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

[LoyceV]

Which of the two options do you think is the best?

It depends: on mobile, I consolidate funds each time I receive a payment, so it's accessible at the lowest fee whenever I need it.
For other addresses I can wait months and use coin control (which I can't do on mobile) when needed. Or when I have to make a payment, I use that to consolidate funds too.

[LoyceV]

I found another example of why I created this topic:

I sent $11 and received $0.60...

Transaction ID: 85329b9ff63ee1a2ab7602a338b857d3427e6d2d44b10ddb25591605a1b04ffa

See transaction on Blockchair.com:

What makes it worse is that several of the inputs were worth more than the total output before sending it. So it's like the opposite of consolidating.

[tranthidung]

1 sat/byte is enough.

Correct. I moved (not consolidated - but who care consolidation is kinda transaction) my coin about less than 4 hours ago at 1 satoshi / byte and it was confirmed at the latest dump in mempool size.

[BrewMaster]

1 sat/byte is enough.

Correct. I moved (not consolidated - but who care consolidation is kinda transaction) my coin about less than 4 hours ago at 1 satoshi / byte and it was confirmed at the latest dump in mempool size.

it was mainly the end of the week effect that happens around sundays where fees stay down otherwise with the price rise that we had recently there should have been a bigger fee jump than this. right now it is again around 17 sat/byte.

[RapTarX]

right now it is again around 17 sat/byte.

It has been increased now to 44sat/byte. Instantly after observing thread, I have bumped fee of one of my tx to 2 sat/byte instead of 1sat/byte but this is still pending and probably will be pending again for a long time.

[Erumo]

Sorry for a bug like me bothering giants, but can someone of you help me few questions and overall understanding.

I see you talk a lot about transaction fee of 1sat/byte. Is there a possibility of transaction to stuck or get lost?
For example if I send 1 bitcoin with transaction fee of 1sat/byte is there an opportunity for me to lost it for ever? Or it will take hour/day/month/year to get it transferred, but in the end the receiver will get it?

[gentlemand]

I see you talk a lot about transaction fee of 1sat/byte. Is there a possibility of transaction to stuck or get lost?
For example if I send 1 bitcoin with transaction fee of 1sat/byte is there an opportunity for me to lost it for ever? Or it will take hour/day/month/year to get it transferred, but in the end the receiver will get it?

Nope. Worst case scenario is that it won't get picked up and processed by a miner. It will return to your wallet, not that it ever left. I can't quite remember but I think that'll take 10-14 days to play out.

Even with fees as they are it's quite possible someone will process it during that time. There would be many peaks and troughs during a couple of weeks. I've had some lengthy waits whilst skimping but I've never had one fail to get there eventually.

[nc50lc]

I can't quite remember but I think that'll take 10-14 days to play out.

It's 14 days by default but the user can change his node's mempool configuration depending on his preferences.
Bitcoin Conf: mempoolexpiry=360 (hours).

For example if I send 1 bitcoin with transaction fee of 1sat/byte is there an opportunity for me to lost it for ever? Or it will take hour/day/month/year to get it transferred, but in the end the receiver will get it?

There is also a chance that your transaction will get dropped by most nodes earlier than expected because higher fee transactions were prioritized and their mempool maximum size was reached.
Again, not all nodes would do that since it's also configurable in bitcoin.conf: maxmempool=300 (megabytes).

When it was dropped by all nodes, you can send another transaction again using the same unspent transaction output(s).
But will depend on your client, Electrum for example will keep it as a "local transaction" which wont let you spend those outputs unless you delete it in the history.

[LoyceV]

Sorry for a bug like me bothering giants

There's no need for such a disclaimer, at least in my topics. How did you go from "I'm Erumo - Master of the Universe" to being humble?

I see you talk a lot about transaction fee of 1sat/byte. Is there a possibility of transaction to stuck or get lost?
For example if I send 1 bitcoin with transaction fee of 1sat/byte is there an opportunity for me to lost it for ever? Or it will take hour/day/month/year to get it transferred, but in the end the receiver will get it?

The main risk is if you're paying a time-sensitive service. For example, when I order dinner, I want the payment to confirm fast, so I can eat within ~45 minutes.

Nope. Worst case scenario is that it won't get picked up and processed by a miner. It will return to your wallet, not that it ever left. I can't quite remember but I think that'll take 10-14 days to play out.

