Nearly 3 years on a LN does not seem to be adopted sufficiently to prevent mempo

[BillionaireWannaBe]

The mempool is over 90mb and climbing again ? If this is a slow and steady bull the amount of unconfirmed tx will rise to over 200k or more again?

How near to the 300mb limit has it come before?

Is this because LN network is not mitigating this issue as was hoped? Someone else mentioned the current issue is compounded by a short term drop in hashing?
I know the price movement always causes some short term clogging up

What other solutions in the works are there?

[1714846096]

1714846096

[hatshepsut93]

1. Lightning Network is still not out of beta yet, the developers don't recommend using it on mainnet.

2. Even after it will be officially released, it will take time for people and especially services to adopt it. Don't expect it to immediately solve the problem with fees.

3. Lightning Network wasn't created to take all transactions away from the blockchain, and with limited space the demand for them will always be high.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Is this because LN network is not mitigating this issue as was hoped?

Lightning can only be used when the service you are trying to send coins to or withdraw coins from supports Lightning. When there are big surges in the price like this, then vast majority of additional transactions above the usual number of transactions are to and from centralized exchanges. I am not aware of a single major centralized exchange which supports Lightning yet. Given that it took them some of them years to simply implement a new address type, I suspect we will be waiting several more years before they finally start accepting Lightning. They are almost comically bad at keeping up to date with technological advances, but since people continue to send them their money and support their clogging of the mempool, then they will continue to get away with it.

Someone else mentioned the current issue is compounded by a short term drop in hashing?

Yes. The hash rate peaked at around 144 EH/s just before the last difficulty readjustment, and has now fallen to 130 EH/s, taking around 10% off the hash rate. If the hash rate had stayed static at 144 EH/s and we were mining blocks on a 10 minute average, then we would be about 200 blocks further along than we are now, which would be more than enough space to completely empty the mempool, which is currently around 76 MB.

[BillionaireWannaBe]

Thank you for answering.
I had thought the big exchanges would be using LN.
I see that is not the case right now. That and the drop in hashing that the member above explained would account for the mem pool clogging.
Let us hope in a reasonable time,  that more exchanges and med or large size businesses will start to adopt LN.

[The Sceptical Chymist]

That and the drop in hashing that the member above explained would account for the mem pool clogging.
Let us hope in a reasonable time,  that more exchanges and med or large size businesses will start to adopt LN.

Let's hope so, because it's times like these that I wish businesses accepted altcoins, like Dash, doge, or pretty much any other coin that doesn't take 24 hours+ to get 1 confirmation.  I've got two outgoing bitcoin transactions right now that I sent yesterday morning, and I'm still waiting and waiting.

I love bitcoin, but this is why it's an awful currency in its current state.  And I realize this is just a temporary backup, but one of the transactions of mine from yesterday was kind of important to get confirmed quickly. 

[o_e_l_e_o]

because it's times like these that I wish businesses accepted altcoins, like Dash, doge, or pretty much any other coin that doesn't take 24 hours+ to get 1 confirmation.

The reason these coins are quick is two-fold. Firstly, barely anyone uses them compared to bitcoin, so their relative mempools are empty the majority of the time. Secondly, they are far easier to reverse and far less secure. One confirmation on an altcoin is not comparable to one confirmation on bitcoin. Take a look at this site: https://howmanyconfs.com/. For a Dash transaction (for example) to be as secure as a bitcoin transaction with 6 confirmations, it needs almost 8,000 transactions which will take over 2 weeks to obtain.

And I realize this is just a temporary backup, but one of the transactions of mine from yesterday was kind of important to get confirmed quickly.

Why not flag it as Replace By Fee, and therefore give yourself the option of bumping the fee up at a later time if it hasn't confirmed and you are still in a hurry?

[BillionaireWannaBe]

because it's times like these that I wish businesses accepted altcoins, like Dash, doge, or pretty much any other coin that doesn't take 24 hours+ to get 1 confirmation.

The reason these coins are quick is two-fold. Firstly, barely anyone uses them compared to bitcoin, so their relative mempools are empty the majority of the time. Secondly, they are far easier to reverse and far less secure. One confirmation on an altcoin is not comparable to one confirmation on bitcoin. Take a look at this site: https://howmanyconfs.com/. For a Dash transaction (for example) to be as secure as a bitcoin transaction with 6 confirmations, it needs almost 8,000 transactions which will take over 2 weeks to obtain.

And I realize this is just a temporary backup, but one of the transactions of mine from yesterday was kind of important to get confirmed quickly.

Why not flag it as Replace By Fee, and therefore give yourself the option of bumping the fee up at a later time if it hasn't confirmed and you are still in a hurry?

