Bitcoin version 0.3.24 released

[Matt Corallo]

I don't care that there's a fee.  I have mine set to 0.01 for all transactions, anyway.  just STOP SAYING there is no minimum fee when clearly there is.  It's confusing.

Its also confusing when people say there is a minimum fee.  The satoshi client forces you to apply a fee on transactions only in very rare cases when your transaction looks like spam.

[gim]

only thing is the tests won't run, am i doing something wrong?

(.text+0x20): undefined reference to `main'

Same here, there's some '#define BOOST_TEST_DYN_LINK' missing.
But, anyway, there are just two boring tests available for now.
So, be patient

[FreeBitcoins.org]

I don't care that there's a fee.  I have mine set to 0.01 for all transactions, anyway.  just STOP SAYING there is no minimum fee when clearly there is.  It's confusing.

Its also confusing when people say there is a minimum fee.  The satoshi client forces you to apply a fee on transactions only in very rare cases when your transaction looks like spam.

Really?  I've been using 0.3.23 for a while and I've had to pay the transaction fee on every single transaction except for about 5/100.  For me, the *rare cases* are when it doesn't make me pay a fee.  Did something change in 0.3.24?

[gmaxwell]

I don't care that there's a fee.  I have mine set to 0.01 for all transactions, anyway.  just STOP SAYING there is no minimum fee when clearly there is.  It's confusing.

Right. This is my point.  There is no minimum fee:  I, and a great many other people using unmodified .24, send zero fee transactions all the time.  Thus: The minimum fee is zero.

If you went to a car lot shopping for used cars, would you say that there is a minimum fee of $90,000 because thats the price on some of the cars?  No.

It doesn't help that we've used some fairly confusing terminology in the software, we should be more careful about that in the future. But it still doesn't excuse people claiming that there is a minimum fee. :-/

If you don't want technical details — thats fine.   "There is a particular fee required for transactions that look too much like a DOS attack to the system" is an accurate statement.  "There is a minimum fee" is misleading and contributing to poor health of the bitcoin network by causing people to stay on older versions.

[gmaxwell]

Really?  I've been using 0.3.23 for a while and I've had to pay the transaction fee on every single transaction except for about 5/100.  For me, the *rare cases* are when it doesn't make me pay a fee.  Did something change in 0.3.24?

Care to share an example transaction so we can see why?

I can only guess you're making payments with outputs smaller than 0.01 BTC?

[FreeBitcoins.org]

Really?  I've been using 0.3.23 for a while and I've had to pay the transaction fee on every single transaction except for about 5/100.  For me, the *rare cases* are when it doesn't make me pay a fee.  Did something change in 0.3.24?

Care to share an example transaction so we can see why?

I can only guess you're making payments with outputs smaller than 0.01 BTC?

Went to grab some example payments and I noticed a pattern

It seems that in any batch of payments, the first payment I send is free, and any subsequent payments charge the transaction fee.

I guess sending more than one transaction within a short time period requires the fee.

I normally send a few payments at once, as I'm paying out a bunch of members from our site

[Maged]

I normally send a few payments at once, as I'm paying out a bunch of members from our site

You should really look into using sendmany, then.

[gmaxwell]

Went to grab some example payments and I noticed a pattern
It seems that in any batch of payments, the first payment I send is free, and any subsequent payments charge the transaction fee.
I guess sending more than one transaction within a short time period requires the fee.
I normally send a few payments at once, as I'm paying out a bunch of members from our site

This is what sendmany is for. I highly recommend you use it: You can pay many people with a single transaction, and a single fee (if required).

What is sounds like is happening in your case is that the change from the first transaction is being respent right away, and respending right away is a DOS-attack-like behavior (e.g. an attacker would ping pong coin rapidly to generate traffic). Bitcoin should normally avoid doing this— preferring to use older inputs, but if there aren't enough other inputs in the wallet to satisfy the payments without using the fresh change then it will use it.

If e.g. you have a single 50 BTC input in your wallet and you've been sending out 1 BTC payments you end up with transactions like  50->{1,49} ; 49->{1,48} ; etc.    So if you simply do a send of 50 to yourself: {10a,10b,10c,10d} to break the input up, then the software should instead prefer to spend 10a->{1, 9}; 10b->{1, 9} rather than reusing the change right away and probably avoid the fees.

Either of these cases should be sufficient to avoid the fees in your case, and the sendmany puts less load on the blockchain as well.

[FreeBitcoins.org]

Thanks for all of the info!

Sendmany looks like it could really save me some time

I'll take a look at sendmany...and in the meantime, I'll try the input trick.  I've definitely been spending from one or two inputs, so that is very likely the culprit.

