Bitcoin transaction fees (in sats/kb). Sunday, Saturday are best to move BTC

[logfiles]

Mempool has cleared right now members(Very few unconfirmed transactions in it). Time to move your bitcoins at 1 sat/byte if you can 


https://mempool.space/



https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,2h

[tranthidung]

It's the weekend and today is Saturday!

Mempool was cleared about 5 hours ago and now if you check on https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,24h, you can see that the total size of waiting transactions with 2 satoshis⁺ in fee rate is at 0.29 MB, even less than 1 MB. You can get fast confirmation in next one or two blocks with fees at 2 satoshis/ (v)byte.

Tomorrow, Sunday, I expect to see the mempool will be clearer and you will have chances to move your bitcoin at 1 satoshi/ (v)byte. Hurry up guys!

For transaction counts over different hourframes, today I run with data again and once again, statistics show there are some hour-frames have less transactions than the other hour-frames. It means even in the weekends, there are some hour-frames you usually have cheaper fees.

• Period: 2020-01-01 00:03:05 2020-09-25 23:55:47 UTC time
• Blocks: 610691 - 650003

See details below

Code:

     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
     | rank_median    hour_frame   median      p25    p75      iqr   min    max |
     |--------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  1. |           1     1 - 6 UTC     1863      994   2507     1513     1   3712 |
  2. |           2    7 - 12 UTC   2231.5   1359.5   2602   1242.5     1   3908 |
  3. |           3    19 - 0 UTC     2281     1291   2740     1449     1   3809 |
  4. |           4   13 - 18 UTC   2389.5   1831.5   2753    921.5     1   3797 |
     +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+

[MrFreeDragon]

-snip-
Hurry up guys!

For not urgent transaction (like collecting several inputs into one) you can easily post your transaction with 1sat/byte and wait... usually within a week the transaction is confirmed. Is this possible way for dealing with not urgent transactions?

[tranthidung]

For not urgent transaction (like collecting several inputs into one) you can easily post your transaction with 1sat/byte and wait... usually within a week the transaction is confirmed. Is this possible way for dealing with not urgent transactions?

Hours ago:
If you are in emergency and need urgent transaction, you need to choose a fee rate with total size of waiting transactions are less than 1 MB. In my previous post (hours ago), you can make urgent transaction even at 1 satoshi/ (v)byte. It will be confirmed in next one block or if you are not lucky enough (because mempool suddenly rises a little), you will have to wait for 2 or 3 blocks later. To make sure you will get first confirmation next 1 block, you can choose 2 satoshi/ (v)byte.


Now:
Look at mempool, in order to get confirmations next 1 block, you should choose fee rate at 3 or 5 satoshi/ (v)byte. It is only to make sure you can be able to avoid sudden increases in mempool size. For me, I will set up my fee rate at 1 and wait for next few hours. I bet it will be confirmed.  

Check it at https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,2h (for 2-hour window). You can choose narrow or wide window at top right corner of that site.

[joniboini]

Is this possible way for dealing with not urgent transactions?

Obviously. 1 sat/vbyte is the "cheapest fee" you can choose. Whether you want to consolidate your inputs, or sweep your funds into another wallet, or other kind of transactions that you believe are not urgent and you can wait for weeks, 1 sat/vbyte regardless of the mempool condition is a good choice.

[MrFreeDragon]

Is this possible way for dealing with not urgent transactions?

Obviously. 1 sat/vbyte is the "cheapest fee" you can choose. Whether you want to consolidate your inputs, or sweep your funds into another wallet, or other kind of transactions that you believe are not urgent and you can wait for weeks, 1 sat/vbyte regardless of the mempool condition is a good choice.

Yes, for legacy addresses the smallest possible fee is 1 sat/vbyte, for segwit addresses it is appox. 0.7 sat/vbyte, for bech32 addresses even less

[tranthidung]

Yes, for legacy addresses the smallest possible fee is 1 sat/vbyte, for segwit addresses it is appox. 0.7 sat/vbyte, for bech32 addresses even less

bench32 addresses are Segwit addresses. I guess you misunderstood bench32 addresses.
With Segwit address, your transaction fee will be calculated from total virtual size

virtual size = total weight units/ 4

Total weight unit = bytes (of witness data) * 1 + bytes (of non-witness data)*4

• Witness data takes 1 weight unit for each.
• Non-witness data takes 4 weight units for each

The fee rate is in satoshis/ virtual byte. If you are able to reduce your transaction size, your transaction fee will be reduced. It is why Segwit address can help you.

If you use fee estimations in wallets, you need to choose mempool rather than ETA. ETA usually gives you over-high fee rate because it uses the estimated blocks to have confirmation for your transactions.