On electrum wallet if you click the unconfirmed and details. It says in my case around 30mb from tip . I make a mistake of leaving the default slider setting on core to send. Usually it has always worked expediently enough.
I told my other receiver if they are desperate the child can pay for the parent. Sadly I think he misinterpreted I am insulting him and went off line.

Is it as simple as that? You just press the child pays for parent and electrum does the correct calculation to confirm quickly?
I will compose for them an email and send but don't want to make matters worse that they are if it does not work that simply.
I wasn't aware of this feature before but it seems brilliant. Replace by fee I will always perform in future. That one I never really looked at before either. 

[Carlton Banks]

I had thought the big exchanges would be using LN.

I am not aware of a single major centralized exchange which supports Lightning yet.

Bitfinex do. I can think of better exchanges, but you can say that for one reason or another about every Bitcoin exchange

[TangentC]

The mempool is over 90mb and climbing again ? If this is a slow and steady bull the amount of unconfirmed tx will rise to over 200k or more again?

How near to the 300mb limit has it come before?

Is this because LN network is not mitigating this issue as was hoped? Someone else mentioned the current issue is compounded by a short term drop in hashing?
I know the price movement always causes some short term clogging up

What other solutions in the works are there?

LN is the clusterfuck , it was always designed to be.

The only solutions are what were always the solutions, until blockstream convinced the stupid that it was not the solutions.

1.  Increase BlockSize
2.  Faster BlockSpeed
3.  Use something else instead of bitcoin.

That's it.

[GGUL]

For a Dash transaction (for example) to be as secure as a bitcoin transaction with 6 confirmations, it needs almost 8,000 transactions which will take over 2 weeks to obtain.

This is not true for Dash. After Dash developed ChainLock, the reliability of transactions after confirmations is already at the level of Bitcoin.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Is it as simple as that? You just press the child pays for parent and electrum does the correct calculation to confirm quickly?

There is no "Child Pays For Parent" button, and no, it is not as simple as that.

The receiver needs to spend the unconfirmed coins in a new transaction, ideally of the smallest possible size. The easiest way to do this is to send all the coins to a new address he owns. Such a 1-input-1-output transaction will be somewhere in the region of 144 to 192 vbytes, depending on address type. He would then have to add the size of his transaction to the size of the unconfirmed transaction, to get a combined size. He would then have to select a fee rate which could confirm quickly, work out the total fee required to cover that fee rate for the size of both transactions combined, subtract the fee you have already paid, and then pay the remaining fee. For example:

Lets say the unconfirmed transaction from you to him is 300 vbytes large and has paid a fee rate of 50 sats/vbyte, for a total fee of 15,000 sats.
Lets say he makes a new transaction which is 150 vbytes in size.
The combined size of both transactions is therefore 300+150 = 450 vbytes.
To get near the tip of the mempool, lets say you need a fee rate of 200 sats/vbyte.
This means the combined total fee will need to be 450*200 = 90,000 sats.
You have already paid 15,000 sats, so he will need to pay an additional 75,000 sats.
His transaction is 150 vbytes, so 75,000 sats would work out as 500 sats/vbyte.

Bitfinex do.

Huh. TIL. I don't put much faith in Bitfinex given the whole Tether shadiness, but good on them for actually keeping up to date with bitcoin developments.

[BillionaireWannaBe]

Is it as simple as that? You just press the child pays for parent and electrum does the correct calculation to confirm quickly?

There is no "Child Pays For Parent" button, and no, it is not as simple as that.

The receiver needs to spend the unconfirmed coins in a new transaction, ideally of the smallest possible size. The easiest way to do this is to send all the coins to a new address he owns. Such a 1-input-1-output transaction will be somewhere in the region of 144 to 192 vbytes, depending on address type. He would then have to add the size of his transaction to the size of the unconfirmed transaction, to get a combined size. He would then have to select a fee rate which could confirm quickly, work out the total fee required to cover that fee rate for the size of both transactions combined, subtract the fee you have already paid, and then pay the remaining fee. For example:

Lets say the unconfirmed transaction from you to him is 300 vbytes large and has paid a fee rate of 50 sats/vbyte, for a total fee of 15,000 sats.
Lets say he makes a new transaction which is 150 vbytes in size.
The combined size of both transactions is therefore 300+150 = 450 vbytes.
To get near the tip of the mempool, lets say you need a fee rate of 200 sats/vbyte.
This means the combined total fee will need to be 450*200 = 90,000 sats.
You have already paid 15,000 sats, so he will need to pay an additional 75,000 sats.
His transaction is 150 vbytes, so 75,000 sats would work out as 500 sats/vbyte.

