Sending/receiving a satoshi.

[David M]

This cannot be done in the standard client.

A couple of questions:

1) How can we send a satoshi?

2) What impact would sending a million transactions a day of this size effect the current network?

3) Would a transaction fee be required?

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[WakiMiko]

The standard client can send a satoshi just fine...

[wolftaur]

You can send a satoshi as long as you're using a newer version of the client. Some older ones could only handle minimum increments of 0.01. However, the transaction will NOT be relayed by most nodes unless you include a fee, due to its small size.

[David M]

The standard client can send a satoshi just fine...

You are technically right.  The issue I suppose is the transaction fee of 0.0005 which is orders of magnitude larger than send.

[wolftaur]

The standard client can send a satoshi just fine...

You are technically right.  The issue I suppose is the transaction fee of 0.0005 which is orders of magnitude larger than send.

The fee requirement for tiny amounts was added to prevent denial-of-service attacks. Since a fee is required for a microtransaction an attacker would run out of coins in trying to attack the network that way.

[David M]

The fee requirement for tiny amounts was added to prevent denial-of-service attacks. Since a fee is required for a microtransaction an attacker would run out of coins in trying to attack the network that way.

Thanks for that.  Makes perfect sense.

Could I send a satoshi transaction with a satoshi sized transaction fee? 

Would I have to create node and mine to accept it?

[wolftaur]

Thanks for that.  Makes perfect sense.

Could I send a satoshi transaction with a satoshi sized transaction fee? 

Would I have to create node and mine to accept it?

At the moment, the minimum fee is 0.0005. You might want to try bringing this up in a thread on the development board, though.

[David M]

At the moment, the minimum fee is 0.0005. You might want to try bringing this up in a thread on the development board, though.

I appreciate your time.  Cheers.

[FreeMoney]

You could mine a block yourself. 

[FreeMoney]

If I ever get into mining I'll queue up all my non essential transactions and give them all .1337 and .666 and 3.14159265 fees.

[MrCrabs]

Whats a Satoshi?
 

[Alex Beckenham]

Whats a Satoshi?
 

Nickname for the smallest unit currently possible: 0.00000001 BTC.

[Eri]

sending 1 million transactions at the minimum fee would cost you roughly 7500 USD or 500 BTC and would make one rich pool operator as he would get the transaction fees.

[MrCrabs]

Whats a Satoshi?
 

Nickname for the smallest unit currently possible: 0.00000001 BTC.

Love it...

[marcus_of_augustus]

Whats a Satoshi?
 

Nickname for the smallest unit currently possible: 0.00000001 BTC.

Love it...

... hmmm, too bad I put the trademark application in already ... Pascazied!

[MrCrabs]

lol
 

[Phinnaeus Gage]

If I ever get into mining I'll queue up all my non essential transactions and give them all .1337 and .666 and 3.14159265 fees.

Would this devilish plan be only for the eleet, or just a pi in the sky?

[pc]

The default client, default relaying-transaction rules, and default mining rules are set to not allow tiny payments without a transaction fee. I've changed my client to allow all transactions of any output size without a fee, and on my testnet-in-a-box I could mine and send/receive transactions of 1 (or even 0!) satoshi just fine between my two computers that were set up with my client. (I was just testing this sort of thing for the fun of it and to get familiar with how the program worked; I don't really have any plans for using bitcoin this way.) So, if you could convince enough people on the main network, particularly miners, to adjust their clients accordingly, then you could do it on the main network too. The rules of bitcoin are basically done by consensus, in that having a lot of computing power lets you pick the rules to a certain limited degree. But I suspect that miners will always want to be paid *something* for tiny transactions, but you might find some that would find even a 1 satoshi fee to be enough to be worth the computational expense of adding it to a block (or at least prioritizing it over a free transaction), since it's better than getting paid nothing.

I think the biggest mining pool that follows rules for mining significantly different from the main client is Eligius, which accepts any and all transactions that have a fee of at least 0.00004096 BTC per 512 bytes, even if the outputs are very small or non-standard. And there's a "Free transaction relay" page on the wiki, suggesting that those nodes willing to relay all transactions connect to a central server so that miners interested in them will be able to get them. I don't know how many nodes are connected to it.

So there's some precedent that some large players may be experimenting with different policies, but for now, if you were to send a 1 satoshi transaction without a fee, it'll probably be quite a long time before a miner agrees to put it in a block.