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

[stompix]

A question from a noob:is there any way to know if the mined blocks are above or below average? (in terms of the time it takes to mine, I mean).

Yeah, pretty simple!
Blockchair has a last 24hours stats:
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/
And bitinfocharts has a more in-depth graph:
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-confirmationtime.html#3m

And yeah, something fishy is happening, it's been around 4 days we're we are seeing slower blocks by quite a wide margin, probably indeed the China thing is real.
The difficulty will most likely drop by 5% and the next period might be negative also.

Now, the funny thing
We are seeing a lot of news, a lot of movements in the market, an average of ~120 blocks per day since Thursday but, there are empty blocks right now, transactions with 1sat/b are getting confirmed. And what's more interesting the difficulty will adjust tomorrow, so even if it won't be accurate the capacity will still increase so it might be possible we will see the first weekdays with 1 sat fees!

People are really hodling to their coins!
Or maybe everyone has switched to LN and we're watching the wrong charts?
If this continues from bumping this topic we might have to pin it! 

[1714839981]

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[1714839981]

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[TheQuin]

And yeah, something fishy is happening, it's been around 4 days we're we are seeing slower blocks by quite a wide margin, probably indeed the China thing is real.

On the btc.com block explorer they show the hashrate reported by each pool and a 24 hr change. All the top pools reduced significantly when the latest 'China bans mining (again)" headlines came out. That's what caused this difficulty drop and also the last one 2 weeks ago. The total hashrate has fallen from ~190 EH/s to under `150 EH/s.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

On the btc.com block explorer they show the hashrate reported by each pool and a 24 hr change. All the top pools reduced significantly when the latest 'China bans mining (again)" headlines came out. That's what caused this difficulty drop and also the last one 2 weeks ago. The total hashrate has fallen from ~190 EH/s to under `150 EH/s.

If the lost hashrate is from Inner Mongolia, it matches the statistics from Distribution of bitcoin mining's carbon footprint worldwide as of 2018, by region

That chart is for 2018 and if the % of hashrate from Inner Mongolia per total hashrate won't change too much, it can be a good explanation.

Lost hashrate is about 21%. The contribution of carbon footprint for Bitcoin mining from Inner Mongolia in 2018 is around 26%.

The articles gives better figure for mining contribution from Inner Mongolia. China’s crackdown on bitcoin mining is getting real.
Bitcoin Mining Is Big in China. Why Investors Should Worry.

Inner Mongolia’s draft rules will be open for public comment until June 1, and the guidelines could set a precedent for other bitcoin mining hubs in China, such as Xinjiang, which accounts for some 20% of global bitcoin mining.

Figures in 2020 are not big different than in 2018.

According to the Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, as of April 2020, China was responsible for 65% of all Bitcoin mining. And of that, 36% takes place in Xinjiang, the largest regional component. Why? Cheap coal means cheap energy to power the machines that mine Bitcoin. Xinjiang has an abundant supply of coal, and the region’s relative remoteness means that it’s far cheaper to use the resource locally than move it to other parts of China.

The fall matches with https://cbeci.org/mining_map. China contributes 65% of total hashrate (use tab Global) and 35.76% of hashrate is from Xinjang (use Tab China).

[pooya87]

People are really hodling to their coins!

Indeed, of course they are really hodling their fiat too. The thing is all about the indecision. Everyone is currently waiting for that nasty >$40k price (or maybe for the <$30k) to make a move and until then the trading volume and the on-chain transaction volume will remain low.
We also have the altcoin market that got dumped hard and wounded a lot of traders who are currently licking their wounds and staying out of it which is another reason for lack of on-chain transaction volume.

All of this can change if today that last $500 to $40k is overcome and the FOMO begins.

[LoyceV]

Consolidate Bump (I'm not deleting it because it was Merited).


In the past months, fees have often been high. At the moment, mempool is empty, which means 1 sat/byte is now enough for a fast confirmation.

Consolidate your small inputs while you can, low fees won't last forever!
When you are in a rush, it saves a lot in fees if you can use only one input address (and ideally use native SegWit: bc1q......).

[btctaipei]

at 1sat/byte it would even make sense to move legacy address to full segwit (bech32) addresses so when prices are high and fees are beyond 23sat/vB you can get faster confirmation time when you trade or spent coins on the street near you.

[Timelord2067]

One of the uses of the near zero transaction fees has been to enable me to open Lightning Network channels and then if they close (regardless of being cooperative or even uncooperative), I can then open more channels costing pennies to initiate.

[pooya87]

Someone(s) is (are) "consolidating" the hell out of their wallet today. The mempool is filled with 15 to 30 KB transactions most of which have either 100 or 200 inputs but some are paying nearly 1000 recipients!
Can be seen here until they are confirmed: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/mempool/transactions?s=size(desc)
I say "someone" because these transactions appeared together and they are paying similar fees.


It would be interesting to check the UTXO count after this because I'm wondering if this is actually consolidation or spam. It is a small one time thing so far so probably the former.

