 0.00005429 with fee of 0.01

it is included into a block.

EDIT:

dust is new defined below 546 satoshis but it depends

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/a0417b8cc840ff6f49b4fb1f8ceef54f8e3d0df1/src/primitives/transaction.h#L145

That's a darn good find, my friend and it works:
https://blockchain.info/tx/3b557a4089c93b6d32adddf4fb7666833bfb22d8b3819baa163aba6a01bfdcac

That's much better than sending 0.00005430 at minimum.

[Q7]

If the protocol allows us to choose whether we want to accept the transaction. If let's say there is no confirmation by the recipient then the amount should be returned back to the sender. Not sure if this is workable or considered a good solution but at least this will block spam.

[Gyrsur]

can someone post the link to Gavin statemant about this?

did a tx of 0.00005429 with fee of 0.01

it is included into a block.

EDIT:

dust is new defined below 546 satoshis but it depends

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/blob/a0417b8cc840ff6f49b4fb1f8ceef54f8e3d0df1/src/primitives/transaction.h#L145

That's a darn good find, my friend and it works:
https://blockchain.info/tx/3b557a4089c93b6d32adddf4fb7666833bfb22d8b3819baa163aba6a01bfdcac

That's much better than sending 0.00005430 at minimum.

it works with a fee of 0.0001  

Discus Fish included relayed it.

[El Emperador]

I think it could be a nice idea to allow these dust transacions in Bitcoin, because many people could need to send or receive a microtransaction.

[squall1066]

I chose to allow and relay dust, I do accept it would create huge traffic and volume and possibly open up to satoshi attack but I have a good reason, Bitcoin will become $1m+ per coin making a satoshi worth trading! Dust now is a pint of beer in the future!

[QuestionAuthority]

Well then the 0.8.2 doesn't solve any problem. If you don't make the fees scale with the costs, things make no sense. Anybody may include garbage and take a fee or not for that and for all eternity people have to deal with this extra data. We should just assume to have full blocks and miners should include transactions based on the fee in relation to the costs for the network and not in relation to some assumed economic value of that particular transaction.

Well do.  MOST miners and nodes are NOT going to relay uneconomical garbage.  The reason is the UXTO is the critical resource it can't be pruned and to perform high speed validation it should be in memory (or as much in memory as possible).  The creation of outputs that likely will never be spent bloats the UXTO and that makes the entire network less efficient.  Miners pay a perpetual cost that can't be pruned away.  If they are rational they won't include spammy garbage.

You're right of course, miners won't relay them. More importantly, where the hell did you go? I haven't seen you post here in months. Did you get fed up with Bitcoin or this forum?  What ever happened to Tangible Cryptography? You still in business?

[tim-tams]

This is something that is up to the miners, right? Everyone can choose for themselves what to accept/relay?

[kolloh]

Yeah ultimately, it is up to the miners on how they wish to handle those transactions.

[Hyena]

Yeah ultimately, it is up to the miners on how they wish to handle those transactions.

Except we're having problems with mining centralization so miners no longer represent the community but instead a few rich men who can bribe the miners to get what they want.

[Cryptlexity]

I believe that having dust transactions is important for those that use faucets and makes it cheap to introduce new people to bitcoin. We technically don't even have enough to give 1 satoshi to everyone on earth.

[Razick]

I chose to allow and relay dust, I do accept it would create huge traffic and volume and possibly open up to satoshi attack but I have a good reason, Bitcoin will become $1m+ per coin making a satoshi worth trading! Dust now is a pint of beer in the future!

If it ever becomes a pint of beer you can change your node settings to allow dust. By allowing worthless spam, you are actually decreasing the likely-hood that Bitcoin will be successful long term by increasing the cost to run a node and thereby reducing network security. There is literally no reason to accept dust.

Like DeathAndTaxes said, would you spend $0.49 cents to mail a penny? More accurately, would you spend $0.49 to mail a penny to a PO box that someone else has to pay a monthly fee for to keep just to hold your worthless penny for eternity on the hope that it might someday be worth at best $0.49?

[jaberwock]

My vote is accept dust transaction with a higher fee.

Not by the protocol, but by all miners.

It would avoid problems with blockchain commercial spam too

[Hyena]

My vote is accept dust transaction with a higher fee.

Not by the protocol, but by all miners.

It would avoid problems with blockchain commercial spam too

that's actually also pretty good idea because sometimes a developer might need to test their software to see how it responds to very tiny payments, WITHOUT using testnet.

[botany]

I would say allow these transactions after bitcoin is valued at $1 million, not now.
These transactions have no real value and serve no real purpose.