bitcoin transactions costs in the future

[uneng]

The source of future transactions

One of the biggest critics made to bitcoin so far are the expensive costs that a transaction can reach when the network is overloaded. However on long run, specialists and enthusiasts defend it's not a problem, as the hardwares, responsible for the mining operation are evolving, getting more powerful to process the transactions faster and with less effort. What doesn't change is the fact that miners have to earn money from this operation anyway, as electricity isn't for free and their equipments are expensive.

So I would like to add a possibility: if the necessary energy to move the mining activity was supplied *for free*, could btc transactions be executed for free as well? As the world is evolving, renewable sources of energy are becoming even more popular and sustainable (taking our daily needs in consideration). Elon Musk's Tesla has already made a 100mw battery, and the conclusion is that it's paid back in 20 months, an incredible economy compared to the expensive electricity we use yet.

Now think if a solar energy farm with a battery like that were used to create bitcoin transactions. It's an infinite and free source or energy, right? At least after the investment is paid back. My doubt is how miners could return the fees to the transaction senders in this case. Would it be possible? Would you like to add any thoughts?

Tesla 100mw battery in South Australia

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[rijaljun]

If it's free, miners don't need to send the transaction fee back because senders would not even add transaction fee to the chain. Nothing to return. Is possible to send Bitcoin without fee? I'm not really sure, fee is like a fuel and every car needs fuel to be able to run. Not sure about zero fee but it's absolutely possible to make the transaction fee near zero, unfortunately there is always a fee war. Some people agree to pay more fee to accelerate their transactions or simply ruin the chains, make it very busy so other people will move to other coins. This is the problem, even though the fee is 1 Satoshi, I think we would never do that because our transactions will take forever to be confirmed.

[Twinkledoe]

Even using the renewable source of energy, you still need to cover the initial investments of the equipment used. So you still need to charge fee for every transaction, though you have the option to lower such charges. And in that regard, future bitcoin transaction fees might be lower as compared to current rates, even if you want to add more satoshis to accelerate your transaction.

[Ailmand]

The price of transaction could be lesser if that would be the case. Transactions being free might be impossible since miners are still investing for their set-up and maintenance. With the evolving mining equipment and natural energy as a source in the future the possibility of transactions to be cheaper regardless of the crypto price is attainable.

[btc_angela]

But miners need to recover their ROI on their bitcoin mining gear, will have to pay people to maintain the mining farm so there is still a cost eventhough they will get free renewable energy in the future. And besides, mining fee is base on the hashing difficulty, so the more difficult it to find a block, the more fee's we need to pay.

[boyptc]

The logic is, what if all the miners are already using renewable energy and solar panel for their farms?

Isn't it free energy for all of them and the cost of mining would also be free? IMO, there's no need for any return from miners fee back to the sender because it's the fee for confirming our transactions.

[xvids]

The source of future transactions

One of the biggest critics made to bitcoin so far are the expensive costs that a transaction can reach when the network is overloaded. However on long run, specialists and enthusiasts defend it's not a problem, as the hardwares, responsible for the mining operation are evolving, getting more powerful to process the transactions faster and with less effort. What doesn't change is the fact that miners have to earn money from this operation anyway, as electricity isn't for free and their equipments are expensive.

So I would like to add a possibility: if the necessary energy to move the mining activity was supplied *for free*, could btc transactions be executed for free as well? As the world is evolving, renewable sources of energy are becoming even more popular and sustainable (taking our daily needs in consideration). Elon Musk's Tesla has already made a 100mw battery, and the conclusion is that it's paid back in 20 months, an incredible economy compared to the expensive electricity we use yet.

Now think if a solar energy farm with a battery like that were used to create bitcoin transactions. It's an infinite and free source or energy, right? At least after the investment is paid back. My doubt is how miners could return the fees to the transaction senders in this case. Would it be possible? Would you like to add any thoughts?

~snip~

I think transaction fee would always be there it is the source of income of a miner .
If the transaction would be free why would the miners continue to mine specially in the future when all of the supply has been mined?

