Miners are happy, while we suffer?

[Yogee]

And I don't think that miners are doing it intentionally, it's just the economics of bitcoin mining. When mempool are clogged then fees are going to increase, simply as that. So if you're not in a hurry then you can probably wait. And there are wallets though that simply balloon fees. So if you are using a wallet wherein you can manually set the transaction fee, then by all means take advantage of that feature.

Will transaction fees automatically increase when mempool are full or clogged? I don't think that's what you mean when you said "When mempool are clogged then fees are going to increase, simply as that" but a total beginner could understand it differently.


I'm sorry if this is not 100% related to the topic but I remember reading an old article about what happens when a mempool is almost full. A minimum fee is set by the node when it's close to full capacity. If an incoming transaction with an attached fee less than the minimum, it will be rejected. Only transactions with equal to or above minimum will be accepted. Is that still the case today?

[DoublerHunter]

^ Definitely the miners are not happy because of the rewards they are getting nowadays due to halving nor the users who do transactions and pay higher transaction fees but that only depends on how quick our transaction we want to be done. Aside from the volatility volume of the transaction also affects the transaction fee but when you do it off-peak then you may pay a higher fee and faster transaction. Nevertheless, all these are temporary when all miners started to work including those who suspend their mining because of the halving probably the transaction fees will go down again and at a faster rate.

[Ucy]

Hope miners don't get used to the gains from high fees and forget that low fee and fast transaction is important too.
This problem probably wouldn't have occurred if price has gone up as it should be.  Altering or removing any of the basic Bitcoin/Crypto principles (deflation in this case) will certainly have future consequences for the cryptocurrency.

[Becky666]

Hope miners don't get used to the gains from high fees and forget that low fee and fast transaction is important too.
This problem probably wouldn't have occurred if price has gone up as it should be.  Altering or removing any of the basic Bitcoin/Crypto principles (deflation in this case) will certainly have future consequences for the cryptocurrency.

Miners aren't the cause of the high transaction we're experiencing now  nor the Bitcoin crypto principles change, but, the cause of this high transaction fees can be trace to congestion of transaction on Blockchain. This isn't funny though but let be calm while the outgoing and incoming Bitcoin transactions get low to free this Blockchain. Personally, I can't see anything like alterations on Bitcoin principles so far. We must still get through this high transaction fee, and forge ahead with Bitcoin.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Will transaction fees automatically increase when mempool are full or clogged?

Yes. As more and more transactions fill the mempool, then more and more wallets will set ever higher fees to try to out compete each other and get their transactions confirmed first, and so the fee increases, sometimes very rapidly. Wallets and websites which have automatic fee estimation algorithms are notoriously bad at suggesting an appropriate fee, and too many people relying on these instead of viewing the mempool for themselves is what causes the fee to increase so rapidly when the mempool starts to fill up.

A minimum fee is set by the node when it's close to full capacity. If an incoming transaction with an attached fee less than the minimum, it will be rejected. Only transactions with equal to or above minimum will be accepted. Is that still the case today?

Correct. The parameters in question are maxmempool and mempoolminfee. The maximum mempool size default for each node is 300 MB, but obviously nodes can configure this individually. Once a node reaches capacity, any transaction below the set mempoolminfee will not enter the mempool, and any transactions above the minimum will push a transaction or transactions with a lower fee rate than it out of the individual mempool as necessary to free up space for the higher fee transaction.

[stompix]

i think the halving contributed to the current fee situation and the mempool bigger backlog but it is not the biggest reason. the main reason remains the price rise and traders flooding the network and i wouldn't dismiss the possibility of an orchestrated spam attack against bitcoin right after halving.

The halving has cut the reward for miners, it happened in the middle of an epoch so the difficulty retarget wasn't accurate as it reflected a drop for only half of the period and we have to wait for another one so the block time will start coming closer to the designed 10 mins.
Right now, in the lasts 24 hours, there are 124 blocks mined instead of 144 which means on average around 40k less transactions capacity for the day.
Since the start of this era on the 20th, we're down almost 130 blocks, that's close to a day lost of transactions in 5 days.

There is no spam attack happening, it's just diminished capacity, and it will go like this if the price doesn't increase for another 10-12 days.
Fortunately for us a spam attack right now won't solve anything for the other shitcoins either, I think they have learned their lesson, if bitcoin goes down so will they! Besides, they run also really tight margins with their mining operation, at attack would really kill the golden goose.

A slight jump in price to 12k might convince a few miners to turn back on older gear and we could go over this retarget faster, till then...nothing to do but wait.

