I think I got robbed for 0.0005 bitcoins and why it may matter for the future.

[Skybuck]

Hello,

I think the robbery went down as follows:

1. I was testing bitcoin at the time to see if it can handle the minimum ammount which was something like 0.00000001.

2. I set the transaction fee to 0. (At least I think so ? Can I go back in time in the blockchain and see if a transaction fee was offered or not by me ?)

3. I send the minimum ammount to myself, to a new bitcoin address.

4. The transaction was accepted and confirmed and is now part of the blockchain however: 0.0005 bitcoins were deducted from the account where I sent it from, so that transaction now says: -0.0005    

(also the client doesn't even show the 0.00000001 maybe it gets rounded or so in the gui, also the client crashes was trying to catch up to latest blocks I will restart that later on).

So apperently somebody accepted the transaction but still charged transaction fees ? Is this allowed ?

The issue at hand is:

If in the future people want to make small little bitcoin transactions and they set the transaction fee to 0 they might be fooled into believing it's free, while in reality they get "robbed" like this ?!

So either I did something wrong ? Or bitcoin robbed me ! =D

(Another possibility could be that the little transaction was getting through for free and maybe I set the transaction fee to 0.0005 ? I don't think I would do that but I simply can't remember so... there ya go 3 possibilities.)

Bye,
  Skybuck.

[Remember remember the 5th of November]

Transaction ID to verify this? Also, it's not possible to set the fee to 0 on the client, not without some "hacks" anyway. Bitcoin used to support 1 satoshi transactions, but they were dust amounts, so the minimum amount you can send is 5430(or 54k?) satoshis I think.

Also, miners CANNOT charge you a fee. You are the one who willingly provides it, or you agree with the client to provide the necessary fee.

[gmaxwell]

It also always prompts and asks in the GUI if it needs to provide a fee to satisify the network rules, and in current software the fee required to satisfy the rules for dust transactions is 0.0001BTC/kb, so 0.0005 sounds surprising unless the transaction was build from a lot of dust or done with an old version of the software.

[Rluner]

Transaction ID to verify this?

Agree with the above quote; to look further into this incident you must provide the Transaction ID. Then all will be explained.

[Skybuck]

Transaction ID, (I wrote about this years ago, so privacy was already gone back then )

https://blockchain.info/nl/tx/12451e79632533ee082d304b09658a1da9be1cfb00797ba8bd99acd5423269eb

[inkadnb]

Doesn't make sense, you have a remaining balance, why would you get robbed for a low amount when there's more in that address?

You sure it wasn't a change address?

[Skybuck]

It also always prompts and asks in the GUI if it needs to provide a fee to satisify the network rules, and in current software the fee required to satisfy the rules for dust transactions is 0.0001BTC/kb, so 0.0005 sounds surprising unless the transaction was build from a lot of dust or done with an old version of the software.

I have two older versions of the software still on my harddisk, one of them was used:

bitcoin-0.4.0-win32
bitcoin-0.5.0rc7-win32

Today I installed a new version:

bitcoin-0.8.5-win32

I just started up one of the older versions: 0.4.0-beta. It's actually better for displaying the ammounts, it shows all 8 decimal places behind the comma.

I think what happened is the following:

Perhaps I got confused by the text in options, maybe I didn't read or understand it right it says:

"Optional transaction fee per kB etc". The new client still says this.

Perhaps I believed the 0 in that field indicates that no transaction costs will be charged, so for a newby maybe this mislead me believing that it was free.

How can a newb have any idea what this field is about I still find it a bit weird to this day

Also why 0 transaction fees (still) not allowed ? weird.

I also find it a bit weird that no miner is present... if people want to play the lottery why stop them ?

[Skybuck]

Doesn't make sense, you have a remaining balance, why would you get robbed for a low amount when there's more in that address?

You sure it wasn't a change address?

As far as I remember I did not want to pay any transaction fees, there is an option in the bitcoin client that says: "transaction fee: 0".

Apperently that's some optional transaction fee ? I don't understand how that would be collected or why it would matter ? I guess it has something to do with many many destinations or so or perhaps comments for the transaction... really weird.

So I believed I could do free small transactions and then somehow bitcoin send 0.001 btc ? then 0.0005 was taken away as transaction costs, and 0.0005 was returned or so ? or just 0.00000001 ?

You guys suppose to figure out what happened not me

So what does it look like to you ?

[grue]

Doesn't make sense, you have a remaining balance, why would you get robbed for a low amount when there's more in that address?

You sure it wasn't a change address?

As far as I remember I did not want to pay any transaction fees, there is an option in the bitcoin client that says: "transaction fee: 0".

Apperently that's some optional transaction fee ? I don't understand how that would be collected or why it would matter ? I guess it has something to do with many many destinations or so or perhaps comments for the transaction... really weird.

So I believed I could do free small transactions and then somehow bitcoin send 0.001 btc ? then 0.0005 was taken away as transaction costs, and 0.0005 was returned or so ? or just 0.00000001 ?

You guys suppose to figure out what happened not me

So what does it look like to you ?

no, you're supposed to read the prompts. if you set transaction fee to zero and the transaction needs a fee (determined by the client), it will ask you if you want to send with a fee, with options [ok] and [cancel]. this behavior was in bitcoin-wx and bitcoin-qt. the only explanation for you being "robbed" is you failing to read the prompts.

also, bitcoin transactions were never supposed to be free.

[Barek]

If you're using bitcoin-qt, you could try out Armory. It adds another layer of security and usability and gives you more control over the transactions.

Edit: As others have already mentioned, you payed 0.0005 fee.