It depends on the wallet. Bitcoin Core keeps broadcasting the transaction, so it will never expire and never "return" to the wallet (unless you manually intervene). Years ago, I had to double spend a transaction that was "stuck" for 2 weeks with 0 fee (zero fee transactions were still possible at the time).
If the wallet doesn't keep broadcasting, I think it varies a bit per service/miner/mempool/block explorer. Take this transaction for example: I made it from Electrum, but instantly closed the wallet so it can't broadcast it again. Blockchair.com still remembers it was broadcasted 5 days ago, Blockchain.com says it was received yesterday, and BlockCypher.com doesn't know the transaction at all. I manually keep broadcasting it until it confirms.

On Mycelium (Android mobile) I've had a low-fee (consolidation) transaction "stuck" for a few weeks, and I couldn't easily stop it from broadcasting to spend the funds elsewhere. I could have taken drastic measures like uninstalling the app, but it wasn't worth it at the time. Eventually, it confirmed.

Even with fees as they are it's quite possible someone will process it during that time. There would be many peaks and troughs during a couple of weeks. I've had some lengthy waits whilst skimping but I've never had one fail to get there eventually.

It will get interesting when mempool grows to several GB in size. I expect transactions with the lowest fees to be dropped first.
Update: nc50lc beat me to it

[Erumo]

Sorry for a bug like me bothering giants

There's no need for such a disclaimer, at least in my topics. How did you go from "I'm Erumo - Master of the Universe" to being humble?

Too many Universes around, I'm just the master of my own In the world of humans and this particular forum, my knowledge of bitcoin technology (i.e. transactions) equals bugs life cycle eat-sleep-repeat (receive-send bitcoin). Looking how you communicate and operate with knowledge, I made a comparison of me being a bug, and others being giants.

Maybe this is not the best topic to ask, but I would be really grateful if someone would explain how fee and transaction time are calculated.

It works again: https://coinb.in/#fees. The recommended fee is 34 sat/byte.

For example how he calculated recommended amount here ? Or how can I calculate approximate transaction time using https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,24h with this recommended 34 sat fee ?

Or another question. If I send bitcoin at 08:00, and wish to receive it on other address at 08:00 next day, which amount of Satoshi per byte should I use?

[LoyceV]

I would be really grateful if someone would explain how fee and transaction time are calculated.

You can't calculate the transaction time. That's because the fee estimate is based on past transactions, and the actual confirmation time will depend on future transactions and future block times.
So the best you can do is an estimate, and if things change (for instance when it takes longer to find the next block), your estimate was wrong.

For example how he calculated recommended amount here ? Or how can I calculate approximate transaction time using https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,24h with this recommended 34 sat fee ?

Don't forget that the recommended fee is usually based on getting a fast confirmation, which often isn't necessary. If all wallets do that, all you accomplish is ever increasing fees when blocks are full. Based on Johoe's current overview, I expect 15 sat/byte to confirm quite fast. 10 sat/byte might take a few hours. But if the next block takes an hour, 40 sat/byte might not be enough to get in there.

If I send bitcoin at 08:00, and wish to receive it on other address at 08:00 next day, which amount of Satoshi per byte should I use?

It doesn't work that way. You can use Locktime to create a transaction that can't be confirmed before a certain time/date/block, but that means you'll have to broadcast it the next day.
I can't think of a single use for what you're asking though, usually it's not a problem if someone gets paid a few hours before expecting the payment.

[LoyceV]

Might be better in some cases (particularly when the fee is relatively high) not to use consolidation but instead select (via the coin control) a few UTXOs (linked to specific address) and utilize them, what are your thoughts on that?

I always use coin control (except for on mobile, Mycelium doesn't allow it). It's good for fees and privacy.
You can also save on fees by making "pay to many" transactions. If you have to make a payment anyway, see if there are other less time sensitive payments you need to make and add them to the same transaction. Example: pay for webhosting, deposit to an exchange, and order catfood in one transaction.

[Pmalek]

I have been looking for the perfect opportunity to consolidate some inputs for several days now, but the opportunity is just not there for a 1-2 sat/vbyte consolidation attempt. Right now there are almost 65MBs of unconfirmed transactions in the mempool. Most of them are in the 1-2 sat/vbyte region. Hopefully it will empty out soon. But even during the last weekend it wasn't great. 

