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

[NeuroticFish]

Bump! Transactions under 3 sat/vbyte are still getting confirmed.

I've done some txs yesterday at 2.5 sat/vByte, now the working week has started and the fees may rise a little. I see that 2.6-2.7 is barely enough now.
I'd advise a bit of extra on top of what mempool shows just because we're in the working days. 3 sat/vByte or even 3.5.
Also keep in mind that the difficulty is expected to rise with 4-5% in just a little more than one day.

[LoyceV]

I'd advise a bit of extra on top of what mempool shows just because we're in the working days. 3 sat/vByte or even 3.5.

If you're in a hurry, this topic isn't for you

Currently, Mempool.space shows transactions with 2.20 sat/vbyte lining up to be included in the next block. It's dropping very slowly (weeks ago it reached 2.50 sat/vbyte), so I don't expect to see 2.00 sat/vbyte tomorrow.

[NeuroticFish]

If you're in a hurry, this topic isn't for you

This was more about being on the safe side it gets picked up, not about being in a hurry (in the days of spam the mempool filled up quite fast when the difficulty increased, I feared something similar could happen, but I was wrong).
On the other hand, you are probably right, consolidating is about paying the lowest fee possible...

[LoyceV]

I don't expect to see 2.00 sat/vbyte tomorrow.

Well, close enough: 2.05 sat/vbyte is getting confirmed now!

[LoyceV]

Transactions paying 2.00 sat/vbyte are now getting confirmed. Johoe's site shows a drop crossing the 2 sat/vbyte "barrier" in the last hours.

[JayJuanGee]

Mempool.space's Mempool Googles currently show the expected next block: 90% of it is filled with small spam data transactions, each with 2.60 sat/vbyte. That means anything about that should get you in the next block now.

Within the last few days, I have a friend who "accidentally" submitted a transaction with around 1.9 sats per vbyte fees, and surely it is possible to go through, yet it also might not go through for months, if ever.

I will disclose that within the last 8 hours, the transaction that I described in the above post did finally go through, so yeah it took right around 3 weeks and 2 days to go through, and I also noticed that I saw on mempool.space that there were some transactions around 1.7 sats per vbyte going through within later blocks. Hopefully, I learned my lesson... hahahaha..

[BlackBoss_]

Mempool.space's Mempool Googles currently show the expected next block: 90% of it is filled with small spam data transactions, each with 2.60 sat/vbyte. That means anything about that should get you in the next block now.

Within the last few days, I have a friend who "accidentally" submitted a transaction with around 1.9 sats per vbyte fees, and surely it is possible to go through, yet it also might not go through for months, if ever.

I will disclose that within the last 8 hours, the transaction that I described in the above post did finally go through, so yeah it took right around 3 weeks and 2 days to go through, and I also noticed that I saw on mempool.space that there were some transactions around 1.7 sats per vbyte going through within later blocks. Hopefully, I learned my lesson... hahahaha..

Congratulations for your transaction confirmation, it makes sense to broadcast your transaction with a fee rate at 1.9 sat/vbyte than 2.0 sat/vbyte that is more commonly used by other Bitcoin users.

This thread is helpful for people who want to learn and get notification on mempools in order to minimize transaction fees. They no longer have to completely rely on automatic fee estimation tools from exchanges or wallet softwares. Double checking mempool status is key for saving transaction fee.

This article written by Jameson Lopp gives us some insights that is not new, but can be helpful for people who have never known about it.

Problems with Coinbase Withdrawal Fees
In this test by Lopp, Coinbase overcharged users on withdrawal fee and they did it with 8 users (the withdrawal transaction has 9 outputs, with 1 output is a change address of Coinbase, 8 outputs belong to 8 user withdrawals).

Other centralized platforms do the same, with batch withdrawal transactions for their users, overcharge withdrawal fees on their customers, and get massive benefits with very simple on-chain transaction broadcast.

Here's the thing: Coinbase, like many exchanges, is designed well enough that they batch their withdrawal transactions. This specific withdrawal transaction has 9 outputs, which saves a lot of block space and thus on-chain fees. With 9 outputs it's safe to assume that 1 was change back to Coinbase while the other 8 were customer initiated withdrawals. Naturally, this raises some questions for me.

0.00108976 BTC (fee I paid) ÷ 0.00279448 BTC (total fee) = 39%

Why am I paying 39% of a fee that is being split by 8 people?

What fees are the other 7 people paying to Coinbase?

If Coinbase charged all 8 of us 0.00108976 BTC but only paid a 0.00279448 BTC fee, that means they pocketed 0.0059236 BTC ($350 USD) from this one batch withdrawal.

Long story short, I think there's a strong case that I was egregiously overcharged for this withdrawal in not one but two different ways.

