I know this has been brought up before, but confirmation times are getting weird

[Impaler]

The way I see it their are three possible sources for the recent change.

1)  One or more of the large mining pools has changed how it mines recently
2)  The transactions mix has radically, changed such as a very high volume of 0 fee transactions being attempted recently
3)  The network communications have been disrupted in some way such that transactions are taking longer to reach miners

My naive guess is that the Chinese have 'discovered' that the transaction fee is optional and one of their trading sites/forums etc has caused a massive increase in 0 fee transactions being attempted.  If this is the case then they will probably only take a few more days of slowness for them to realize that the fee isn't so optional and they will cut it out.  If it's something else then it may be the new normal.

[chriswilmer]

The way I see it their are three possible sources for the recent change.

1)  One or more of the large mining pools has changed how it mines recently
2)  The transactions mix has radically, changed such as a very high volume of 0 fee transactions being attempted recently
3)  The network communications have been disrupted in some way such that transactions are taking longer to reach miners

My naive guess is that the Chinese have 'discovered' that the transaction fee is optional and one of their trading sites/forums etc has caused a massive increase in 0 fee transactions being attempted.  If this is the case then they will probably only take a few more days of slowness for them to realize that the fee isn't so optional and they will cut it out.  If it's something else then it may be the new normal.

+3

Well, in any case, now that people are starting to feel the pain of slower transaction confirmations it will be interesting to see how both miners and users respond (who will give first... the miners by creating larger blocks, as D&T pointed out, or the users [who care about tx confirmation times in the first place] by paying higher fees).

[Foxpup]

That is a flawed understanding of the fee rules.   High priority txs have no required fee, none.  As in 0 satsohis.  This applies regardless if a block is 1MB in size.  

The min mandatory fees FOR LOW PRIORITY TXS are designed as a denial of service prevention mechanism.  They are only enforced at the client level.   Even if miners follow those they have absolutely no effect on high priority txs.  

I don't think this is correct. Under the Satoshi client's fee rules (which as I understand are enforced by most, but certainly not all, miners), high priority transactions with no fees will only be included in the first 27 kB of a block (this limit can be changed with the blockprioritysize option). Once the block hits this limit, only fee-paying transactions will be included, regardless of priority.

Lastly the rules aren't enforced at the protocol level.  Miners an build any valid block they want by using custom bitcoind.  This is hardly beyond the capabilities of a major pool (all are using custom nodes already).  It is possible to have a block contain NOTHING but no fee txs (as in ~2,400 of them) and the block is still valid.

True, but hardly relevant unless a significant fraction of miners are using non-standard fee rules. A few do (which is the only reason transactions paying insufficient fees are ever confirmed at all), but I'm pretty sure most do not.

[phelix]

That is a flawed understanding of the fee rules.   High priority txs have no required fee, none.  As in 0 satsohis.  This applies regardless if a block is 1MB in size.  

The min mandatory fees FOR LOW PRIORITY TXS are designed as a denial of service prevention mechanism.  They are only enforced at the client level.   Even if miners follow those they have absolutely no effect on high priority txs.  

I don't think this is correct. Under the Satoshi client's fee rules (which as I understand are enforced by most, but certainly not all, miners), high priority transactions with no fees will only be included in the first 27 kB of a block (this limit can be changed with the blockprioritysize option). Once the block hits this limit, only fee-paying transactions will be included, regardless of priority.

this - as can be seen in the code above (v0.8.5)

Blocks are not getting full, average block size is 100 - 150kb at the moment from what I see in the last couple of blocks. This means there probably are more zero fee TXs than what can fit into the 27kb area of blocks.

edit: it's the weekend, so maybe blocks really are becoming large. Average block size comes somewhat close to 250k:
http://blockchain.info/de/charts/avg-block-size?timespan=60days&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

[dserrano5]

That is a flawed understanding of the fee rules.   High priority txs have no required fee, none.  As in 0 satsohis.  This applies regardless if a block is 1MB in size.  

The min mandatory fees FOR LOW PRIORITY TXS are designed as a denial of service prevention mechanism.  They are only enforced at the client level.   Even if miners follow those they have absolutely no effect on high priority txs.  

I don't think this is correct. Under the Satoshi client's fee rules (which as I understand are enforced by most, but certainly not all, miners), high priority transactions with no fees will only be included in the first 27 kB of a block (this limit can be changed with the blockprioritysize option). Once the block hits this limit, only fee-paying transactions will be included, regardless of priority.

FWIW all my transactions are high priority ones and I've observed a steep increase in confirmation times, going up to nine hours in some cases, when their priority reaches several thousand million.

[afrustrum]

Not sure if this sheds any light on the block size effects of various pools, but here is
a recent snapshot of blocks. What I do not understand is how the Eligius miner created such a small block when there were over 1200 unconfirmed transactions in the mem pool. Direct link: https://i.imgur.com/S29IMDg.png

https://i.imgur.com/S29IMDg.png

[chriswilmer]

That is a flawed understanding of the fee rules.   High priority txs have no required fee, none.  As in 0 satsohis.  This applies regardless if a block is 1MB in size.  

The min mandatory fees FOR LOW PRIORITY TXS are designed as a denial of service prevention mechanism.  They are only enforced at the client level.   Even if miners follow those they have absolutely no effect on high priority txs.  

I don't think this is correct. Under the Satoshi client's fee rules (which as I understand are enforced by most, but certainly not all, miners), high priority transactions with no fees will only be included in the first 27 kB of a block (this limit can be changed with the blockprioritysize option). Once the block hits this limit, only fee-paying transactions will be included, regardless of priority.

