Are heavy fees and transaction delays in BTC causing crypto market to fail?

[shahzadafzal]

This is a fact that Bitcoin and Ethereum are the main currencies today. All other crypto currencies are some how based on one of these. If you want to buy any other crypto currency using fiat money you have to buy BTC or ETH first. Yes there are some currencies like XRP or LTC you can buy using fiat but very very few exchanges offering this and with such high fees.

Let say you want to buy BTC using credit card.



Pay: $100
Fee: $14 (14%)

Now same if you want to buy LTC using credit card.



Pay: $100
Fee: $10.14 (10%)

Now let see how much fee is there if you want transfer or send ETH or BTC

I transferred yesterday 0.2ETH to someone, transaction details https://etherscan.io/tx/0xaabd4134c8d7fe30510e906bd9286ac54d6a208903e597a817c48aa345a8cf60

Pay: 0.2ETH
Fee: 0.002289512 ETH  (1.14%)
Confirmation after: 01:33 hours

Also sent some BTC on 22nd Jan, transaction details https://blockchain.info/tx/8bfc5825a1976a143149e53d86d06695a61091be649ffba4073c8d5ef8497afd

Pay: 0.01BTC
Fee: 0.00083BTC (8.3%)
Confirmation time: 00:10 minutes

So these heavy fees (8%-10%) and delays in transaction (10 min to hours) are not practical at all. That's why people are loosing faith in crypto currencies. It's purely my opinion of course you can differ.

One more thing people currently involved in crypto market are actually here to make quick profits. There are no real life scenarios where people are actually dealing in crypto currencies and i guess fees and transaction delays are the main reason.

My question is will these issue be solved any soon?
Will there be a strong crytpo currency with real low fees and transaction confirmation on click? and can be bought and sold easily?




 

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[Carlton Banks]

So these heavy fees (8%-10%) and delays in transaction (10 min to hours) are not practical at all. That's why people are loosing faith in crypto currencies. It's purely my opinion of course you can differ.

No, fees aren't charged as a percentage. It's misleading to present it this way.


For instance, if you sent 0.0000546 BTC (the minimum standard amount) yesterday with the same fee you paid (0.00083BTC), that would work out like this:


Pay: 0.0000546 BTC
Fee: 0.00083 BTC (1,520%)

That's not such a great deal.


Or, if you sent 5 BTC instead:

Pay: 5.0 BTC
Fee: 0.00083 BTC (0.0166%)

A better deal. Percentages are a misleading way to present Bitcoin fees.



The user can choose what fee they pay in Bitcoin, it depends how fast one wants to have their money sent. And some amounts are too small to be sent, even with the smallest fee (as in the 1,520% fee example above). All decentralised cryptocurrencies have this problem, real blockchains (Ethereum is not a decentralised blockchain) have limited on-chain resources.


The known solutions are:

1. Abstract the transactions away into a different protocol layer (i.e. off-chain payment channel networks)
2. Improve the scalability of transaction verification to increase the capacity of the on-chain protocol layer

[shahzadafzal]

No, fees aren't charged as a percentage. It's misleading to present it this way.

Yes, I agree 100%, presenting fees in percentage is wrong. But I calculated for per my transactions buying crypto using fiat money. Also if we talk about average online transaction amount let say on visa is 60 Euro or 75USD from 2010-2015. We can assume similar average amount people would be spending in crypto currencies too. Keeping this in mind fees are very high.

1. Abstract the transactions away into a different protocol layer (i.e. off-chain payment channel networks)
2. Improve the scalability of transaction verification to increase the capacity of the on-chain protocol layer

Well to be honest yes we all know scalability is one of the reasons but why we haven't had the solution already? Even if there are solution in some crypto currencies but those all coming with big question marks already.
Can ripple be that currency? Because I heard it addressed such scenarios again at the same time many experts not even ready to call it a crypto currency but kind of fiat with label of crypto currency.

Doesn't it look like we are still far far away from such ideal scenarios? like we have in form visa and credit card payments.

[Carlton Banks]

No, fees aren't charged as a percentage. It's misleading to present it this way.

Yes, I agree 100%, presenting fees in percentage is wrong. But I calculated for per my transactions buying crypto using fiat money.

This has nothing to do with Bitcoin itself though, that's a 3rd party charging those fees.