    My "fair share" of the batch transaction fee was less than a third of what I was charged (0.00034931 BTC rather than 0.00108976 BTC)
    The appropriate market rate for fees at the time was only 1% of what Coinbase was requiring. (7 satoshis per virtual byte rather than 778 satoshis per virtual byte)

It's particularly interesting to me that during this process Coinbase made $4 off of selling BTC to me but they may have pocketed $40 from my contribution to the withdrawal fee.

[LoyceV]

This article written by Jameson Lopp gives us some insights that is not new, but can be helpful for people who have never known about it.

Exchanges are a completely different story. This topic is about on-chain fees, exchanges can charge whatever the hell they want. The higher it is, the more they earn or the more money stays in their exchange. It's a win-win for them, as long as many people don't check withdrawal fees before creating an account.

Coinbase never charged me anything. I don't use them.

[LoyceV]

Transactions paying slightly less than 2.00 sat/vbyte are getting confirmed again.

[apogio]

Question:
I saw this transaction.
I can see that the fee rate is 1.86 sat/vB.
The effective fee rate was 1.85 sat/vB?
Mempool.space indicates that it must have been a CPFP.
But normally, a CPFP is used when someone want to bump the fee rate, not to decrease it.

[BlackHatCoiner]

But normally, a CPFP is used when someone want to bump the fee rate, not to decrease it.

A CPFP is used when, as in the name, a child transaction wants to pay for its parent. That does not necessarily mean to increase the effective fee rate. You might want to spend unconfirmed coins, but you need not to increase the over all (or effective) fee rate.

What you said applies in RBF, wherein you need, not only to provide a greater fee, but sufficiently greater. You can try RBF a 2 sat/vb transaction with a 2.01 sat/vb, and you can verify that it won't propagate.

[apogio]

A CPFP is used when, as in the name, a child transaction wants to pay for its parent. That does not necessarily mean to increase the effective fee rate. You might want to spend unconfirmed coins, but you not need to increase the over all (or effective) fee rate.

I never though about it this way. I will give it a try just to check. I have only used RBF twice. Thanks!

[LoyceV]

I can see that the fee rate is 1.86 sat/vB.
The effective fee rate was 1.85 sat/vB?
Mempool.space indicates that it must have been a CPFP.
But normally, a CPFP is used when someone want to bump the fee rate, not to decrease it.

The sending address has 1,347,328 dust transactions, so I can't easily find the input used in this transaction, but let's assume the unconfirmed input paid 1.84 sat/vbyte (and let's assume the transaction size was similar). That means CPFP bumps it up to 1.85 sat/vbyte, while it lowers the effective fee rate on the new transaction (also to 1.85).

[apogio]

The sending address has 1,347,328 dust transactions, so I can't easily find the input used in this transaction, but let's assume the unconfirmed input paid 1.84 sat/vbyte (and let's assume the transaction size was similar). That means CPFP bumps it up to 1.85 sat/vbyte, while it lowers the effective fee rate on the new transaction (also to 1.85).

Which also means that transactions with 1.85 sat/vB were successfully processed! Trying to keep my question on-topic  

[LoyceV]

Which also means that transactions with 1.84 sat/vB

You mean 1.85 sat/vbyte

[apogio]

Which also means that transactions with 1.84 sat/vB

You mean 1.85 sat/vbyte

Sure, I edited my post. Ok, that wraps up my question. Thank you all.

[Synchronice]

There is a bump in Bitcoin transactions again, reaching 40 sat/vByte at the moment. Ordinal spammers occupied the network again, mempool is getting full of ordinals transactions.
Does anyone know why is there an increased activity from Ordinals? Is there any hype again? It's very strange how it comes and goes in waves. Transaction fees were high yesterday too but it settled down, today they make it again. The only thing that I like here is that too many spammers pay 100x and 1000x times more fees then necessary to get transaction confirmed. I hope their pockets will empty ASAP.

[LoyceV]

There is a bump in Bitcoin transactions again, reaching 40 sat/vByte at the moment. Ordinal spammers occupied the network again, mempool is getting full of ordinals transactions.

Even when fees were low, blocks were still filled for 80-95% with data spam. That's still the same now, so it looks like they're competing against other data spam now.

The only thing that I like here is that too many spammers pay 100x and 1000x times more fees then necessary to get transaction confirmed. I hope their pockets will empty ASAP.

By my estimate, they've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this. Shaking down gullible people is big business.

[Little Mouse]

Feeling like stupid. I saw 2 sats per byte earlier but didnt consolidate.

[Poker Player]

Feeling like stupid. I saw 2 sats per byte earlier but didnt consolidate.

With a bit of luck, by Sunday they’ll have gone down. With some exceptions fees tend to drop over the weekend, and considering how the mempool has been lately, with still many transactions but lower fees, it's likely you’ll have more opportunities to consolidate in the near future.