FWIW all my transactions are high priority ones and I've observed a steep increase in confirmation times, going up to nine hours in some cases, when their priority reaches several thousand million.

Interesting!

[niothor]

Well threshold would imply some sort of cental block planning agency.   Various miners have various different block parameters.  Tx volume is higher than the block size being created by the various parameters currently used by various miners.   Some miners target larger blocks, some target smaller ones, a couple seem to include nothing but the coinbase tx.   Collectively all miners have a certain tx throughput which is less than the tx volume and the limit imposed by the 1MB cap.

Miners can either expand the # of tx they include in blocks
OR
Users can collectively reduce tx volume
OR
The backlog will grow

For the time being a way to put yourself at the front of the line is to pay a tx fee but that won't reduce/eliminate the backlog it will just ensure your tx has a higher chance of going first.

I really hope this will never happen , but let's say that in case number of transactions grows and it starts putting pressure on the limit of the block
IF  , the miners don't agree to raising the limits of the block but to raise the fee in order to discourage micropayments  .....wouldn't we end up with something like...  banks?

[laowai80]

IF  , the miners don't agree to raising the limits of the block but to raise the fee in order to discourage micropayments  .....wouldn't we end up with something like...  banks?

That's exactly one of the reasons why we need competition in crypto currencies and relying just on bitcoin is a single point of failure. Monopolizing the network together with greed can easily lead to abuse. Human nature is the same at all times, no matter what noble cause there was in the beginning, people more often than not tend to lean to their own selfish ways, and check points and counter-balances need to be in place.

[Barek]

As long as transaction with reasonable fee are processed in a timely manner all is good.

Miners are the heart of Bitcoin. Higher mining profits directly improve the infrastructure. A couple of cents in fees are hardly much, considering that transaction will be stored on thousands of computers forever.

What we really need is a method to add fees to a transaction, ideally through an extra transaction, so that merchants (or anyone else) could hurry a transaction.

[BitchicksHusband]

Why aren't the transactions just sorted and filled?  The miners could take the most fees they could fit in the block and then fill the rest with free ones up to the limit ordered by priority.

[Barek]

Why aren't the transactions just sorted and filled?  The miners could take the most fees they could fit in the block and then fill the rest with free ones up to the limit ordered by priority.

Then hardly anyone would pay fees, which can't be in the miner's interest.

[safeminer]

cant this be caused by mastercoin stuffing everyblock with useless information with their crap-r-col

[Barek]

cant this be caused by mastercoin stuffing everyblock with useless information with their crap-r-col

Possible that they are reacting to some sort of transaction DOS "attack". Someone could just be creating a massive amount of no-fee transactions. While there is not much to be done against that, accepting only transactions with fees allows "legitimate" transactions to be processed, while it keeps the others in check.

[MoonShadow]

Well threshold would imply some sort of cental block planning agency.   Various miners have various different block parameters.  Tx volume is higher than the block size being created by the various parameters currently used by various miners.   Some miners target larger blocks, some target smaller ones, a couple seem to include nothing but the coinbase tx.   Collectively all miners have a certain tx throughput which is less than the tx volume and the limit imposed by the 1MB cap.

Miners can either expand the # of tx they include in blocks
OR
Users can collectively reduce tx volume
OR
The backlog will grow

For the time being a way to put yourself at the front of the line is to pay a tx fee but that won't reduce/eliminate the backlog it will just ensure your tx has a higher chance of going first.

I really hope this will never happen , but let's say that in case number of transactions grows and it starts putting pressure on the limit of the block
IF  , the miners don't agree to raising the limits of the block but to raise the fee in order to discourage micropayments  .....wouldn't we end up with something like...  banks?

Some people will prefer banking institutions anyway, althouth  they wouldn't function quite the same.  But no, we don't need to go there.  Another solution is overlay networks, online wallet sites that agree to delayed settlement, mass transactions, blockchain contracts, etc.  There are a lot of ways to move the burden of transactions off of the main network (that the protocol supports) than the obvious general rule today that all transactions are recorded on the blockchain individually and in a near term.  Many to many transactions is one method of reducing the absolute number of transactions, for example.

[p2pbucks]

Are Miners rejecting Mastercoin tx  now ? Since They are insisting on larger fees instead of zero fees . I dont understand MSC , just guess . Check the tx from the 1Exodus address

[User705]

Could it be that solo-miners are perhaps thinking mining empty blocks gives a higher odds % to solve blocks?

[C. Bergmann]

hei... i am no friend of fees ... today i had a talk with someone working for a company making statistics for payments. he told me this. paying with ec in europe we have two options . pin or signature. signature is very insecure, pin costs one euro each transaction. yes. one euro. the companys job is to make complicated statistics when its better to accept pin or sign .... in short. even with thirty minutes confir!ation time and fees btc is far more effectivw than banking.

[franky1]

Not sure if this sheds any light on the block size effects of various pools, but here is
a recent snapshot of blocks. What I do not understand is how the Eligius miner created such a small block when there were over 1200 unconfirmed transactions in the mem pool. Direct link: https://i.imgur.com/S29IMDg.png

this will shed some light on eligius

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334316.0

and this is my explaination to the delay its causes

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=334316.msg3605784#msg3605784

[Impaler]

It looks like it was #1 (Miners are mining differently), frankly I think it's a stupid idea too, it looks like people are raising a stink about it and it will be reverted shortly.