Again, thanks! Much appreciated!

[riush]

I just have to say thanks very much to all devs, for putting in all the time and energy!

Just went on a little tipping spree; wish I could do more...

[pandemic]

I don't understand where the wallet.dat file is. All I see is a wallet.cpp and wallet.h. How can I copy/encrypt/delete wallet.dat?

[Pieter Wuille]

I don't understand where the wallet.dat file is. All I see is a wallet.cpp and wallet.h. How can I copy/encrypt/delete wallet.dat?

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

Wallet.dat contains your personal keys and transactions - it is created and maintained by the program, not packaged with it.

wallet.cpp and wallet.h are source files for the program that manage the wallet.

[pandemic]

I don't understand where the wallet.dat file is. All I see is a wallet.cpp and wallet.h. How can I copy/encrypt/delete wallet.dat?

See https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

Wallet.dat contains your personal keys and transactions - it is created and maintained by the program, not packaged with it.

wallet.cpp and wallet.h are source files for the program that manage the wallet.

Yes but when you install bitcoin on a fresh computer, shouldn't it create a new wallet.dat file?

[Pieter Wuille]

Yes but when you install bitcoin on a fresh computer, shouldn't it create a new wallet.dat file?

No, only when you have run the program.

[pandemic]

Yes but when you install bitcoin on a fresh computer, shouldn't it create a new wallet.dat file?

No, only when you have run the program.

Ok, so when bitcoin is running, shouldn't wallet.dat be in the same directory as wallet.h and wallet.cpp?

[Matt Corallo]

Ok, so when bitcoin is running, shouldn't wallet.dat be in the same directory as wallet.h and wallet.cpp?

No, wallet.* are source code for the program, they don't belong with the wallet largely because the entire source directory is not needed to run the program.

[pandemic]

Ok, so when bitcoin is running, shouldn't wallet.dat be in the same directory as wallet.h and wallet.cpp?

No, wallet.* are source code for the program, they don't belong with the wallet largely because the entire source directory is not needed to run the program.

Ok, here's what I'm trying to figure out. With prior versions, there was a wallet.dat file which I encrypted. Then I quit bitcoin, opened it up again and a new wallet.dat was made. I made the encrypted wallet my savings wallet and the new one my temporary. I could then swap one out for the other depending on what I needed to do.

I've got both wallets right now and I'm not sure how to import either the temp one or the savings one into bitcoin. I really don't want to proceed further because I don't want to harm my savings wallet.

[Matt Corallo]

Ok, here's what I'm trying to figure out. With prior versions, there was a wallet.dat file which I encrypted. Then I quit bitcoin, opened it up again and a new wallet.dat was made. I made the encrypted wallet my savings wallet and the new one my temporary. I could then swap one out for the other depending on what I needed to do.

I've got both wallets right now and I'm not sure how to import either the temp one or the savings one into bitcoin. I really don't want to proceed further because I don't want to harm my savings wallet.

The exact same way you always did.  Nothing in terms of wallet handling has changed.

[pandemic]

Ok, here's what I'm trying to figure out. With prior versions, there was a wallet.dat file which I encrypted. Then I quit bitcoin, opened it up again and a new wallet.dat was made. I made the encrypted wallet my savings wallet and the new one my temporary. I could then swap one out for the other depending on what I needed to do.

I've got both wallets right now and I'm not sure how to import either the temp one or the savings one into bitcoin. I really don't want to proceed further because I don't want to harm my savings wallet.

The exact same way you always did.  Nothing in terms of wallet handling has changed.

Weird. Before, when I encrypted and moved the savings wallet.dat, for example, I'd reopen bitcoin and a new wallet.dat would be created. I'm either not remembering where bitcoin keeps wallet.dat or something's different. Or I'm an idiot and forgot wtf is going on.

How do you protect your wallet?

[error]

Ok, here's what I'm trying to figure out. With prior versions, there was a wallet.dat file which I encrypted. Then I quit bitcoin, opened it up again and a new wallet.dat was made. I made the encrypted wallet my savings wallet and the new one my temporary. I could then swap one out for the other depending on what I needed to do.

I've got both wallets right now and I'm not sure how to import either the temp one or the savings one into bitcoin. I really don't want to proceed further because I don't want to harm my savings wallet.

The exact same way you always did.  Nothing in terms of wallet handling has changed.

Weird. Before, when I encrypted and moved the savings wallet.dat, for example, I'd reopen bitcoin and a new wallet.dat would be created. I'm either not remembering where bitcoin keeps wallet.dat or something's different. Or I'm an idiot and forgot wtf is going on.

This was already answered above: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Data_directory

How do you protect your wallet?

http://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Securing_your_wallet