1. Abstract the transactions away into a different protocol layer (i.e. off-chain payment channel networks)
2. Improve the scalability of transaction verification to increase the capacity of the on-chain protocol layer

Well to be honest yes we all know scalability is one of the reasons but why we haven't had the solution already? Even if there are solution in some crypto currencies but those all coming with big question marks already.
Can ripple be that currency? Because I heard it addressed such scenarios again at the same time many experts not even ready to call it a crypto currency but kind of fiat with label of crypto currency.

Doesn't it look like we are still far far away from such ideal scenarios? like we have in form visa and credit card payments.

People are (over-enthusiastically) using off-chain payment channels already. Fees are cheap (0.00000001 BTC).

It's not recommended right now, the tech is not mature and money could be lost. But some (brave) websites will accept payments this way, so it's not an unreasonable projection that payment channels could be sufficiently well evolved that they'll be more mainstream later this year. Real-world use should help to tease out any problems that need fixing, despite the fact that this is not recommended due to the short-term risks.

Scaling on-chain transaction verification has some candidate technologies, but it's unlikely they'll be implemented on the Bitcoin network this year. But off-chain payment channels do more to add capacity, so that's not such an issue. Hence why off-chain payment channels are number 1 on my list above.

[shahzadafzal]

Your question is more economic than technological  correct?
The best deal is direct selling(p2p) using online sellers " local bitcoin "and pay cash.
These companies/sites use the highest fees to ensure that the payments will be received as soon as possible and guaranteed

Hmm not really you know why because any crypto payment starts with these exchanges from fiat money to crypto, only then comes p2p transactions.

[Carlton Banks]

Your question is more economic than technological  correct?
The best deal is direct selling(p2p) using online sellers " local bitcoin "and pay cash.
These companies/sites use the highest fees to ensure that the payments will be received as soon as possible and guaranteed

Hmm not really you know why because any crypto payment starts with these exchanges from fiat money to crypto, only then comes p2p transactions.

No, you're wrong. The screenshots you included show Bitcoin (and Litecoin) fees for their respective p2p networks, and the level is chosen for the user by the website you are using. And the website isn't choosing the cheapest fee for you, it's choosing a medium priced fee (they should let the user choose how much to pay, and explain the problems with using very high or very low fees)

[Samarkand]

...
The user can choose what fee they pay in Bitcoin, it depends how fast one wants to have their money sent. And some amounts are too small to be sent, even with the smallest fee (as in the 1,520% fee example above). All decentralised cryptocurrencies have this problem, real blockchains (Ethereum is not a decentralised blockchain) have limited on-chain resources.


The known solutions are:

1. Abstract the transactions away into a different protocol layer (i.e. off-chain payment channel networks)
2. Improve the scalability of transaction verification to increase the capacity of the on-chain protocol layer

What if there are more solutions aside from the two solutions that you mentioned?

E.g. probabilistic payments could be a method of circumventing the problem that some amounts are either
too small to be sent or the transaction fee would make the transaction uneconomical.

I´ll quote BitcoinWiki, because I really like the way that they explain the concept
of probabilistic payments:

Nanopayments are tiny payments for a trivial service. For example, 0.0001 BTC
for each of three Tor nodes to relay one megabyte of traffic with premium priority.
It should be easy to see that a series of payments like this would be "spam" to Bitcoin,
and infeasible due to transaction fees, and unwelcome to everyone who must download and store the whole block chain.

The idea, in a nutshell, is for Alice to make a 0.0001 BTC nanopayment to Bob by signing a message not worth 0.0001 BTC,
but by signing a message that has 1 in 10000 probability of being worth 1 BTC, and sending it to Bob directly. This message
would function much like a share in a mining pool. Out of 10000 nanopayments, on average, 9999 will be worthless and 1 will not.

For it to work fairly, Alice must not have any way to know which share is actually redeemable to the recipient.

Of course, due to variance, Alice will sometimes get her services for free, and sometimes she will vastly overpay.
However, if she consumes such services regularly, the amount she pays will tend toward the amount she consumes.

I concede that this concept is probably unfeasible for many purposes, but in some areas
this could really be a viable solution for enabling micropayments.

[Kprawn]

What I like about Bitcoin is the fact that the amount makes no difference to the size of the fee. Some Banks have sliding scales

for transfers that are done. {Example : For every $100 increment, you pay slightly higher fees} The same is applicable to

some payment networks like M-Pesa. In Bitcoin you can send $10,000,000 for the same miners fee as say $1000. 

