Will bitcoin transaction fees be too high in the future?

[BlackHatCoiner]

This is the chart of Bitcoin's Avg. Transaction fee: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html

Right now the median fee is about $2. After lots of halvings the reward won't be enough to satisfy the miners. I guess that after a decade, bitcoin will be more widespread, as a result, more transactions will occur every second. Won't this increase the median fee? If it does, bitcoin will start being a not-so medium of exchange. Imagine paying $5 for a transaction. Even paypal doesn't charge that much.

[mocacinno]

This is the chart of Bitcoin's Avg. Transaction fee: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html

Right now the median fee is about $2. After lots of halvings the reward won't be enough to satisfy the miners. I guess that after a decade, bitcoin will be more widespread, as a result, more transactions will occur every second. Won't this increase the median fee? If it does, bitcoin will start being a not-so medium of exchange. Imagine paying $5 for a transaction. Even paypal doesn't charge that much.

I guess it'll end with an equilibrium, some miners will probably drop off leaving more blocks for the ones that stick around, some people will stop using bitcoin due to the fees that are to high for their taste.

That being said: don't underestimate the merchant's fees for paypal, credit cards, wire transfers,... I've setup a webshop for somebody i know from the forum, and i was unpleasantly supprised by the fees these companies charge the merchant. And in the end, the merchant passes on these costs to their customer. So even if it looks like paying by paypal or bankcontact is free, in reality the products you buy are more expensive because the merchant accepts paypal/cc/bcc/cheques/...

In contrast, in the bitcoin ecosphere, the buyer pays the fee... But in theory the merchant could make his products cheaper if you pay using bitcoin. The shop i setup gives 5% discount for bitcoin payments because of this.

[tranthidung]

It will not be too high.

There is max cap of block size and transactions have to wait to get confirmation base on 2 main factors:

• Fee rate
• Total fee will be paid for miners in that transaction. 2 transactions with same fee rate but the one has bigger size will bring more income for miners

There are always chance to see fee rate falls to low range, when mempool is clear. I won't last forever but it happens sparsely. One of most common cheap days are in weekends.

There will be more evolutions technically and Lightning Network (and others) might help.

[jackg]

I dunno
1. Older users are used to adapting their fees to paying a lower rate and can consolidate their btc..
2. New users would just get used to it imo if they're not too high, $2 fee on $500 is a bit like PayPal fees.

[Darker45]

I think a decade or so from now, second layer payment protocols like the LN that we currently have will probably be more polished and utilized so I guess it would leave on-chain transactions mainly to those that involve large amounts. Day-to-day transactions involving small amounts which could clog the main network will be mainly done through off-chain networks.

[Jet Cash]

It depends on Bitcoin usage in the future. If I accept Bitcoin in payment for a £10,000 domain name, then $5 id negligible, If I want to pay for a cup of coffee, then it is too much, especially as I pay nothing with a credit card. That leads to the possibility that the recipient pays the miners fee. The miner just takes it out of the £10.000. Then there is the possibility of lumping a bunch of transactions into one submission, that should reduce the fees.

Another probability is that banks start to run their own mining farms, and then they could provide no fee transactions as long as the payments aren't urgent.

[NeuroticFish]

I expect the transaction fees become rather big.
But most probably the future will bring a big variety of off-chain transaction types and only bigger amounts will be moved on-chain, of which most will not have very big priority, hence more reasonable fees (especially considering the amounts transferred).
I hope I'm wrong, because if this will happen then we may have a bit too many types of KYC-tied custodian wallets too...

[Lucius]

Imagine paying $5 for a transaction. Even paypal doesn't charge that much.

Those who remember 2017 know that at one point the fee was even higher than $50, but it was an exceptional moment in BTC history. The problem, of course, is always when it comes to microtransactions, because it really doesn't make sense to send $5 and pay the same fee - but apart from the savings we can claim using SegWit, the future will surely bring a wide application of LN that will be simplified to the level that everyone can use it.

However, there will always be people who will be willing to pay more just to bypass the banks and to remain anonymous as much as possible, and for them the price of the fee will never be questionable.

[kryptqnick]

This is the chart of Bitcoin's Avg. Transaction fee: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html

Right now the median fee is about $2. After lots of halvings the reward won't be enough to satisfy the miners. I guess that after a decade, bitcoin will be more widespread, as a result, more transactions will occur every second. Won't this increase the median fee? If it does, bitcoin will start being a not-so medium of exchange. Imagine paying $5 for a transaction. Even paypal doesn't charge that much.

I think it depends on what the future holds. How big would be price of Bitcoin be? How many more users will have regular Bitcoin transactions? Will there be a solution of the scalability issues that would get widely popular for small transactions? If the price and popularity of Bitcoin (as well as the level of its adoption as money) remain the same, there's no reason for the fees to skyrocket. In the times of distress from a rapid change of price, however, the fees can get crazy, and I very well remember the $20 fees in 2017. If Bitcoin gets more widely used and accepted, but, say, zero confirmation transactions become widely accepted, the fees can keep being alright. An alternative is something like LN becoming popular. I think there's a good chance the fees will be growing, but I hope that the solutions will come and make the fees bearable.

