[Apr 2024] Fees are HIGH, wait for opportunity to Consolidate your small inputs

[gentlemand]

I am really, really interested to see what happens to fees this time around if movement heats up big time again.

Since the last glut we've had massively increased batching, more Segwit and - whisper it - Bcash and Bitmain looking weaker than ever so the chance of blockchain spamming by vested interests to scare people into it may be considerably lower.

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[Stedsm]

I am really, really interested to see what happens to fees this time around if movement heats up big time again.

Is it anywhere related to scaling? Will SegWit also be unable to keep it lower for longer term?

Since the last glut we've had massively increased batching, more Segwit and - whisper it - Bcash and Bitmain looking weaker than ever so the chance of blockchain spamming by vested interests to scare people into it may be considerably lower.

I think it's good enough for the health of altcoins when Bitcoin blocks go full and fees go high (just a thought), as everyone starts to look for alternatives to cope up with the situation that occurs everytime the network becomes malicious with spamming and needs to get many of those big fee transactions flushed out for these low-fee days to be seen again.

[Stedsm]

It's once again starting to appreciate higher from previous days and I even saw mempool clogged with too many transactions during last few days. I've had a test transaction that went wrong, I checked how much time does it take to confirm and didn't add more fee (intentionally kept priority at normal) and it turned grey for me. This is the transaction that confirmed after ~9 hours - https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/fb266692b2b43d511be23f6de16c9eeb63af331f9c444b65a07ccf076c89b695

I also have a thread regarding this - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5050686.0

P.S.: Posted my thread reference here for others to learn not to make such mistakes.

[jdbtracker]

Interesting subject, it put another perspective in the Bitcoin process. The Fees and the number of inputs, maybe auto-optimizing should be a feature, most people wouldn't know how to consolidate their wallet.

[jackg]

I feel this thread should be more active. Since fees are still low and I have within 25 blocks transactions taking just an hour to clear (at most). It’s probably good to try and keep it bumped...

Although electrum doesn’t go below 2 says per byte now (since I last tried it anyway).

[LoyceV]

Although electrum doesn’t go below 2 says per byte now (since I last tried it anyway).

You can manually adjust the fee in Electrum.

[jackg]

Although electrum doesn’t go below 2 says per byte now (since I last tried it anyway).

You can manually adjust the fee in Electrum.

It didn’t let me go forth with that though... greyed out the slider and everything...

I’ll have to try it again sometime, i probably went wrong somewhere.

I’ll move some to lightning in the summer and put the rest in cold storage so it shouldn’t matter...

[LoyceV]

It didn’t let me go forth with that though... greyed out the slider and everything...

Preferences > Edit fees manually > then try again

[mOgliE]

Hey,

I've got two questions cause I'm really not a technical guy.

1 - Are the inputs sizes based on the number of addresses from which the funds are taken?
2 - If yes, is there a way to stop the sending to a different address at every transaction? For Electrum or even my hardware wallet, every time I want to receive BTC they suggest a new address and I don't know why. On the hardware wallet it's not even possible to get back the old addresses all I can do is get new ones...

[AdolfinWolf]

Hey,

I've got two questions cause I'm really not a technical guy.

1 - Are the inputs sizes based on the number of addresses from which the funds are taken?
2 - If yes, is there a way to stop the sending to a different address at every transaction? For Electrum or even my hardware wallet, every time I want to receive BTC they suggest a new address and I don't know why. On the hardware wallet it's not even possible to get back the old addresses all I can do is get new ones...

1. Not really. You can have 10 inputs from the same adress, and it will increase the size of the transaction with the same amount as if all the tx were taken from 10 seperate adresses (if were assuming same type obv).. (?) https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/1195/how-to-calculate-transaction-size-before-sending-legacy-non-segwit-p2pkh-p2sh

Assuming all the inputs you are spending are from regular "pay to address" transactions, each input will contribute 180 (plus or minus 1) bytes to the transaction. Each output adds 34 bytes to the transaction. And there's a fixed extra 10 bytes which are always present.

So the less adresses (rather inputs) used = more consolidated = lower fees most of the time.

2. I don't think this matters per se. As long as all the inputs are all consolidated in the new adress, there is no issue. If they're not and instead all spread out over "new"/different adresses, then this is indeed a problem.

Note that you can always reuse an adress if you'd like to do so. I'm not sure how it works with hardware wallets, but it's not like they'll all of a sudden "throw away" the private key for said adress.

2. Or are you talking about sending the change to a new adress each time? Afaik, you can change that, but that also won't matter much, since the inputs will stay the same.

[mOgliE]

2. I don't think this matters per se. As long as all the inputs are all consolidated in the new adress, there is no issue. If they're not and instead all spread out over "new"/different adresses, then this is indeed a problem.