[onnz423]

The fees are massively lower lately, increases in segwit adoption and clearance of the mempool have drastically reduce the fees. The reason the market is falling is due to the news outlining potential regulatory changes in India and China, the crash is definitely transient, and will probably clear up within a couple of days.

[Carlton Banks]

The known solutions are:

What if there are more solutions aside from the two solutions that you mentioned?

E.g. probabilistic payments could be a method of circumventing the problem that some amounts are either
too small to be sent or the transaction fee would make the transaction uneconomical.

If there are more solutions proposed than I was aware of, then you get a merit

Sounds interesting, although I'm wondering if this is one of this proposals that's been "on the shelf" for a while? Alot of that sort of stuff on the Bitcoin wiki site was written several years ago.


Still, we should encourage the lateral-thinking spirit: coming up with unexpected innovations often results from trying to look at a problem a different way, and that means not accepting the established assumptions about the nature of that problem. There's be no Bitcoin if Satoshi had given up if he'd assumed the Byzantine general's problem was unsolvable.

[nsiman]

I think it goes beyond this... ..for me one major challenge we are having if FUD......if most investors can be firm then that will go a long way in making the market stable

[Stedsm]

Your question is more economic than technological  correct?
The best deal is direct selling(p2p) using online sellers " local bitcoin "and pay cash.

But still, it doesn't remove the fee part. Even exchanges charge you something and the one who is selling Bitcoins is sure to pay the fee.
If you are buyer today, won't you sell your coins some day ahead?

These companies/sites use the highest fees to ensure that the payments will be received as soon as possible and guaranteed

Are you trying to remove the problem or give it more air?

OP, once these exchanges start using SegWit addresses to let sellers use it to receive their coins there, I believe there might be a huge cut in the fee levels probably, but the condition is that - they need to switch it 100%.

I think that's the reason why Atomic Swap will be taking place in future.

[Samarkand]

...

If there are more solutions proposed than I was aware of, then you get a merit

Sounds interesting, although I'm wondering if this is one of this proposals that's been "on the shelf" for a while? Alot of that sort of stuff on the Bitcoin wiki site was written several years ago.


Still, we should encourage the lateral-thinking spirit: coming up with unexpected innovations often results from trying to look at a problem a different way, and that means not accepting the established assumptions about the nature of that problem. There's be no Bitcoin if Satoshi had given up if he'd assumed the Byzantine general's problem was unsolvable.

Thank you  

I wholeheartedly agree with your viewpoint. It is beneficial for the future development of Bitcoin
if people continue to look for unconventional solutions to problems.

I concede that the concept of probabilistic payments probably has been "on the shelf" for a while and not much has happened.
However, the concept has recently resurfaced in conjunction with the Lightning Network.

Take a look at the following paper:
https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.857/2017/project/7.pdf

Abstract.

With regular Bitcoin transactions, low-value, high-frequency payments
are increasingly impractical due to increasingly significant mining fees that must be
paid with each transaction. The Bitcoin Lightning Network is an extension to Bitcoin
that allows two parties to create a payment channel between themselves, allowing
payments to be made without committing many transactions to the blockchain,
thus avoiding substantial mining fees. However, these payments still cannot be
smaller than a satoshi, the smallest unit of Bitcoin. In this paper, we describe a
scheme for probabilistic payments in the Lightning Network, which can be utilized
to effectively make sub-satoshi microtransactions.

I happily admit that I´m probably not particularly impartial about the whole concept,
because I fell in love with the idea the first time I read about it.

I also have to admit that the solution mentioned by you in your earlier post has a
few other advantages:

1. Abstract the transactions away into a different protocol layer (i.e. off-chain payment channel networks)

Especially in terms of security scaling on a different protocol layer is a brilliant solution. Instead
of putting the main layer at risk by trying out new scaling solutions you also abstract the risk
away by making use of a different protocol layer.

This is also the reason why the Bitcoin Cash
roadmap is so dangerous. Let´s assume that they actually use 1GB blocks in the future
and encounter unforeseen issues. In this scenario they would have to roll back a change
like this on the main blockchain, which would be dangerous as well as a huge loss of trust.
If we assume that the Lightning Network of the real Bitcoin will encounter unforeseen issues
down the road, this doesn´t jeopardize the main layer at all.

This is basically the beauty of abstracting features away into different protocol layers in a nutshell.