[Harlot]

I won't really worry about the current transaction price being high right now because I am highly confident with the scalability that Bitcoin has done. We have LN as well as SegWit in which resulted to the decrease of transaction fees that happened back in 2017 and ever since then we haven't hone near those transaction prices again. With regards to miners or them shutting down resulting to increase the price I don't think that this will happen as well. Remember that the difficulty for mining Bitcoin is also adjusted when drops of hash rate occurs so really there is a balance happening everytime.

[Max2140]

This is the chart of Bitcoin's Avg. Transaction fee: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html

Right now the median fee is about $2. After lots of halvings the reward won't be enough to satisfy the miners. I guess that after a decade, bitcoin will be more widespread, as a result, more transactions will occur every second. Won't this increase the median fee? If it does, bitcoin will start being a not-so medium of exchange. Imagine paying $5 for a transaction. Even paypal doesn't charge that much.

Bitcoin transaction fees will become significantly higher once the last Bitcoin is mined in 2140 as no more block reward are available to miners. I guess we will see more off chain Bitcoin transaction in the foreseeable future that help to decrease the fees (e.g. Lightning Network).

[Findingnemo]

This is the chart of Bitcoin's Avg. Transaction fee: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-transactionfees.html

Right now the median fee is about $2. After lots of halvings the reward won't be enough to satisfy the miners. I guess that after a decade, bitcoin will be more widespread, as a result, more transactions will occur every second. Won't this increase the median fee? If it does, bitcoin will start being a not-so medium of exchange. Imagine paying $5 for a transaction. Even paypal doesn't charge that much.

In terms of fiat value it maybe lot higher than the current median value due to increase in the bitcoin price per unit.But with the help of LN the number of unconfirmed transactions can be under control and there is no hidden fees here which is unlikely with the traditional banking or other payment processing companies.If there is a time when everyone using cryptos for everything then they will categorize the cryptos depends on the payment needs, if it for cheap transaction like for buying a coffee or something they can use LN or other altcoins.

[dothebeats]

I wouldn't say that it will be 'too high' but for sure there will be an increase. If the value of 1 bitcoin keeps on getting on par with the mining rewards, there would reach an equilibrium in the price of the fees per tx. But of course the fees will still be pre-determined by the current existing factors on those days, and the key things that will move the price of tx is the price of bitcoin and the amount of mining reward per block is generated. It's no rocket science, though it's something that is still difficult to predict right now honestly.

[The Cryptovator]

The fee wouldn't much higher, because it would discourage bitcoin users to use bitcoin. There should be some solution either like LN or reduce miners. All the rewards now spreading around all the miners. So when miners will leave mining slowly then reward will increase slowly as well. So it wouldn't necessary to increase transaction fees which would drive a negative impact on the whole bitcoin community.

[oleg681010]

On the contrary, I hope that the fees will be lower over time.

[ranochigo]

There are a ton of factors that has to be considered for this scenario. Assuming everything remains constant, then the fees would increase.

However, that is not the case. Electrical fees would decrease overtime with sustainable energy, ASICs will become more efficient, transaction capacity would increase allowing for more TX/block, difficulty could drop, etc. The transaction fees market works as with any other free market and adjusts itself into an equilibrium in tandem with the difficulty. It's pretty well thought of, if you'd ask me.

[TedMosby]

so scalability will always be a problem for the og bitcoin?
Satoshi's Bitcoin Whitepaper Title -> Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System - Bitcoin.org
But, I believe that most of the people used bitcoin as an asset, not as an electronic cash system.
That's why Bitcoin Lightning Network was created I think. CMIIW.
Have you ever tried to use the lightning network. I send 1000 satoshi, and the fee is only 3-6 sats.

[Melloiga]

I think it is already high BUT only if you're doing smaller transactions.

I recently received a transaction of 100 USD and the fee for that was about 3 USD, which is not high because the transaction came from outside of the country. The payment processors would have charged much more than that because they even add 3% conversion fee on top of transaction fee.

But if I were to spend that money in smaller denomination for say I needed to recharge my phone using Bitrefill for 5 USD, the fee for it comes to about 1.5  USD if I want the transaction to be confirmed in next 5 blocks. If I use less fee than that the transaction get stuck for a long time. Which also happened to me recently.

[Blackrain13]

I think it will be depend on the value of bitcoin in the future. If bitcoin increase too high then I think the transaction fee will also increase. But if ever the miners will mined all the bitcoins i think there will be a changes in transaction fee, maybe it will getting lower even the value of bitcoin increase.

[pixie85]

I think that they won't be higher. The lightning network will lower them and in a few years if it's not enough people will think of something better.

Bitcoin is a code that can be change and made better. Maybe one day it will be worth so much that we'll have centralized payment systems built on it that will use real bitcoins as collateral.

Another thing is the cost of a transaction. 10 years from now it could be 50 USD but that 50 won't even be worth 5 of todays Dollars.