[Jamesdila1]

The bitcoin fees have exponentially increased over the years and this can absolutely pose a threat to the adoption of bitcoin thus its growth
many people are shifting towards other crypto currency projects
Miners also suffer from this because their reward from blocks have significantly decreased

[joinfree]

Lol, still comparing the transaction fees involved with fiat payment system bitcoin is way better. In addition, this happens when the market kicks into extreme volatility and everybody is trying to send bitcoins from one end to another. It increases the load of transactions needed to be confirmed and miners now have to be selective with the urgent ones and those mostly come with high transaction fees attached to it.

[Sadlife]

The fees increase must be due to congestion miners that's why is pretty much recommend to use Segwit transactions to lower fees it is a second layer solution that uses LN (Lightning Network) to make the speed of transactions faster and much more cheaper.

[hatshepsut93]

I have observed recently that the transaction fee for bitcoin transfers has significantly increase, I was wondering if this would help bitcoin to grow further if people are suffering from high fees while miners are doubling their income, is this the result of the halving we have been anticipating?

What do you mean by "grow"? If you're talking about the price, then no - it won't affect the price much. In fact, the fees are high because a lot of traders move their coins between, in and out of exchanges, thus creating demand for the blockspace. If you mean if it would help grow the network by increasing the number of miners, then the answer is again no - such demand for blockspace is temporary and transactions fees still represent only a fraction of block's rewards, but in the far future the fees will outweigh block rewards and will indeed sustain the network.

[TopT3ns]

The fees increase must be due to congestion miners that's why is pretty much recommend to use Segwit transactions to lower fees it is a second layer solution that uses LN (Lightning Network) to make the speed of transactions faster and much more cheaper.

when shipping costs go up as is the case now it is the effect of the increasing level of difficulty that occurs at the bitcoin mining site which makes it increasingly difficult to get bitcoin, indeed only a few people are still familiar with this segwit method so that not many use it despite the way it is quite effective.

[Yamifoud]

I think we should look for alternative if we can't change what's happening. Limit bitcoin transactions and if you need rapid transactions, look for alterantives.
Maybe ease a bit of strain by moving to segwit, or why not try lightning network. If that don't satisfy us, there are so called improvement on bitcoin blokchain by forking it. They might be doing great with fees. Or even try different alts that are promising feeless transfers.

It somehow fees surprises small market players after halving and that is the result of numbers of miners who stop their operation. But if we are not in a hurry, we can still use a small number of sats to fuel the transaction at this time. It was noticed then that the fees are lowering down compared in the past days which probably means that some of them are turning back.
It is to believe that miners are manipulating the market, it somehow giving no option for us especially when we are in need to transfer some BTC. This strategy will something give help to cover up their expenses in order to survive and quite they are successful.

[BITCOIN4X]

Yes. As more and more transactions fill the mempool, then more and more wallets will set ever higher fees to try to out compete each other and get their transactions confirmed first, and so the fee increases, sometimes very rapidly. Wallets and websites which have automatic fee estimation algorithms are notoriously bad at suggesting an appropriate fee, and too many people relying on these instead of viewing the mempool for themselves is what causes the fee to increase so rapidly when the mempool starts to fill up.

If so, the increase in transaction costs is the desire of the sender himself who wants a faster transaction. But the impact of this behavior has caused many people to spend 130-140 sat/ byte to send bitcoin worth $60. I also dont really understand why the recommendation fees from cellphone wallets are so high and it makes us quite frustrated thinking about the costs.

So far I only know that price volatility has caused transaction costs to be high, but I just learned that this was the desire of the sender himself who wanted the transaction to be fast. Is there a way to prevent it ?

[freedomgo]

The fees is a good indication that the market is bullish as it would result to market congestion, that is brought by investors are traders who constantly make transaction, you are not the only one who noticed the sudden increase of fee, but that's it, we need to deal with it and I guess it would not last long the market will be back to its norms again.

[rathaha10]

I have observed recently that the transaction fee for bitcoin transfers has significantly increase, I was wondering if this would help bitcoin to grow further if people are suffering from high fees while miners are doubling their income, is this the result of the halving we have been anticipating?

https://news.bitcoin.com/bitcoin-miners-double-revenue-fees-have-spiked-over-200-in-10-days-since-the-halving/

Bitcoin (BTC) miners earned 44% more in transaction fees in the nine days since the halving than they did for the whole of April. If this continues miners will have more than doubled their income from transaction fees going forward.

