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

[LoyceV]

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.

3. Hopefully, blocks will be a bit bigger by then

[stwenhao]

Hopefully, blocks will be a bit bigger by then

Block size again? Recent article about it: https://blog.lopp.net/treatise-bitcoin-block-space-economics/


It is a cycle. By increasing the block size, you are prolonging things, instead of solving the problem.

As a computer scientist I'm painfully aware that despite hardware continually getting faster, software seems to be getting slower.

I saw many times, that it is true. And it is definitely true in case of Initial Blockchain Download. Or rather: Initial Blockchain Validation, because even if you can download things quite quickly, then still, validating all of that takes most of the time (and it takes longer and longer, because there is more and more data to validate).

Also, as you can go through the article, you can see old BIPs about it. Even if you think, that blocks should be bigger, then which BIP you want to activate? Even if you rewrite them from hard-forks into soft-forks, then still, by seeing, what was proposed so far, none of them sounds like something, where you could reach consensus.

[Findingnemo]

~~~

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.

So we don't need to convince the miners but just the nodes, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't lower their default fee. They have nothing to lose, right?

Unless we still have the fear of spamming the network with ordinals or something?

Even today, the mempool looks empty, and most of the recently mined blocks were half-filled; those resources can be utilized for consolidation if we get an opportunity to broadcast TXs with lower fee than what it is now.

[LoyceV]

So we don't need to convince the miners but just the nodes, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't lower their default fee. They have nothing to lose, right?

Without a miner who accepts a transaction, lowering my own node's minimum isn't going to help me. I'll just have a low-fee transaction that never confirms.

[Medusah]

Full blocks: Bitcoin can't scale.
Empty blocks: Bitcoin is not sustainable.

We can't handle the free market.  

[stwenhao]

So we don't need to convince the miners but just the nodes

If you convince only nodes, but miners will still use 1 sat/vB, then none of that traffic will be confirmed, and all of that will just fly as zero-confirmation transactions.

They have nothing to lose, right?

They will see more traffic than other nodes. So, they can waste some resources on processing something, which will be discarded by miners.

Unless we still have the fear of spamming the network with ordinals or something?

The good thing is, that only those, who will lower their accepted fee rate, will be spammed in practice. As long as miners won't do that, produced blocks will still use today's limits.

those resources can be utilized for consolidation if we get an opportunity to broadcast TXs with lower fee than what it is now

Well, accepted fee rate is not the only enforced limit. Even if you start accepting free transactions, then still, by default, there is 300 MB mempool size limit, and there is still a block size limit. Which means, that low fee transactions will be processed only if there will be a room for them. And if suddenly fees will raise again, then all of them will be discarded, when you will receive transactions with higher fee rates in your mempool.

[LoyceV]

The good thing is, that only those, who will lower their accepted fee rate, will be spammed in practice.

As long as no miner accepts it, I doubt many spammers are trying to broadcast 0.1 sat/vbyte transactions.

It would be interesting to see though: what happens if a single mining pool decides to lower the minimum? Currently, some blocks are almost empty:

Code:

Total fees	‎0.001 BTC $90.53

If this mining pool would have accepted 0.1 sat/vbyte transactions, I bet there are enough casinos with large numbers of very small inputs waiting to consolidate at very low rates to fill those blocks. So the total fees for that block could have been doubled.

Short-term, cheaper consolidations may even reduce the size of chainstate, although long-term, I expect more small inputs to be created if lower fees are possible.

[stwenhao]

By the way: https://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2009-January/014994.html

Code:

When that runs out, the system can support transaction fees if
needed.  It's based on open market competition, and there will
probably always be nodes willing to process transactions for free.

So, if you feel like it, then you can accept even free transactions. It is your full node, and nobody can stop you. But, when you lower any limits, then just be prepared for more traffic, and don't be surprised, if you receive more transactions, than you expected.

And technically, it is even possible to accept negative fee transactions, if you inspect sighashes used in signatures, and if you want to complete the contract, by putting more coins in, and push it on-chain.