[Jating]

But miners need to recover their ROI on their bitcoin mining gear, will have to pay people to maintain the mining farm so there is still a cost eventhough they will get free renewable energy in the future. And besides, mining fee is base on the hashing difficulty, so the more difficult it to find a block, the more fee's we need to pay.

Right, I mean it's business, specially for big mining farms such as Bitmain. So there will always be fee going to be put on all bitcoin transactions an of course to all of us.

But I just do hope that it's not that exorbitant anymore because it they can harness free electricity or at least reduce the cost of mining a coin, then they're no reasons for any high fees.

[leea-1334]

Did anyone watch the funny video about Roger Ver and Tone Vays. I hate both of them and they are silly but it was stupid to see Roger Ver lose a $10k bet with Tone Vays. He said he would give 10k to Tone if Tone could send $5 of Bitcoin to someone with 1 satoshi/byte fee and it would confirm.

It did, of course. Bitcoin fees are high now yes but because mempool is big. On normal times 1 satoshi is always enough.

[NeuroticFish]

Now think if a solar energy farm with a battery like that were used to create bitcoin transactions. It's an infinite and free source or energy, right? At least after the investment is paid back. My doubt is how miners could return the fees to the transaction senders in this case. Would it be possible? Would you like to add any thoughts?

You are so wrong... A business always has its costs.

Let's say electricity is for free and the devices are paid, those for the electricity and those for mining.
This or that will break from time to time (miners, light cells, network routers, name it) and some of them are not cheap, so some money has to be put aside for those.
The internet is not for free.
The space where everything is running is not for free.
The cooling.. OK, let's add the cooling to the things already paid and which will only break now and then.
Good. We have a better image, only one thing is still missing: nobody likes to work for free.

So no matter what, the miners will have to be paid. The fees are not big (usually). It's up to them to evolve and switch to free electricity to stay in competition... and that's all.

[dark08]

The source of future transactions

One of the biggest critics made to bitcoin so far are the expensive costs that a transaction can reach when the network is overloaded. However on long run, specialists and enthusiasts defend it's not a problem, as the hardwares, responsible for the mining operation are evolving, getting more powerful to process the transactions faster and with less effort. What doesn't change is the fact that miners have to earn money from this operation anyway, as electricity isn't for free and their equipments are expensive.

So I would like to add a possibility: if the necessary energy to move the mining activity was supplied *for free*, could btc transactions be executed for free as well? As the world is evolving, renewable sources of energy are becoming even more popular and sustainable (taking our daily needs in consideration). Elon Musk's Tesla has already made a 100mw battery, and the conclusion is that it's paid back in 20 months, an incredible economy compared to the expensive electricity we use yet.

Now think if a solar energy farm with a battery like that were used to create bitcoin transactions. It's an infinite and free source or energy, right? At least after the investment is paid back. My doubt is how miners could return the fees to the transaction senders in this case. Would it be possible? Would you like to add any thoughts?

~snip~

I think transaction fee would always be there it is the source of income of a miner .
If the transaction would be free why would the miners continue to mine specially in the future when all of the supply has been mined?

Transaction fee is one of reason why we have a miners this indicate their earning to cover from their expenses like electricity and cost of the miner gadget. Having a solar panel is good for miners but imagine you run a miner for free this is impossible to happen right now the transaction cost too high.

[befriendmywater]

 If bitcoin is really influential in the future, the solar power industry will surely have a good market and we can do it in the future.
transactions are becoming more and more investors need blocks to be processed faster.
I think we need to focus on exploiting bitcoin more in the future to make blocks processed faster and of course we will also be rewarded with bitcoin mining.

[Genemind]

It's important and necessary if they would mine freely through solar energy and it would decrease the energy consumption as well but I guess it couldn't make every crypto transactions free as well. It's where miners earn for their resources.
They could make it quite cheaper but they couldn't eliminate it.

[Adriano2010]

To create a "free energy system" are necessary a lot of money, and even so they can't make the bitcoin transaction for free, all of this cost money and after sometime the system need to be replaced with new solar panels, and also mining equipment is not cheap, so always will be a fee on bitcoin transactions.

[1Referee]

The logic is, what if all the miners are already using renewable energy and solar panel for their farms?