Mempool option is better because wallet will use mempool size to estimate fee rate for you. 1 Block has size ~ 1MB. Mempool size changes quickly and look at mempool size can help you to avoid over-use of high fee than needed.

See Techniques to reduce transaction fees

Patient spending
Very useful for non-urgent transactions. Not useful for urgent transactions

Spenders who can patiently wait for their transactions to confirm can take advantage of variations in the feerate necessary to achive confirmation. For example, sometimes several Bitcoin blocks are produced in quick succession, raising the effective supply of block space by several multiples; other times, demand drops off, such as fees on Sunday being on average 20% lower than fees on Friday in Q4 2017. Looking at data from the widely-used fee estimator included in Bitcoin Core, we can see fee savings of 90% or more possible, with around 50% being easily obtainable by many patient spenders.

You can compare their figures for difference between fees in Sunday and Friday and compares with mine. I gonna give you update on this soon.

The chart and corresponding table shows that if you are patient enough to wait for up to 6 hours, you can get up to 55% saving in fee.[/list]

[nc50lc]

Is this possible way for dealing with not urgent transactions?

Obviously. 1 sat/vbyte is the "cheapest fee" you can choose. Whether you want to consolidate your inputs, or sweep your funds into another wallet, or other kind of transactions that you believe are not urgent and you can wait for weeks, 1 sat/vbyte regardless of the mempool condition is a good choice.

Yes, for legacy addresses the smallest possible fee is 1 sat/vbyte, for segwit addresses it is appox. 0.7 sat/vByte, for bech32 addresses even less

You used vByte for SegWit, so the minimum should be 1sat/vByte, any lower will be non-standard.
It will only show as ±0.7sat/Byte if it's based from the raw bytes like what blockchain.com's explorer or wallet/clients that don't support SegWit are displaying.

[o_e_l_e_o]

1 Block has size ~ 1MB.

Again, we need to make a distinction here between megabytes and virtual megabytes. A block will be 1 megabyte in virtual size, but can be up to 4 megabytes in physical size.

If you use Jochen Hoenicke's graph, for example, then each block will take a maximum of 1 megabyte of transactions off the graph since the transaction sizes are displayed in virtual bytes.

On the other hand, if you use a site like https://mempool.space, blocks are displayed with their physical size, which is almost always greater than 1 megabyte unless the mempool is empty.

[tranthidung]

It's the weekend and today is Sunday!

Mempool was cleared since yesterday after stacked up recent days. As of writing at 3:04 AM UTC, you can instantly move BTC at 3 satoshi/(v)byte. If you check on https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,24h, you can see that the total size of waiting transactions for fee rates from 3+ satoshi/(v)byte is at 0.257 MB (< 1 MB). Therefore, you can get first confirmation within next 1 block with fees at 3 satoshis/ (v)byte.

I am expecting lower fee rate -- from 1 to 2 satoshi/ (v)byte -- because on Sunday institutional effects usually become smaller and fee can be cheaper. I believe that you can have chances to move your bitcoin at 2 satoshi/ (v)byte later today!

For the rate at 1 satoshi/ (v)byte, you need to have luck.

[Pmalek]

For the rate at 1 satoshi/ (v)byte, you need to have luck.

We are now somewhere in between 2-3 Sat/vByte. Looks like in the last 8 hours, it wasn't the perfect time for 1 Sat/vByte transactions. There are constantly 15-20MB of unconfirmed 1 Sat/vByte transactions in the mempool. It looks like 2 Sats is the goal for today.   

[tranthidung]

We are now somewhere in between 2-3 Sat/vByte. Looks like in the last 8 hours, it wasn't the perfect time for 1 Sat/vByte transactions. There are constantly 15-20MB of unconfirmed 1 Sat/vByte transactions in the mempool. It looks like 2 Sats is the goal for today.  

Currently, it is a matter of 2 fee rates: 1 and 2 satoshi(s)/ (v)byte. If Bitcoin price won't have big changes and won't cause panic, I expect to see mempool will be dipped to 1 satoshi/ (v)byte today, in next few hours. The matter is will mempool be completely cleared? Maybe or maybe not, I don't know (it is a game of luck).

https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,8h

Update for 26 Oct 2020, 3:47 AM UTC. Mempool is clearer and you can get instant transaction within next 1 block at 2 satoshis/ (v)byte. I am expecting to see mempool will completely cleared for all current waiting transactions at 1 satoshi/(v)byte around next 2 hours.

[tranthidung]

It is a bump! (for the coming weekend)

I hope that newbies who don't understand how bitcoin transactions are confirmed and how mempool changes will take this bull run of bitcoin price and transaction fee to learn. It is a valuable live course and it does not happen too regularly.

Read OP and a few posts in this thread as well as the quoted post, then observe mempool to see how it goes next few days or even up to 2 weeks.