[Anti-Cen]

Yes fees hitting a peek of $55 is preventing most newbies from risking a leap of faith by buying in to
Bitcoin and half the regulars are divided due to the Lightning Network introducing a system of hub
banking to Bitcoin.

Money going walk about as unconfirmed transactions is not helping matters and as for going "Off-Block"
kind of begs the question if we ever needed the magical block-chain in the first place.

What really crashing the markets is not what the BBC is reporting or what we are being feed here
about South Korea, France, India and tim-book-two closing miners down or trying to outlaw crypto-coins
because during prohibition the price of booze went up.

The real reason is that USDT is fake money, printed for nothing and therefore is not backed by real
$USD even if it's pegged at 1:1 and this counterfeit has been used to pump the price of Bitcoin up so before I get
attached for this by members of the faith for the second time today may I suggest that you listen to
this guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwKYbT9MoPE

We effectually have fake coins in our Bitcoin slot machine and could be looking at Bernard Madoff 2.0

[Anti-Cen]

Pay: 0.0000546 BTC
Fee: 0.00083 BTC (1,520%)

That's not such a great deal.

Or, if you sent 5 BTC instead:

Pay: 5.0 BTC
Fee: 0.00083 BTC (0.0166%)

I am useless at ten to the power of eight type maths so let have these numbers in English please so we can all
understand them please.

$10 per 250 bytes I make it https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html
so my 750mb copy of the batman movie must be worth a few hundred billion USD !

This $10 is about seven times the transaction cost of ETH that is mega high IMHO and about 10,000
times more than Bitcoin Gold but like I said I am useless at maths when I see small numbers like
$0.005 so i might have my numbers wrong

[dinofelis]

This is a fact that Bitcoin and Ethereum are the main currencies today. All other crypto currencies are some how based on one of these. If you want to buy any other crypto currency using fiat money you have to buy BTC or ETH first.

On Kraken, you can buy quite a lot of major crypto directly with fiat.  So I don't think that this matters.  Moreover, if you buy "BTC" on an exchange, you are actually only buying an exchange IOU.  Nothing happens on the block chain, and no miner fees are paid for.  The fee is only paid when you "withdraw" your coins, that is, when you nicely demand your exchange, to send you real BTC or other when you try to redeem their promise (the IOU).  Until then, no real crypto coins are handled, all this is just on the web site of your exchange. 
So if you buy a BTC IOU, and you then exchange that BTC IOU for Zombie Coin IOU on the same exchange, I don't see how the high fees on the BTC block chain that has nothing to do with this, has anything to do with what you're doing.

Of course, if you want to buy BTC on exchange 1 and send it to exchange 2, you have to pay twice a block chain fee.  This is why it is a bad idea to use BTC for that.  Use something like LTC or BCH or another cheap fee coin, it is much cheaper.  The actual price of LTC doesn't matter.  The only thing that might matter is the volatility between you exchanging your BTC IOU into a LTC IOU, withdrawing them, receiving your LTC from exchange 1, and you depositing your LTC on exchange 2, and exchanging the LTC IOU into a BTC IOU.  LTC being a very fast chain, the price change (the volatility risk) should be small.   You are only exposed for about 10 minutes or so to LTC volatility.  Whether LTC trades at $1 or at $1000, doesn't matter at all.  The amount of BTC you had on exchange 1 will be close to the amount of BTC on exchange 2 ; if the two trade fees on the exchange are small compared to the BTC block fee, you win on fees, it is faster and smoother.

[drwhobox]

Bitcoin fees? well the decision is still up to you depends on what and how long nor fast your transaction wanted to be confirmed.
take note you're paying miners to confirm your transaction

Buying crypto  with fiat may cost some charges depends on what and where you're buying from and the fees included with the transaction.

[CBESH]

Please correct me if I am wrong but isnt Eth cheaper to send than bitcoin and faster?

[ducphat254]

BTC ETH is the currency of the future

[sheenshane]

Please correct me if I am wrong but isnt Eth cheaper to send than bitcoin and faster?

It depends upon how much the gas to generate you to pay, transaction fee is needed in every transactions to pay miners the more amount you to pay the fee the faster transaction you have. But if you want cheaper transaction you must wait for it 1 to 3 hours is not bad for me to wait.
But i heard there's other network who hold the transaction of all crypto currencies more faster than regular transaction and it is called
the lightning networks.
~ less traffic overload transaction in blockchain.