[Nov 2024] Fees are low, think about Consolidating your small inputs @2.0 sat/vb

[NeuroticFish]

Electrum's "ETA" recommendation is currently 200+ sat/byte for a next-block confirmation and 83 sat/byte to confirm within 25 blocks. That's rediculous, there's no need to waste this much money on fees. Don't use Electrum's ETA recommendation! Considering how popular Electrum is, it makes me wonder how much money people waste because of this.
Electrum's "Mempool" recommendation looks much better: for anything from 10 to 0.5 MB from the tip, it recommends 8 sat/byte. That's useful! Use Electrum's Mempool recommendation!

I think that you've chosen a dangerous moment for this recommendation. The difficulty has just jumped + 21.53 %, hence there will be quite a slow down in blocks.
We're back from ~8.3 minutes to ~10 minutes and I expect that get pretty soon visible in the fees.

[LoyceV]

We're back from ~8.3 minutes to ~10 minutes and I expect that get pretty soon visible in the fees.

I didn't check the difficulty, I only looked at mempool.

Let me correct myself: last call for low fees

[stompix]

Let me correct myself: last call for low fees

Lots of corrections and fixes lately  

Probably we have till Monday, we are ~24 hours away from the weekend and we're entering this period with the smallest mempool in months, so unless something really really weird happens in terms of block time and hashrate or some other moron starts tweeting God knows what it might be that the fees will still be low on Sunday, averaging the same price as now. The last weekend we had no major events the mempool did drop from around 150MB to 110MB Friday to Sunday, so normal it would offset the drop in the extra 25-30 blocks a day we had.

And yeah electrum and fees
- next block fee 80.2 sat/b
- 1.0 MB from the tip 4.0 sat/b
Wonder what algorithm they use for the next block estimate

[PrimeNumber7]

-

It would probably be better if any implementation of my proposal would only apply to transactions sent after a cutoff date.

It could that effective block number x, transactions can be sent to addressed starting with bc2 that are "balanced based" addresses, and that after block number x plus n, no transaction will be valid until all outputs are sent to a "bc2" address that keeps track of address/key balances.

That requires a hard fork and a significant change in the database and chainstate which is harder than it sounds. There is no benefit in "balance base" bitcoin that I can think of either since it could be implemented using the way it is.

Yes, it would probably require a hard fork. The benefit of using balanced based addresses, versus individual outputs being spent is that transactions would become more efficient. It would save block space when one address receives many transactions, and more than one input is being spent. All that would be necessary would be a single input, a nonce and a single signature versus at least two inputs, at least two signatures, and two outputs under the status quo. It would also reduce UTXO bloat, as it would no longer be necessary to send to a change address when spending less than an entire output; this would save both blockspace, and the amount of required memory to run a node.

BTW "bc" is the fixed human readable part of SegWit addresses, "1" is the separator not the version, and the next letter after separator (in addresses) represents the version with "q" being first, "p" second, "z" third and so on.

Noted. There could be some other clear distinction for addresses that are using "balances" instead of individual inputs.

[TheQuin]

And yeah electrum and fees
- next block fee 80.2 sat/b
- 1.0 MB from the tip 4.0 sat/b
Wonder what algorithm they use for the next block estimate

I believe they are also looking back to see what fees have been needed recently. Just looking at the mempool doesn't account for what happens if there is a long gap before the next block.



I marked 2 points, the first shows where 7 Sats would get you 0.2MB from the tip and then the second is 35 minutes later when only 50+ got confirmed in the next block.
If you look back that you'll see in the last few hours there had also been several occasions where similar fees were needed to get into the next block.

[LoyceV]

I believe they are also looking back to see what fees have been needed recently. Just looking at the mempool doesn't account for what happens if there is a long gap before the next block.

Maybe they're aiming at (say) 98% certainty of being included in the next block. I can imagine that takes a higher fee.
But the fee to be confirmed within 10 or 25 blocks is also very high, and that doesn't depend on just the gap between 2 blocks.

I just made a 1.8 sat/vbyte transaction, which confirmed within a few blocks.

[Testnick]

If you we're to guess when the fees are on a lower niveau again, what would you suggest? 42 Satoshi feels a bit out of pace. https://imgur.com/a/IZCrNkj

[nc50lc]

-snip- 42 Satoshi feels a bit out of pace.