Please share your thoughts.

to be honest, it's has been really disheartening since the over hyped halving we all anticipated for happened, like it was meant to improve and balance the the mining activity but all i can see for now is that it's  making miners richer. I tried sending few dollars worth of bitcoin and the charges wasn't friendly... something really need to be done by satoshi or whoever still control btc because i don't even know what to literally believe in this space again, everything is just going south with each day passing

[yazher]

It's not that high enough for us to suffer compared to their hard work and perseverance throughout their BTC carriers. In this little amount we can help them on their work because those little amounts increase in a transaction will help them a lot if we just know. so instead of complaining let's just learn how can we be thankful for them because there are few of these guys left right now. the others have already left them and decide to sell every mining components they have. I wonder if there will be another option if there will be no miners left around mining some BTC.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I also dont really understand why the recommendation fees from cellphone wallets are so high and it makes us quite frustrated thinking about the costs.

Because the algorithms they use for estimating a fee are poor. When fees have been low for several days, then if you select "high priority" or "fast" or whatever your wallet calls its highest fee, then it looks back over the last few days, sees fees of 1-2 sats/vbyte, and correctly gives you a fee of 3 sats/vbyte, which remains cheap but still gets you confirmed quickly. When fees have been as high as 150 sats/vbyte over the last few days, then your wallet sees that and recommends a much higher fee than is necessary, even when blocks are currently filled with 1-2 sats/vbyte transactions. Other wallets see your transaction with a high fee, and so also go higher to out compete your transaction. The cycle bounces back and forth between wallets and websites, and it takes a long time for them to cool down and reduce their recommended fees again.

If we look at https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,2h it becomes obvious to see. A block is emptying the mempool down to 2 sats/vbyte transactions. At that point, a fee of 3 sats/vbyte will put you within 0.07 MB of the tip of the mempool. Within 5 minutes, to stay within 0.07 MB of the tip the fee would now be 180 sats/vbyte. That is completely unnecessary, and if all those people actually took 5 seconds to look at the mempool instead of just accepting the fee their wallet told them to use, they could have saved ~170 sats/vbyte in fees.

Is there a way to prevent it ?

Unfortunately, there's not much you can do as an individual. As long as large portions of the community just use whatever fee their wallet tells them, such rapid increases in the feerate as I've described above will be commonplace. I would recommend looking at the mempool yourself using the above link when making a transaction though. If you are happy to wait 2-3 blocks instead of 1, you could reduce your fee from 180 sats/vbyte to 3 sats/vbyte.

[Finestream]

I have observed recently that the transaction fee for bitcoin transfers has significantly increase, I was wondering if this would help bitcoin to grow further if people are suffering from high fees while miners are doubling their income, is this the result of the halving we have been anticipating?

What do you mean by "grow"? If you're talking about the price, then no - it won't affect the price much. In fact, the fees are high because a lot of traders move their coins between, in and out of exchanges, thus creating demand for the blockspace. If you mean if it would help grow the network by increasing the number of miners, then the answer is again no - such demand for blockspace is temporary and transactions fees still represent only a fraction of block's rewards, but in the far future the fees will outweigh block rewards and will indeed sustain the network.

Yes, I am talking with the price because I was thinking that if users will shift to other coins due to the high transaction fee of bitcoin, that will not help on our goal to increase the adoption, I am mainly taking here about the future of bitcoin because I am concern about it, but with your explanation guys and my experience now, I think I can say that the fee was back to normal, I was just surprise that time and that article I read added it so I was able to make this thread and ask for the opinion of the people here.

[fiulpro]

Unfortunately I do not think that miners are happy .
We should understand that most of the small miners are out of the business because of halving and therefore this increase in fee was their failed attempt to keep in line with everyone.
They have to keep the network running at the same time if they won't be able to earn much , won't be able to pay bills and at the same time make some money it will be problematic for us only.
Maybe this was done to neutralize the decrease in hash rate that was due to halving.
At the same time I do think we have nothing to worry about  since in a matter of days the issue should be taken care of otherwise people will stop using it .

Plus Bitcoins can never grow with this high fee when they have competitive market out there , there is not just one cryptocurrency but rather 100's of them .

[o_e_l_e_o]

therefore this increase in fee was their failed attempt to keep in line with everyone.

No it wasn't. Miners do not dictate fees. Fees are collectively decided upon by the community using bitcoin. If people want to try to out compete each other's transactions and push fees higher and higher, they are free to do that. If everyone decides to just make transactions at 1 sat/vbyte and be patient then they are free to do that too. Miners choose the highest fee transactions to maximize their profits, but they don't decide what those fees should be.

Plus Bitcoins can never grow with this high fee when they have competitive market out there , there is not just one cryptocurrency but rather 100's of them .

Of course it can, be using second layer solutions such as Lightning Network. In the future, it is entirely possible that fees remain high but the only transactions which have to pay these fees and the opening or closing of Lightning channels or large transactions of (for example) over $50,000 or more, and everything else is just settled on Lightning instantaneously and essentially feeless.