[Mar 2026]Mempool empty, Consolidate your small inputs @0.11 sat/vbyte

[LoyceV]

Why is there a minimum in the first place?

So that you can have the freedom to determine yourself what's considered unacceptable to relay.

I meant the default minimum value. If users want to change it, that's of course fine.

The minimum relay fee aims to reduce the spam on your mempool, not on the network.

That makes sense. But still: how bad could it really be? In terms of bandwidth, it's small. And once Bitcoin Core's mempool reaches it's maximum size, it'll drop the lowest fee transactions again.

Even if default minimum relay fee was 10 sat/vb, those people could still broadcast them to mining pools directly.

That only works if the mining pool has a lower minimum.

You don't want people bloat either blockchain or mempool with 0 or near 0 TX fee.

If I can choose between people making low-fee transactions to get to know Bitcoin (like I could do when I started with Bitcoin), or people spamming data on-chain, I choose the former.

Although FWIW, the default value was last changed in early 2014[1].

Back then, and a few years after that, the priority-mechanism was still in place. This made zero-fee transactions possible. I just checked a few of my 2015-transactions in Bitcoin Core, and they were all free.
Your link mentions a drop in transaction fee from 5 dollar cents to 0.5 cents. I miss those days

[LoyceV]

Bump!

Massive transactions paying 1.0 sat/vbyte to consolidate their dust spam are lining up to be included in the next block. This is the time to consolidate

[apogio]

Massive transactions paying 1.0 sat/vbyte to consolidate their dust spam are lining up to be included in the next block. This is the time to consolidate

Probably wise of them to consolidate, because they made a solid 270K sats. They may never had been given the chance to do this in the future.

[LoyceV]

Probably wise of them to consolidate, because they made a solid 270K sats. They may never had been given the chance to do this in the future.

They're still at it: 1475 dust inputs and many more transactions waiting. It's really unfortunate this crap hit the on-chain blockchain.

[Cricktor]

They're still at it: 1475 dust inputs and many more transactions waiting.

I see one positive aspect from this: the UTXO set is a teensy little less bloated from this crap.    Yay!

[LoyceV]

I see one positive aspect from this: the UTXO set is a teensy little less bloated from this crap.    Yay!

I'm not that optimistic. They're probably just preparing for their next spam run, the moment they get new victims willing to pay them for it.
Look at bc1q8prn9h24c3hr968ur7ky2kew3d4y9z65sanf74: 400k transactions, and an endless list of unconfirmed consolidations waiting.

[LoyceV]

Bump!
I still see the occasional block with 1.04 sat/vbyte transactions, so that should be enough to consolidate if you're not in a rush.

[pooya87]

The spam is still there like a shadow! but they've run out of steam for the time being since like any other fake and hyped up garbage they've been coming up with, they can never have a steady stream of victims to pay them their hard earned satoshis.

[LoyceV]

1.00 sat/vbyte was enough to get confirmed 2 blocks ago, and can happen again just 3 blocks from now

[NeuroticFish]

1.00 sat/vbyte was enough to get confirmed 2 blocks ago, and can happen again just 3 blocks from now

The week-end has started, I see that 1.03 sat/vByte is the current minimum to be confirmed, I expect we get to 1.00 too again.

[LoyceV]

I expect we get to 1.00 too again.

Just in case, I'd use 1.02 now to avoid the many blocks filled with 1.01 sat/vbyte consolidations.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

The week-end has started, I see that 1.03 sat/vByte is the current minimum to be confirmed, I expect we get to 1.00 too again.

Thanks for this. I was thinking of consolidating around 5 inputs from a bet in our local forum. I saw the update to this thread, tried with 1.03 sats/vbyte, and it confirmed in the next block.

Just in case, I'd use 1.02 now to avoid the many blocks filled with 1.01 sat/vbyte consolidations.

Shouldn't you change the title, then?

[LoyceV]

In the past 24 hours, mempool has been empty many times

[philipma1957]

yeah if you do 1.11 it just goes fast and easy.

[Findingnemo]

yeah if you do 1.11 it just goes fast and easy.

If I am not wrong, it has happened multiple times recently, so I guess it's time to change the lowest fee of 1sat/vb to something like 0.1sat/vb or whatever is appropriate now.

[Cricktor]

~~~

I don't think you will have much success to get a transaction propagated which has less than 1.0sat/vB as transaction fee rate to offer. Sure, I can set my node to accept transaction that pay even 0sat/vB to include in my mempool, but unless you're one of my peers, it's not likely such transactions will trickle in and equally unlikely that my node can relay them to other nodes which usually have the default relay minimum of 1.0sat/vB.

Good luck with convincing any miner to mine transactions below 1.0sat/vB, unless they're their own transactions.

[LoyceV]

I don't think you will have much success to get a transaction propagated which has less than 1.0sat/vB as transaction fee rate to offer.

A few years ago, there was discussion about lowering the default minimum fee in Bitcoin Core from 1 to 0.1 sat/vbyte. Then fees went up and it kinda became irrelevant. Until now. I wouldn't mind consolidating at 0.1 sat/vbyte

[stwenhao]

Latest topic about it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5528323

Also, currently, as long as blocks are full, miners are guaranteed to earn at least 0.01 BTC in fees per block. If you lower this value, then this minimum value will be lowered as well. Which is not a big deal now, but it will be after 12th halving, when the basic block reward will reach 0.01220703 BTC.

And my answer didn't change since then. If you lower relay fees, instead of batching N low-fee transactions into a single min-fee transaction, then it may cause problems in the future.

[LoyceV]

Also, currently, as long as blocks are full, miners are guaranteed to earn at least 0.01 BTC in fees per block. If you lower this value, then this minimum value will be lowered as well. Which is not a big deal now, but it will be after 12th halving

I'd assume blocks are full after the 12th halving, which is several decades into the future. It'll still be a free market, where Bitcoin users have to compete to get their transaction confirmed.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Latest topic about it: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5528323

Also, currently, as long as blocks are full, miners are guaranteed to earn at least 0.01 BTC in fees per block. If you lower this value, then this minimum value will be lowered as well. Which is not a big deal now, but it will be after 12th halving, when the basic block reward will reach 0.01220703 BTC.[/quote]
And my answer didn't change since then. If you lower relay fees, instead of batching N low-fee transactions into a single min-fee transaction, then it may cause problems in the future.

The twelfth halving? Are we talking about 2060? I don't see a problem with this because only one of two things will have happened by then:

1: Bitcoin will have gone to shit one way or another.
2: Not only will it not have gone to shit, but 1 single satoshi will have brutal purchasing power, so if the miners only collect a few satoshis in fees, it will probably be a fortune per block.

One has to think about the increase in bitcoin's purchasing power when making these calculations IMO.