In the last 30 days, there are 3 periods in which mempool size exceeds 50 MB (first in early days of October, second around 21 October at 53 MB -- the purple arrow, and the third is now with 62 MB in mempool. In percent, there is an increase of 17% in mempool size compares to what it was on 21 October 2020. After that day, mempool was dipped and almost clear.

I am not over pessimistic but nothing is too bad like a catastrophe here and now.

• Institutional and weekend effects
• A bit stability of bitcoin next few days
• We can have better fee rate. It is my expectation but if it happens, people should move or consolidate their bitcoin when fee is cheaper before mid of November.

https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,30d

[tranthidung]

Another reason why fee is cheaper in weekends is block size is smaller in weekend days. Data and box plots for all time (2009 - 29 Oct 2020) or since 2017 so far show that fact.

So to sum up, on the weekends, bitcoin network usually has:

• Smaller block size.
• Less transaction counts.
• Cheaper transaction fee rates

[tranthidung]

Today is Sunday and here you go with cheaper fee rates! Mempool is clearer and I expect to see it will be clear to the fee rate at 10 satoshi/(v)byte in next 12 hours.

I give you the mixed plot with different statistics for block size (daily with median, p25, p75), transaction count (median), difficulty, and fee per kB (median).

You can see the transaction count (figrue on plot *1000 as a multiplier) gradually falls back and remember that the next round of difficulty adjustment to come very soon (within next 2 days). 228 more blocks and difficulty will be adjusted. Latest difficulty adjustment is on block #653183 and the latest found block is #654971.

If you check the mempool condition last 6 month, current mempool is not the worst. The worse thing is more people set up or accept higher fees for their transactions.

[tranthidung]

You can see the transaction count (figrue on plot *1000 as a multiplier) gradually falls back and remember that the next round of difficulty adjustment to come very soon (within next 2 days). 228 more blocks and difficulty will be adjusted. Latest difficulty adjustment is on block #653183 and the latest found block is #654971.

Difficulty

• Block 655199: 19997335994446
• Block 655200: 16787779609933

The network difficulty was adjusted ~ 7 hours ago with the fall of -16.04992% in difficulty between block 655199 and 655200. It is a big adjustment. The second biggest decreasing adjustment in history of bitcoin network.

The biggest one is 9 years ago (in 2011) between 2 following blocks and percent of decreasing adjustment is -18.03. Impressive for today adjustment.

• Block 151199: 1468195.4272208
• Block 151200: 1203461.92638

What to expect next few days?

• Bitcoin price will be stable
• Mempool will be clearer
• Fee rates will be lower (your stucked transactions might be confirmed)

I will update this plot with date for today and its big adjustment later. If you are interested in with the sneak peak here, please check The history of Bitcoin difficulty adjustment (in percent)

[bob123]

What to expect next few days?

• Bitcoin price will be stable

Can you lend me your crystal ball? 

I don't really get how you can make conclusions about the $-value of BTC by looking at the difficulty.
There might be some correlation, but you can't really derive the future price action by looking at a (relatively normal) difficulty correction.

[tranthidung]

What to expect next few days?

• Bitcoin price will be stable

Can you lend me your crystal ball?  

I don't really get how you can make conclusions about the $-value of BTC by looking at the difficulty.
There might be some correlation, but you can't really derive the future price action by looking at a (relatively normal) difficulty correction.

No. I don't forecast price of BTC here (if there is forecast it will be one-way forecast). The thread is all about fee and to expect cheaper fee, the conditions are stable price of BTC and difficulty adjustment. The network has the second one, a big -16% adjustment. What to wait is BTC price. If thing goes well, fee rates might be cheaper.

I probably chose a bad word (expect). It should be wish or hope (maybe). Just my incompetence in English.  

[darkv0rt3x]

I have a suggestion for your (OP's) plots.
Maybe for people already familiarized with the stats and values and terminology, it is not a problem, but for me, it would be extremely handy to have a brief description of each axis values meaning. I mean, on those plots where that can be applied.

[tranthidung]

Maybe for people already familiarized with the stats and values and terminology, it is not a problem, but for me, it would be extremely handy to have a brief description of each axis values meaning. I mean, on those plots where that can be applied.

I will include variable notes and might (or might not) include label variables for yaxis. With some plots, the plot titles are enough and there is no need to mess up plots with y labels.

Weekend to come soon and I have very good news for you!

Mempool was cleared 3 hours ago now its total size is 5.1 MB.

The climb of bitcoin recent hours put some hurry people use high fee but I won't think it will last long (based on the weekend effects) and very low transaction counts in the last 2 weeks. Check it there: https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,2w

Mempool even was cleared on some non-weekend days, almost clear at least once for every day.