That's Electrum (right?), the problem is your selected target fee algorithm,
you can change "ETA" into "Mempool" and you'll see that even "1mb from tip" will suggest lower fee rate than the minimum of ETA.

-edit-
My reply from your own thread:

I've replied to your post to LoyceV's thread.
Just for additional info: If you don't know how to change the Fee slider into "mempool", just tap "Within x blocks" and it will switch from the three available sliders: ETA, mempool and static.

The average mempool size is quite low right now and you may be able to send a priority txn (1mb from tip) with <10sat/B fee rate.

[Testnick]

That is indeed electrum. It is supposed to move over to Kraken. I'm unsure if Kraken offers changing ETA to Mempool..

[Testnick]

I'll respond to the other thread I made with a link over here, unless you edit your response.

Ohh I see. When I downloaded the APP; or even when I used in in Tails some (longer time) ago there was no introduction to this function. You can just tap the Feerate (Number) which isn't visual to change the rates.

The average mempool size is quite low right now and you may be able to send a priority txn (1mb from tip) with <10sat/B fee rate.

So would you recommend this option? How likely is it to ever arrive when I go cheap with Fee rate 2.7 or 1.3 sat/B?

Edit: I am aware of the blockspaces btw: https://mempool.space/de/

[nc50lc]

-snip-

The average mempool size is quite low right now and you may be able to send a priority txn (1mb from tip) with <10sat/B fee rate.

So would you recommend this option? How likely is it to ever arrive when I go cheap with Fee rate 2.7 or 1.3 sat/B?

I'd rather not answer with an estimated time of arrival since mempool is unpredictable, but I'd say 2.7 or 1.3 sat/B are a bit low even for a normal priority fee.
If more transactions are added, it may take days or weeks, if vice versa, the next hour or so.

With the current standing, you can go as low as 7sat/B and it will still be cheap as long as your transaction isn't large in size (not the amount to be sent).
The (virtual) size of the transaction heavily depends on the number of inputs it spend and their (script) address types, quite affected by the number of outputs.
I believe that's already explained in the OP of this thread.

[Testnick]

I'll need to catch up to what's written first. Became curious how much "money fits into a block" as some swaps for 130k go with 130 Satoshis.

The lowest I've seen it go was 12 at low prio. 5-10 makes it definitely likely to hit the mempool anywhere at all..

[LoyceV]

If you we're to guess when the fees are on a lower niveau again, what would you suggest? 42 Satoshi feels a bit out of pace. https://imgur.com/a/IZCrNkj

Based on Johoe's site: 6 sat/byte is enough now for a fast confirmation. Since you're only sending 0.0001 BTC, that's already high, but if you go lower than 5, it may take days/weeks/months to confirm. My advice: try to avoid such small Bitcoin transactions.

I'm unsure if Kraken offers changing ETA to Mempool.

Kraken has nothing to do with "internal" Electrum options. All Kraken does is wait for your deposit to be confirmed.

curious how much "money fits into a block" as some swaps for 130k go with 130 Satoshis.

I'm not sure what you're asking: blocks are limited by size (in bytes), not in "money".

[philipma1957]

https://diff.cryptothis.com

the site above shows the difficulty of btc.

it also shows block pace.

at the moment we are over 250 blocks behind the pace.

less blocks means a more crowded mempool— a general concept.

so it you wait until next difficulty adjustment it will be easier to hit a block and blocks may be at a faster pace. say +8% vs -14%

obviously if you are supposed to make 100 blocks in 16-17 hours and make

108 blocks mempool tends to empty

and if you are supposed to make 100 blocks in 16-17 hours

86 blocks and the mempool tends to fill up.

doing a check on block pace
doing a check on mempool both help out.

[LoyceV]

at the moment we are over 250 blocks behind the pace.

That's quite surprising, considering fees aren't that high at all now. Transactions with 6 sat/byte are being confirmed.

so it you wait until next difficulty adjustment it will be easier to hit a block and blocks may be at a faster pace. say +8% vs -14%

That would mean fees can get even lower.

[ShowOff]

It seem that the current transaction fee are very supportive for making small transaction and I recently made a transaction with a fee of 7 sat/ byte (1MB from tip). However, to avoid network congestion, in my opinion there is nothing wrong with activating the RBF feature.

