Unconfirmed transactions with fee for long time. Please advise

[peterblack]

Hello, I am fairly new to bitcoin.

I have read a lot about it so my theoretical understanding is pretty good I believe.

But I have little practical experience so far.
Before I start implementing bitcoin into a bigger project, I am just playing around to see how everything work in practice.

my wallet for reference: https://blockchain.info/address/17MFyonjkeJLMrf7RM7SxqN7P3V9kPv22M

I made 5x 91% Satoshi Dice bet on 7/6 thru "My Wallet" -> Send money -> Satoshi Dice on blockchain.info form.
These bets were sent without fee by default. I bet 0.01 per bet which is about 3/4 USD.
I thought SatoshiDice works with zero-confirmation, so the result should come back immediately, but it didn't.
In fact 2 days later I only received confirmation and result of my bet for 2nd and 4th bet. That's 2/5.

The same day I also made bet 0.01 with 0.0001 fee. That's 5x less than recommended fee. So far no confirmation or result of the bet.

Next day (yesterday) I made bet 0.01 with 0.005 fee. That's 10x more than recommended fee. Even if I win i will loose money. So far I haven't received conformation not result of my bet.

Today 3-4 hours ago I sent money to bitcoin address in amount of 0.05 BTC with 0.0005 recommended fee. So far no confirmation.

Here are my questions summarized:
- why I haven't received result of SatoshiDice bets after 2 days if they supposedly work with zero confirmation?
- why are my transactions not confirmed after hours or days even with fairly large fee (0.005 as opposed to recommended fee 0.0005)?
- what can I do about these transactions? Can I cancel them? Speed them up somehow?

Thanks a lot!

[tom1]

https://blockchain.info/en/tx/752adcfc929ed8f87a728fa28a7d5de59decd3242005210aac854e2880fa2e08

You've to wait until this transaction is confirmed since you didn't include the required fee.
See also: ATTN: Unconfirmed Transactions (read before posting!).

[DannyHamilton]

my wallet for reference: https://blockchain.info/address/17MFyonjkeJLMrf7RM7SxqN7P3V9kPv22M

That's not a wallet.  That's a list of transactions associated with a bitcoin address.  A wallet is a collection of one or more bitcoin addresses as well as the associated private keys.

- why I haven't received result of SatoshiDice bets after 2 days if they supposedly work with zero confirmation?

I don't know much about how Satoshi Dice chooses to run their business, but from what you are describing, it sounds as though sometimes they won't payout on zero confirmation.  Why did you think they would?  Did you read that somewhere reliable?

- why are my transactions not confirmed after hours or days even with fairly large fee (0.005 as opposed to recommended fee 0.0005)?

A transaction cannot be confirmed if the transaction that creates the input has not yet been confirmed.  Since you have earlier transactions without sufficient fees that created the inputs that you used for the transactions that have the fees, your later transactions will not be able to confirm until/unless the earlier transactions confirm first.

- what can I do about these transactions? Can I cancel them? Speed them up somehow?

There isn't anything you can easily do from the blockchain.info user interface.  All you can do is wait.  It is possible that blockchain.info may stop relaying the transactions if they still haven't confirmed after a few more days. At that point these transactions will simply disappear, you will regain control of those bitcoins, and you can create new transactions using the proper fees.

I have read a lot about it so my theoretical understanding is pretty good I believe.

It sounds like your theoretical understanding is still lacking a bit as well.

[peterblack]

Thank you very much for such detailed reply! That helps me a lot.

I don't know much about how Satoshi Dice chooses to run their business, but from what you are describing, it sounds as though sometimes they won't payout on zero confirmation.  Why did you think they would?  Did you read that somewhere reliable?

On their website. I understand that there is very little risk for them because the payout is to the same address and the result is dependent on hashed TX number. Also the bets placed thru blockchain.info wallet's interface have no fees by default and there is no way to add them except creating custom TX.

On the specifics of the system: The SatoshiDice Bitcoin game operates with zero confirmations, meaning the time it takes for you to send a transaction and receive your winnings is near-instant. Bets are evaluated as soon as the client picks up the broadcast. This is safe because it always builds the answering transaction with the output of your bet transaction. This means a blockchain that does not contain your bet cannot contain the site's answer.

There isn't anything you can easily do from the blockchain.info user interface.  All you can do is wait.  It is possible that blockchain.info may stop relaying the transactions if they still haven't confirmed after a few more days. At that point these transactions will simply disappear, you will regain control of those bitcoins, and you can create new transactions using the proper fees.

And outside the blockchain.info UI? Maybe exporting my wallet to different client?

It sounds like your theoretical understanding is still lacking a bit as well.

Well, I am still learning. But I already watched almost all videos from Bitcoin 2013 conference in San Jose and read countless of articles.
But I understand that this is very complex topic and I am missing a lot.

That's why I am asking. I would like to develop some apps on that so I want to make sure I understand what I am getting into before I proceed.

[peterblack]

Just a conclusion if someone is still reading this:

1) My unconfirmed transactions on blockchain.info got all cancelled. Hurray!

2) I have found out why SatoshiDice doesn't do zero confirmation anymore:

It's because you can make big bet with zero fee, wait if you loose or win, and in case of loosing double-spend the same coins with generous fee, so the original bet will never get confirmed, because the 2nd tx will get confirmed faster and the first one will get cancelled.

[Gary Gigax]

https://blockchain.info/en/tx/752adcfc929ed8f87a728fa28a7d5de59decd3242005210aac854e2880fa2e08

You've to wait until this transaction is confirmed since you didn't include the required fee.
See also: ATTN: Unconfirmed Transactions (read before posting!).

are you seeing this at the top of the page i never seen that before!!!

>>

] Warning! this transaction is a double spend of 80280699. You should be extremely careful when trusting any transactions to/from this sender.

[CEG5952]

Thanks for the info.

[peterblack]

I am experiencing more weird stuff with the blockchain.info wallet.

Yesterday I was happy to see the unconfirmed transaction finally got cancelled.
So I sent small amount to my other wallet at inputs.io, this time with standard fee.

This morning I have discovered the transaction disappeared and one of the unconfirmed transactions to SatoshiDice reappeared again.

Their wallet service is weird. Just the fact there are no miner's fees set by default in their send form is strange. This locks up my account for days so I can't do any other transaction.