Isn't it free energy for all of them and the cost of mining would also be free? IMO, there's no need for any return from miners fee back to the sender because it's the fee for confirming our transactions.

Free is free when a farm doesn't have land that it's renting or paid millions for in advance, and doesn't have any other operational cost. This is more of a fairytale.

People wrongly assume that pools represent one single entity, which isn't the case at all. Pools have thousands of larger/smaller miners pointing their hashrate to them, which means that the hashrate distribution in reality is more distrubited than the pie chart shows you. How on earth do you expect all these individual miners to enjoy 'free' electricity?

[finaleshot2016]

To create a "free energy system" are necessary a lot of money, and even so they can't make the bitcoin transaction for free, all of this cost money and after sometime the system need to be replaced with new solar panels, and also mining equipment is not cheap, so always will be a fee on bitcoin transactions.

It requires a lot of devices needed just to create a free energy system. And also free energy can't exist, because mostly the common source of energy is from our environment.

Agree with you to the part that it needed a lot of maintenance to cover up the whole system and the free bitcoin transaction is too ambitious. It's better to rely on environmental equipment like solar panels to decrease the power consumption on the device.

Free is free when a farm doesn't have land that it's renting or paid millions for in advance, and doesn't have any other operational cost. This is more of a fairytale.

The project is very ambitious and it's impossible to implement because of the details.

[uneng]

Thanks for all replies. I understand your concerns that even having access to a free source of energy there are the maintenance costs of the whole equipments, that can be very expensive. Although in the future I think this activity will be optimized: more powerful hardwares, longer durability, less equipments needed, cheaper costs involved. Consequently, a fee near zero cost is possible.

Another approach would be that even crypto friendly governments could offer this service in a far future. In a way people should pay only for the maintenance costs.

[bittraffic]

The transaction fees are what keep miners mining, even with the access of these wind turbines and and solar panels they the electricity may not be cheap due to it, they miners needs to get paid well. The other option to take is to pick an altcoin where transaction is lesser. There are stable coins too, it that makes the charges fixed.

[kryptqnick]

So I would like to add a possibility: if the necessary energy to move the mining activity was supplied *for free*, could btc transactions be executed for free as well? As the world is evolving, renewable sources of energy are becoming even more popular and sustainable (taking our daily needs in consideration). Elon Musk's Tesla has already made a 100mw battery, and the conclusion is that it's paid back in 20 months, an incredible economy compared to the expensive electricity we use yet.

Now think if a solar energy farm with a battery like that were used to create bitcoin transactions. It's an infinite and free source or energy, right? At least after the investment is paid back. My doubt is how miners could return the fees to the transaction senders in this case. Would it be possible? Would you like to add any thoughts?

If there was free electricity, miners would still need some incentives for working, right? Sure, they are mining and getting block rewards for now. But as less and less BTC is left, the bigger and bigger stake of the rewards come from transaction fees. What I am saying is that it's probably not a long-term solution anyway. All of the bitcoins will be mined by the middle of the next century. Yet someone will have to still validate the transactions, right? And they won't want to work for free, of course. Oh, and apart from investing time and perhaps paying salaries miners also need to cover the costs of their equipment, not just electricity. Once we solve the electricity and equipment costs problems, Bitcoins will be mined or very closed to be mined, and incentives for confirmations of transaction fees will be needed more than ever.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

So no matter what, the miners will have to be paid.

Bingo, bro.  The cost of electricity or whether the mining equipment is already paid off only makes a small difference--and it's an unlikely scenario in most cases anyway that power is going to be free and mining has produced enough profit to pay for all the hardware in full.  And if you're talking about a solar-powered mining farm, that just isn't going to happen if people don't pay fees (or very small ones).

I'll admit I'm not expert in mining.  I know very little about it, in fact.  What I'm wondering is what would happen if bitcoin's price reached a level that was so insane that 1 satoshi was something like $5 or even higher.  Would that not screw up the entire bitcoin system?  There would be no way to send small amounts of bitcoin or very exact amounts, much less pay a fee to the miners.  Am I missing something in that hypothetical case other than the fact that 1 satoshi will probably never be worth that much?