[PrimeNumber7]

Someone(s) is (are) "consolidating" the hell out of their wallet today. The mempool is filled with 15 to 30 KB transactions most of which have either 100 or 200 inputs but some are paying nearly 1000 recipients!

If they are paying 1000 recipients, they are not consolidating inputs, they are splitting inputs. They could also be advertising spam, such as 5208ecff5b3fe7c1e7c852a6b8e2c323832d3e40221f28692b43bbe39b6116c1 that is clearing trying to advertise their altcoin.

[TheQuin]

Someone(s) is (are) "consolidating" the hell out of their wallet today. The mempool is filled with 15 to 30 KB transactions most of which have either 100 or 200 inputs but some are paying nearly 1000 recipients!

If they are paying 1000 recipients, they are not consolidating inputs, they are splitting inputs. They could also be advertising spam, such as 5208ecff5b3fe7c1e7c852a6b8e2c323832d3e40221f28692b43bbe39b6116c1 that is clearing trying to advertise their altcoin.

Looking through the last block I didn't see any paying to many recipients, just consolidation like this one.

https://btc.com/d3cccd9d47798f9e26f9a95d4ebc2da651d66e606154284afaed013bbaad4850

That's 100 inputs all of a similar size and there are lots of transactions all doing the same indicating it's a service using an automated consolidation of their deposits.

[pooya87]

If they are paying 1000 recipients, they are not consolidating inputs, they are splitting inputs.

That's my bad, I should have been more clear. Majority of those transaction are consolidating and there are other transactions paying nearly 1000 recipients. Some of them seem to have confirmed or disappeared. You can still find a couple like this one: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/5208ecff5b3fe7c1e7c852a6b8e2c323832d3e40221f28692b43bbe39b6116c1 (520 outputs).

They could also be advertising spam, such as 5208ecff5b3fe7c1e7c852a6b8e2c323832d3e40221f28692b43bbe39b6116c1 that is clearing trying to advertise their altcoin.

Interesting find.

P.S. blockchair's new change is horrible, it makes searching very hard since the table keeps getting messed up.

[PrimeNumber7]

https://btc.com/d3cccd9d47798f9e26f9a95d4ebc2da651d66e606154284afaed013bbaad4850

That's 100 inputs all of a similar size and there are lots of transactions all doing the same indicating it's a service using an automated consolidation of their deposits.

That is a good example of an entity consolidating its inputs. One of the addresses associated with that transaction, 1NN4Q7ZGx5sNnz6iuCo75EkMLGWfsawWTv has received transactions that can reasonably be traced back to the btc.com mining pool. My guess is that is a person consolidating his mining earnings. Another address associated with that transaction, 1PTUJMrTt6KFD8oMzS4jCgh42qZGxW6mHt received outputs that can reasonably be traced back to Antpool.

I might conclude that this person has multiple ASICs that receive their mining payouts to different addresses. If this is correct, it would be insane. Alternatively, it could be possible that these mining pools are sending transactions to themselves in order to artificially increase transaction fees.

If they are paying 1000 recipients, they are not consolidating inputs, they are splitting inputs.

That's my bad, I should have been more clear. Majority of those transaction are consolidating and there are other transactions paying nearly 1000 recipients. Some of them seem to have confirmed or disappeared. You can still find a couple like this one: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/5208ecff5b3fe7c1e7c852a6b8e2c323832d3e40221f28692b43bbe39b6116c1 (520 outputs).

Yes, I cited that transaction in my above post:

They could also be advertising spam, such as 5208ecff5b3fe7c1e7c852a6b8e2c323832d3e40221f28692b43bbe39b6116c1 that is clearing trying to advertise their altcoin.

Interesting find.

[LoyceV]

Someone(s) is (are) "consolidating" the hell out of their wallet today. The mempool is filled with 15 to 30 KB transactions most of which have either 100 or 200 inputs but some are paying nearly 1000 recipients!
Can be seen here until they are confirmed: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/mempool/transactions?s=size(desc)

Your link doesn't show them anymore. Did they create 1000 dust outputs, or were they sending real amounts?

P.S. blockchair's new change is horrible, it makes searching very hard since the table keeps getting messed up.

It's terrible: they've replaced useful information by colored bouncing dots. Now it looks like they hired a 4 year old girl to "improve" the site.

Alternatively, it could be possible that these mining pools are sending transactions to themselves in order to artificially increase transaction fees.

I've read that theory before. At some point there was even a mining pool (Antpool?) that didn't include transactions with a fee lower than 5 (?) sat/byte.

[TheQuin]

Alternatively, it could be possible that these mining pools are sending transactions to themselves in order to artificially increase transaction fees.

I've read that theory before. At some point there was even a mining pool (Antpool?) that didn't include transactions with a fee lower than 5 (?) sat/byte.

That happened in 2018 when the mempool finally cleared out after many months of very high fees. It was definitely 5 sats but I can't remember for sure which pool(s). After a few weeks they realised they were losing out to other pools that were including them and stopped doing it.

[pooya87]

Your link doesn't show them anymore. Did they create 1000 dust outputs, or were they sending real amounts?