Edit: Also note, that transactions are often chained, as you can see in CPFP. Which means, that if some transaction is free, or has a low fee, and there is another transaction with much higher fee behind it, then you won't receive them, even if including both could be profitable, because these settings are applied globally to all transactions. Which is also why some Bitcoin developers are now working on "packages", instead of "transactions".

[ABCbits]

Also, as you can go through the article, you can see old BIPs about it. Even if you think, that blocks should be bigger, then which BIP you want to activate? Even if you rewrite them from hard-forks into soft-forks, then still, by seeing, what was proposed so far, none of them sounds like something, where you could reach consensus.

It's good point. Although for starter, we could exclude BIP that either put arbitrary number as block size limit or have dynamic change based on recent block size/percentage filled (due to risk of manipulation).

So we don't need to convince the miners but just the nodes, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't lower their default fee. They have nothing to lose, right?

You'd have easier time convincing Bitcoin Core developer and contributor to lower default value of minrelayfee.

Unless we still have the fear of spamming the network with ordinals or something?

I've said it few times. But if people fear that, they better propose making OP_FALSE OP_IF ... OP_ENDIF as non-standard script since script inside it never executed anyway.

[pooya87]

So we don't need to convince the miners but just the nodes, and I don't see any reason why they shouldn't lower their default fee. They have nothing to lose, right?

Without a miner who accepts a transaction, lowering my own node's minimum isn't going to help me. I'll just have a low-fee transaction that never confirms.

You actually have to only convince bitcoin core developers to change the minimum fee not nodes nor miners because everyone mostly run the core client with default settings without modifications! After all the only reason why the minimum is 1 sat/vb is because at some point the core devs changed the fee algorithm and set it to that default.

[LoyceV]

What do you know.... Mempool has been empty several times today, which means the absolute minimum of 1.00 sat/vbyte can be enough for a fast confirmation!

[philipma1957]

going to consolidate now.

edit all done I used 1.23 sats easy peasy and fast.

thanks again

[Cricktor]

Seeing only partially filled blocks is really nice for fee penny-pinchers (like me). With the ordinals and other data spam at peak, there were times where I almost lost faith that we will ever see partially filled blocks again. Nice to see once again, that I was wrong.

Patience pays out...

[bitmover]

I just saw this in mempool.space



I will make a few consolidations now as well. I recently consolidated 200 utxo, i will make a smaller one  of about 40 now

[LoyceV]

I just saw this in mempool.space

The moment is gone now: 0.423 BTC in fees waiting for the next block, with a 27 sat/vbyte minimum to get a quick confirmation. Judging by mempool.space, a large batch of transactions was broadcasted at once. That makes me think it's one person wasting a lot of money on fees (again).

[apogio]

The moment is gone now: 0.423 BTC in fees waiting for the next block, with a 27 sat/vbyte minimum to get a quick confirmation. Judging by mempool.space, a large batch of transactions was broadcasted at once. That makes me think it's one person wasting a lot of money on fees (again).

We 're back at empty mempool, it looks like it was temporary.

[LoyceV]

Data spam is back:

(image source)

[philipma1957]

yeah you may need 20 sats for a fast tx


https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,2d,count

20+ and only 294 tx

14+ and 1170 tx

12+ and  6850 tx waiting

the last few blocks fees are

0.20 btc
0.19 btc
0.15 btc
0.14 btc


vs 0.06 btc 10 blocks ago

https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/blocks?q=time(2025-05-15%2016:29:29...2025-05-16%2016:29:29)



we will need to see if it fades or grows.

[d5000]

It seems that these increases are (still?) short-lived. The last night the minimum fee went back to 1 sat/vbyte again. Now it's a bit higher but still not nearly as high as yesterday (currently 5 sat/vbyte).

Interestingly, according to this dashboard and also this one, Ordinals and Runes which had a small mini-wave in the last weeks, now are again taking less space. There's thus another reason behind the data transaction increase.

Are we about to see a new spam wave, perhaps these "non standard tokens" which deliberately violate the standardness rules of Bitcoin? See this post for more info ...

[philipma1957]

It seems that these increases are (still?) short-lived. The last night the minimum fee went back to 1 sat/vbyte again. Now it's a bit higher but still not nearly as high as yesterday (currently 5 sat/vbyte).

Interestingly, according to this dashboard and also this one, Ordinals and Runes which had a small mini-wave in the last weeks, now are again taking less space. There's thus another reason behind the data transaction increase.

Are we about to see a new spam wave, perhaps these "non standard tokens" which deliberately violate the standardness rules of Bitcoin? See this post for more info ...

I think they are testing what they can do and how it will work.