Address gap

[webdevGR]

Bitcoin Client Software and Version Number: Electrum 3.0.2
Operating System: CentOS 7
System Hardware Specs: N/A

I've written my own implementation for accepting bitcoins on a website (e-shop, selling home decorations). I use electrum on the webserver to generate addresses per new order. The default electrum wallet configuration keeps 20 generated addresses (address gap) at any one time. In general, this means that I can have up to 20 "open" orders that require bitcoin payment.

I'd like to know, based on other peoples experience, if this address gap of 20 addresses should be raised. Is it typical for so many payments to remain unpaid, that would consume the 20 concurrent addresses?

I know I can force electrum to generate addresses above the limit (or even raise the limit).

This particular e-shop is based in Europe and sells handmade home decorations to support small artisans, based on its traffic I do not expect a high volume of orders, which is why I have left the default address gap limit to 20.

Thank you.

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[RGBKey]

Typically you can use your xpub key generated from your seed to generate addresses and not rely on electrum to provide those addresses.

[webdevGR]

well thank you for not answering my question

I think it is obvious that I am using a watch-only wallet to generate addresses, but even so, the address gap stops you from generating more than the address gap limit (unless you use the 'force' parameter).

my question is mostly about the experience of people who offer bitcoin payments and how many concurrent open payments they get.

[HI-TEC99]

I know the normal user's wallet can start to slow down if you set the gap limit to an excessively high number of addresses. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly how high you have to raise the gap limit before it starts slowing down, and I don't know if the electrum server wallet handles a higher gap better.

Try testing your wallet by increasing the gap limit to 100, then repeatedly doubling it until the wallet starts to slow down. The hardware your operating system runs on probably has a big effect, so your wallet might start to struggle at a different gap limit to another person's wallet running on different hardware.