I believe they were very small amounts, not dust but also too small that made me wonder who makes such payments (5 to 10 cents). I think they ended up double spending the inputs of those transactions because I also can not find anything in previous blocks with such characteristics.

[PrimeNumber7]

Alternatively, it could be possible that these mining pools are sending transactions to themselves in order to artificially increase transaction fees.

I've read that theory before. At some point there was even a mining pool (Antpool?) that didn't include transactions with a fee lower than 5 (?) sat/byte.

This would be more than a theory. There is blockchain evidence that a miner is receiving mining payouts to many addresses. I cannot imagine any good reason to do this, except maybe for privacy reasons, but their consolidating the outputs removes any privacy advantage they had by doing this.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
This would be more than a theory. There is blockchain evidence that a miner is receiving mining payouts to many addresses. I cannot imagine any good reason to do this, except maybe for privacy reasons, but their consolidating the outputs removes any privacy advantage they had by doing this.

You mean something like this? (coinbase transaction with lots of outputs): 0000000000000000046fafea54ec57f8b1d030e74d0d15545e0534fbd6e02f4d

That was a mining pool that had been directly sending the block rewards to its miners.
This old pool is one of the example (that transaction is one of theirs): btc.com/stats/pool/Eligius
check the older block heights because most of the newer ones have "normal" coinbase transaction.

[PrimeNumber7]

-snip-
This would be more than a theory. There is blockchain evidence that a miner is receiving mining payouts to many addresses. I cannot imagine any good reason to do this, except maybe for privacy reasons, but their consolidating the outputs removes any privacy advantage they had by doing this.

You mean something like this? (coinbase transaction with lots of outputs): 0000000000000000046fafea54ec57f8b1d030e74d0d15545e0534fbd6e02f4d

Today, most pools will have the coinbase transaction go to a static address, sometimes will move their coin to an intermediary address and subsequently pay out withdrawal requests to miners who are requesting withdrawals. Eligius was a pool that would skip the first two steps, they would payout to miners directly based on their account threshold settings automatically.

I am referring to txid d3cccd9d47798f9e26f9a95d4ebc2da651d66e606154284afaed013bbaad4850.  All inputs are from what appear to be unique addresses, and all are in the amount of 0.005318xx BTC, or 0.005317xx BTC. The inputs appear to be payout addresses from mining pools.

One of the addresses that have an input that is part of the above transaction is 1Le7X5MkbXjhEWwBJ3NHzAqFatCvjHMu8h, and it appears this address belongs to Huobi. It appears that Huobi is consolidating their unspent outputs, maybe after reading this thread. It also appears that one or more miners its receiving their withdrawals/payouts from pools to deposit addresses at Huobi.

Looking at https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/Huobi.com-2 it appears Huobi has created well over a thousand if not many thousand transactions of consolidation transactions.

[TheQuin]

I am referring to txid d3cccd9d47798f9e26f9a95d4ebc2da651d66e606154284afaed013bbaad4850.  All inputs are from what appear to be unique addresses, and all are in the amount of 0.005318xx BTC, or 0.005317xx BTC.

That is a typical deposit wallet consolidation transaction. There's an automated program from Bitpay that many services use. It'll go through the deposits in descending value order and consolidate them into a single address. Then use those outputs consolidated together to fund the cold wallet and withdrawal hot wallet.

The inputs appear to be payout addresses from mining pools.

One of the addresses that have an input that is part of the above transaction is 1Le7X5MkbXjhEWwBJ3NHzAqFatCvjHMu8h, and it appears this address belongs to Huobi. It appears that Huobi is consolidating their unspent outputs, maybe after reading this thread. It also appears that one or more miners its receiving their withdrawals/payouts from pools to deposit addresses at Huobi.

Looking at https://www.walletexplorer.com/wallet/Huobi.com-2 it appears Huobi has created well over a thousand if not many thousand transactions of consolidation transactions.

It is hardly surprising that many miners based in China would use Huobi to cash out into fiat to pay their bills. It's not really evidence that it is just one miner making many transactions to spam the mempool.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
This would be more than a theory. There is blockchain evidence that a miner is receiving mining payouts to many addresses. I cannot imagine any good reason to do this, except maybe for privacy reasons, but their consolidating the outputs removes any privacy advantage they had by doing this.

You mean something like this? (coinbase transaction with lots of outputs): 0000000000000000046fafea54ec57f8b1d030e74d0d15545e0534fbd6e02f4d

I am referring to txid d3cccd9d47798f9e26f9a95d4ebc2da651d66e606154284afaed013bbaad4850.  All inputs are from what appear to be unique addresses, and all are in the amount of 0.005318xx BTC, or 0.005317xx BTC. The inputs appear to be payout addresses from mining pools.

Ah, so it's a totally different kind of transaction.
I don't get how is that a "blockchain evidence" since you already know that the transaction is from Houbi exchange and Exchanges always consolidate their users' deposits.

TheQuin is on point, most consolidation transactions by Exhanges (even the ones that I use) have almost identical input values.