[stompix]

That's quite surprising, considering fees aren't that high at all now.

More than surprising !!!!
We had price swings that would trigger a lot of transactions normally, we are seeing on average close to 20 blocks or less each day and still, the mempool shows no sign of increasing like it did last time, while we're actually seeing fewer blocks than two periods ago. The adjustment over the China mining shutdown was ~-12% this one is going to be a minus ~15. Seeing how even eth is getting lower fees, and the coins that are normally used to avoid fees on the BTC chain from doge to shitcash are hitting the lowest numbers in 3 months all this points to people switching to full hodl mode, probably everyone thinks that spending BTC now is putting them at a loss and wait for a new jump in price.

Last time a few tumblers dropped thousands of transactions and we didn't get an empty mempool then, but this time, with the adjustment happening exactly at the end of a weekend we might see it for the first time this year.

[Testnick]

If you we're to guess when the fees are on a lower niveau again, what would you suggest? 42 Satoshi feels a bit out of pace. https://imgur.com/a/IZCrNkj

Based on Johoe's site: 6 sat/byte is enough now for a fast confirmation. Since you're only sending 0.0001 BTC, that's already high, but if you go lower than 5, it may take days/weeks/months to confirm. My advice: try to avoid such small Bitcoin transactions.

curious how much "money fits into a block" as some swaps for 130k go with 130 Satoshis.

I'm not sure what you're asking: blocks are limited by size (in bytes), not in "money".

I'm not familiar how a transaction is being divided into memory/blocks, what determines the size, how fees choose that it can be mined within 1 block or over 30 etc.. => More cryptomoney = Relatively bigger memory size = more fees.  It would likely explain itself If I were to dig into how blockchains operate, but made me curious about how fees work. As in if theres a higher fee for really small transfers like my 0.0001 btc. vs lower/optimal fees when transfering something of Size X.

8% fee for moving money is really much. That's why I've been asking myself how to lower the 5-10 Sat/b.

https://imgur.com/a/5GMbRVu
The 0.0001 transaction was my first transaction. It's main purpose is for me to confirm that actually everything arrives at my exchange wallet. Besides that: It's nice to see live how many mb from the tip away you are with 0.2 satoshi per block. 30 is close. Sunday difficulty is supposed to go -15% (easier?), so even cheaper if I read correctly?

[TheQuin]

[I'm not familiar how a transaction is being divided into memory/blocks, what determines the size, how fees choose that it can be mined within 1 block or over 30 etc.. => More cryptomoney = Relatively bigger memory size = more fees.  It would likely explain itself If I were to dig into how blockchains operate, but made me curious about how fees work. As in if theres a higher fee for really small transfers like my 0.0001 btc. vs lower/optimal fees when transfering something of Size X.

8% fee for moving money is really much. That's why I've been asking myself how to lower the 5-10 Sat/b.

The value of the transaction doesn't matter because the fee is based on the size of the data in virtual bytes. That is determined by the number of inputs, outputs and address types used.

Last time a few tumblers dropped thousands of transactions and we didn't get an empty mempool then, but this time, with the adjustment happening exactly at the end of a weekend we might see it for the first time this year.

With it only being a short time since this happened there should be fewer services with deposit consolidations to do so the probability of an empty mempool is good.

I noticed that in April this year there was a large increase in transactions with less than 1 Sat/vByte showing on https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,6m,weight,0



Did something change to allow that to happen? I'm curious to see if any pool mines them if/when we get there.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
I noticed that in April this year there was a large increase in transactions with less than 1 Sat/vByte showing on https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,6m,weight,0



Did something change to allow that to happen? I'm curious to see if any pool mines them if/when we get there.

That site doesn't represent the majority of the node's mempool and there's no related changes in the code after April 2021: https://github.com/jhoenicke/mempool/commits/master
So maybe he just started accepting <1sat/B transactions or lower his previous setting (minrelaytxfee=n BTC/kB) and for some reason, they never left his mempool since.

Or a bug perhaps?
Maybe it has something to do with the changes he did in the default fee level: https://github.com/jhoenicke/mempool/commit/cffef45b49fc233664d2e735b9f30b1c0016b7c6
Forcing it to zero might have resulted with that graph.