[LoyceV]

the opportunity is just not there for a 1-2 sat/vbyte consolidation attempt.

You can just send it, it'll confirm eventually (as long as your wallet keeps broadcasting the transaction).

[tranthidung]

You can consider to add the table. Consolidate 5 small input into one output will save 65.8% fee when moving it later. The percentage of saving does not count fee for consolidation process.

|

No of Outputs

|

Size (bytes)

|

% save in fee

|

|

1

|

192

|

0

|

|

2

|

226

|

41.1

|

|

3

|

260

|

54.9

|

|

4

|

294

|

61.7

|

|

5

|

328

|

65.8

|

|

6

|

362

|

68.6

|

|

7

|

396

|

70.5

|

|

8

|

430

|

72.0

|

|

9

|

464

|

73.1

|

|

10

|

498

|

74.1

|

|

15

|

668

|

76.8

|

|

20

|

838

|

78.2

|

[LoyceV]

|

No of Outputs

|

Size (bytes)

|

% save in fee

|

|

1

|

192

|

0

|

|

2

|

226

|

41.1

|

If you happen to have different sized inputs, you can further optimize fees by making a transaction that doesn't use a change address. It makes your transaction only slightly smaller, but not having a change address with a small amount makes your next transaction a lot smaller.


Fees have just dipped in the 1 sat/byte area, although not long enough to clear mempool completely.

[1miau]

Fees have just dipped in the 1 sat/byte area, although not long enough to clear mempool completely.

Most likely we won't see such cheap fees for a longer time if we really start into a new bull market now. A new ATH will attract new users and even the improvements with SegWit won't help much if we get a similar FOMO like in 2017.
Even if tx fees stay "moderate" of around 20 sat/byte that would mean up to 20x higher fees compared to a transaction of doing a tx of 1 sat/byte now and that's making a huge difference if you have multiple inputs.

For sure, it wouldn't be a bad idea to consolidate small inputs now or it won't be possible to move this BTC for a long time without wasting much of it for tx fees. It's still possible to do transactions of around 2 - 4 sat/byte during nighttime (at least yesterday that worked), so better hurry up.



I guess we will see much higher transaction fees in the coming weeks should a new bullrun start.

[cabalism13]

Fees have just dipped in the 1 sat/byte area, although not long enough to clear mempool completely.

Most likely we won't see such cheap fees for a longer time if we really start into a new bull market now.

Just now, my friend was about to transfer 0.0015 on my wallet but he can't due to high Miner's fee (254% of the amount to be transferred),...  I thought the system are crazy for giving that kind of fee higher than the amount to be transferred.

I guess we will see much higher transaction fees in the coming weeks should a new bullrun start.

so much for 2020, fees are extremely high can't even make small transactions... And I don't know whether it is a good news to have a bullrun or not.

[nc50lc]

Just now, my friend was about to transfer 0.0015 on my wallet but he can't due to high Miner's fee (254% of the amount to be transferred),..

During these times, I usually set the fee rate to 10sat/B then paste it on Viabtc's accelerator (higher if SegWit bec. they compute based on the RAW bytes).
Then time the submission right (HH:00) and it should confirm once they mined a block.
That fee is quite good and cheap for 1-input TX anyways, in case I failed to submit it on accelerators.

BTW 254% of 0.0015BTC is 0.00381BTC - he must have used a lot of inputs for that attempted transaction since even at 100sat/B, the transaction's virtual size must be 3.8KB+
You must refer him to this thread's OP  

[cabalism13]

...

During these times, I usually set the fee rate to 10sat/B then paste it on Viabtc's accelerator (higher if SegWit bec. they compute based on the RAW bytes).
Then time the submission right (HH:00) and it should confirm once they mined a block.
That fee is quite good and cheap for 1-input TX anyways, in case I failed to submit it on accelerators.

BTW 254% of 0.0015BTC is 0.00381BTC - he must have used a lot of inputs for that attempted transaction since even at 100sat/B, the transaction's virtual size must be 3.8KB+
You must refer him to this thread's OP  

I don't know, and sorry I have mistaken for a digit it was 215%... was over exaggerated with that other 40% 😂
anyways here's the screenshot of it, maybe it was for a high prio?