Note that you can always reuse an adress if you'd like to do so. I'm not sure how it works with hardware wallets, but it's not like they'll all of a sudden "throw away" the private key for said adress.

Ok thanks for the explanation.
The importance isn't number of adresses but number of tx that have been done to this adress then.

So if I would like to consolidate a wallet, be it hardware or not, the best would be to generate a new adress of this wallet, then send the entire funds of all the adresses of this wallet to this new adress?

Won't the wallet will take the inputs of all adresses next time I send funds? Even if the balance of other adresses is 0?

[LoyceV]

2 - If yes, is there a way to stop the sending to a different address at every transaction? For Electrum or even my hardware wallet, every time I want to receive BTC they suggest a new address and I don't know why. On the hardware wallet it's not even possible to get back the old addresses all I can do is get new ones...

You can use the same address many times to receive payments, but it doesn't matter for fees. But: using the same address reduces privacy, and makes it harder to know who paid you.

So if I would like to consolidate a wallet, be it hardware or not, the best would be to generate a new adress of this wallet, then send the entire funds of all the adresses of this wallet to this new adress?

If you don't mind (for privacy) linking all addresses together on the blockchain, then yes, you can easily do this.

Won't the wallet will take the inputs of all adresses next time I send funds? Even if the balance of other adresses is 0?

No. Inputs have balance, an empty address has no inputs.

[mOgliE]

No. Inputs have balance, an empty address has no inputs.

Then thanks for your advice and I'm going to consolidate the sit out of everything 

[jackg]

No. Inputs have balance, an empty address has no inputs.

Then thanks for your advice and I'm going to consolidate the sit out of everything 

If you pay more than a sat per byte, you’re being ripped off !

One sat per byte at the hefty mempool size a few weeks ago took 6 hours to confirm for me. Before then, it took about an hour I think (I do it before I sleep though so my timings might not be too accurate).

[mOgliE]

Took about a day but consolidated my 5 wallets at a 1 sat/byte rate 

Considering the price at peak market prices it's probably more than 10mBTC saved here. Thanks Loyce!

I approve this consolidation campaign. It's good for everyone.
You because it saves money.
The others because it means cheaper fees at crowded times.
The network because it means less stupid data stucked in mempool because you got too many inputs.
And of course BTC because it proves we're smart enough to self regulate and optimize the tech.

[Artemis3]

Consolidate Bump!



At some point last year, I saw recommended fees rise to more than 50 sat/byte, when blocks were full during large market fluctuations. Fees are low again! Consolidate your small inputs while you can, low fees won't last forever.
Recently, fees for a fast transaction are around 20 sat/byte. To consolidate, wait until it's lower again
1 sat/byte is still possible.

But if you wait for v18, you could use 0.1sat/B... Contrary to your suggestion, i think low fees will remain, or even get lower with the offloading of transactions into Lightning Network.

If you don't mind waiting a few hours, 1sat/B is working just fine. Sometimes you are lucky and get it under 1 hour.

[2double0]

Consolidate Bump!

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At some point last year, I saw recommended fees rise to more than 50 sat/byte, when blocks were full during large market fluctuations. Fees are low again! Consolidate your small inputs while you can, low fees won't last forever.
Recently, fees for a fast transaction are around 20 sat/byte. To consolidate, wait until it's lower again
1 sat/byte is still possible.

Not 20, but I paid more than 40 in a recent transaction as the wallet recommended me 40 sat/byte to get my transaction confirmed in the next block. Can you provide me with any good source which can give better assumption of fees that how much should I put to get fastest confirmation? I don't think wallets are giving accurate fee sizes as it should not be this expensive for me alone. Did anyone else pay such high fees like me during Feb 2019?

[LoyceV]

Can you provide me with any good source which can give better assumption of fees that how much should I put to get fastest confirmation?

See:

Fee estimators
1. https://btc.com/stats/unconfirmed-tx
2. https://coinb.in/#fees (lets you manually select inputs and outputs, note that the Recommended Fee (currently 1 Sat/Byte) aims to be included within the next few blocks. You can adjust this if you want priority)
3. https://estimatefee.com (recommends a fee estimate after you set a number of blocks to confirm within -- thanks lite)

Are SegWit addresses going to make any differences?

See:

SegWit
User Wind_FURY found a comprehensive overview of Techniques to reduce transaction fees, including the use of SegWit addresses.

[jackg]

1 sat per byte should take less than 6 hours (according to electrum).

Also, I have a 64 input transaction I'm going have to broadcast in about 15 days. If anyone wants to consolidate their inputs into the same transaction then feel free to shoot me a pm.

(also if you're a miner feel free to push it for me for free )

[LoyceV]

If anyone wants to consolidate their inputs into the same transaction then feel free to shoot me a pm.

How would that work?