who wants 0.005 btc?

[annoyed]

-

[deepceleron]

Just wait a week and you will be able to send the coins for free.

Edit: a Bitcoin fee rule exists making all transactions under .01BTC require a fee.

[annoyed]

why do i have to wait a week?

[deepceleron]

You should still be able to send most of your .005 BTC now, the minimum TX fee is .0005 BTC, so you can still send .0045 with a .0005 fee.

Mandatory fees are enforced using a simple but yet complex formula. Transactions need to have a priority above 57,600,000 to avoid the enforced fee in the official client. Transaction priority is calculated as a value-weighted sum of input age, divided by transaction size in bytes:

priority = sum(input_value_in_base_units * confirmations)/size_in_bytes

For your very small amount, my time guess was wrong - you can send the BTC for free after:

confirmations > 57,600,000 * 225 / 500000 -- 25920 confirmations, or around 180 days

(for 225 bytes (a one input, one output transaction), 500000 satoshi (.005 BTC), 144 confirmations a day on average)

The enforced fees on newer coins and smaller amounts are to discourage people from spamming Bitcoin with a whole bunch of little transfers.

[annoyed]

kthx, must've mistaken 0.0005 for 0.005 ^^;

btw i googled satoshi after you mentioned it (never heard of it before), but im not quite sure how to use it as a bitcoin term. is it something technical about the network or the processing of information or is it synonymous for 0.00000001 btc (which was the smallest amount possible if im not mistaken), ie could i say "my current balance is 500 000 satoshi"?

oh and while im on the topic, why 21 million?
why is that (going to be) the maximum amount of bitcoins?
is there a specific reason for that exact number or is it just because the creator made it that way? (a round number like 10 million or a hex-divisible like 16 777 216 seems more reasonable (from the viewpoint of a noob of course))

also, is it theoretically(!) possible that all remaining bitcoins could be mined by end of this year or is there some algorithm or something to prevent that from happening (mining is basically luck-based, correct?)?
also, is there a guarantee that all bitcoins will be available by 2040 (or whatever year they predicted) or is possible that there might still be a few "unmined" btc 200 years from now?

[annoyed]

must've mistaken 0.0005 for 0.005

that's exactly what happened ^^;
redonated it to the faucet

[cruikshank]

also, is it theoretically(!) possible that all remaining bitcoins could be mined by end of this year or is there some algorithm or something to prevent that from happening (mining is basically luck-based, correct?)?
also, is there a guarantee that all bitcoins will be available by 2040 (or whatever year they predicted) or is possible that there might still be a few "unmined" btc 200 years from now?

The network adjusts the hash difficulty so that it pays out in a consistent manner. The only way there could be any unmined coins if everyone walked away, I believe. Though some bitcions aren't available now, if a wallet.dat is deleted, or if someone screws a tx packet.