Fee rebellion

[jim618]

Hello Alan,

I know MultiBit is off topic for here but I wanted to mention something I have just changed in MultiBit as I think we have the opportunity to collectively save our users some cash.

This is a cross post from:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=50936.msg2569535#msg2569535
(The Electrum thread).

Basically I have dropped the fees MultiBit is adding to match the Bitcoin-QT fees (0.0001 BTC per 1000 bytes of tx).
It occurs to me that if the other clients do the same all our users will be better off and no-one is disadvantaged.
There is more detail in the Electrum post.

Please consider this rare opportunity to save our users a good chunk of their tx fees and drop prices !

:-)

Jim

[etotheipi]

Has Bitcoin-Qt fee logic changed recently?   The fee logic I've implemented is pretty much minimal already (though, I screwed up the allowFree() logic and some tiny fraction of transactions may be required to pay a fee when the network wouldn't require it).   It used to be 0.0005 BTC/kB but only if the tx >= 10kB. 

I do plan to implement the minimum TxOut limit (the 5430 uBTC limit).  But I thought that was the only thing that has changed...

P.S. - Not off-topic at all! 

[jim618]

I must admit I am going by the figures in Matt Corallo's feesolver included in bitcoinj v0.9 (and a post by Tacticat in the Electrum thread which I have quoted). I think the minimum relay fee is now 0.0001 BTC / KB (rounded up to the next KB).

Looking at the tx stream on the blockchain.info index page most tx are currently using 0.0005 BTC for <1 KB tx. Currently going lower than that drops your tx in the pecking order so even if the Bitcoin-QT limit is 0.0001 BTC per KB it needs a bit of collective action to get the benefit.

I thought I would mention it as most people are having to look at their fee code to avoid '5430 change generation' anyhow.

 

[TierNolan]

A second rebellion would be to go even lower than the default client.

In theory, a node could try to make sure that it connects at least 3-4 of the "rebellion" clients.

Maybe there could be a "feeinfo" message that describes the relay rules that the client uses.

The relay rating that a node gives could be Max(nodes own internal rules, median of peers it is connected to).

However, there are some risks with that.  Nodes might claim to be willing to relay and then not actually relay, in order to isolate a node.