Bitfinex do.

Huh. TIL. I don't put much faith in Bitfinex given the whole Tether shadiness, but good on them for actually keeping up to date with bitcoin developments.

Thank you for this great explanation. It seems to make sense. I don't think I would attempt it manually.
I don't want to disagree with you on anything but I think electrum has maybe made a little option for this recently.
Or appears to. I am looking at this test one he sent to me. Unconfirmed. I press details and it gives option child pays parent. If I press okay it tells me to send x amount to boost the unconfirmed tx fee to 228sats /byte.  I think maybe electrum made this easy to do for people now?
I have to say the method manually you describe sounds a bit daunting for me I would perhaps mess that up.
Maybe only electrum have this easier auto calculated method. I was going to press it but if everything you say is taking place then I will just leave it for now. I don't need to receive any btc sent to me in a hurry I will wait for a week and see then if they have arrived. Some are just small amounts anyway. The ones I sent out I hope they will wait and believe me I just selected the default not a really small amount to delay payments. Hopefully in a day or maybe weekend it will be all cleared.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I press details and it gives option child pays parent. If I press okay it tells me to send x amount to boost the unconfirmed tx fee to 228sats /byte.  I think maybe electrum made this easy to do for people now?

Yeah, you are right. A brain fart on my part. The button has existed for a while actually, I've just never used it so forgot about it.

[BillionaireWannaBe]

I press details and it gives option child pays parent. If I press okay it tells me to send x amount to boost the unconfirmed tx fee to 228sats /byte.  I think maybe electrum made this easy to do for people now?

Yeah, you are right. A brain fart on my part. The button has existed for a while actually, I've just never used it so forgot about it.

Yeah that's okay, I never heard of this solution before today. thanks for your help. I'll await Monday and use it then if the unconfirmed status remains.

[figmentofmyass]

Thank you for answering.
I had thought the big exchanges would be using LN.

some of them are---bitfinex comes to mind---but they can only process LN withdrawals to customers to the extent that they actually request them. most people just request regular on-chain withdrawals.

the same problem applies to the liquid sidechain. lots of exchanges support it, but not many people actually take advantage.

Bitfinex do.

Huh. TIL. I don't put much faith in Bitfinex given the whole Tether shadiness, but good on them for actually keeping up to date with bitcoin developments.

it's kinda confusing because they gave it the symbol LNX. i sometimes wonder how aware bitfinex customers are that the option exists.

That and the drop in hashing that the member above explained would account for the mem pool clogging.

that drop in the hash rate was kinda surprising, considering the rally bitcoin has been on for the past few weeks. it's definitely adding to the congestion, yes. blocks are coming in nearly a minute slower than usual.

[Sadlife]

The problem here is because LN's usability its still in Beta phase, and pretty much need some technical skills for it to be used. Mostly only tech savy can use it, as it still has no GUI for ordinary users to easily send and receive Bitcoin. If this happens this second layer solutions might be rendered useless if Bitcoin becomes mass adopted.

[philipma1957]

That and the drop in hashing that the member above explained would account for the mem pool clogging.
Let us hope in a reasonable time,  that more exchanges and med or large size businesses will start to adopt LN.

Let's hope so, because it's times like these that I wish businesses accepted altcoins, like Dash, doge, or pretty much any other coin that doesn't take 24 hours+ to get 1 confirmation.  I've got two outgoing bitcoin transactions right now that I sent yesterday morning, and I'm still waiting and waiting.

I love bitcoin, but this is why it's an awful currency in its current state.  And I realize this is just a temporary backup, but one of the transactions of mine from yesterday was kind of important to get confirmed quickly.  

This is why I have my signature.

I use

BTC
LTC
DOGE

BTW this idea that LN will end/lower fees is wrong major pools will resist it.
Look at thi:

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/0000000000000000000ae55e569154b9ef23abdd225b01cf1e2794c32e11ec99

 fee of 1.945 btc


https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/000000000000000000020222d663456a1151f7d148d4674232f408db4c3a385e

fee of 2.0788 btc

https://www.blockchain.com/btc/block/00000000000000000007528228eb3acac03635b8058104efaa9730cfc36f50fd
fee of 1.8299 btc

two of those last blocks were paid to f2pool. f2pool pockets the fees

what is their incentive for LN adaptation.

[dothebeats]

LN isn't out of beta yet, and you can't expect huge services to be supporting or using a service that isn't fully functional with failsafe embedded and whatnot, although LN in its current state is already usable. Also, not a lot of people are familiar with how it actually works firsthand, or how to use it even, that's why you can't really count it as something that would alleviate the demands on the mempool as this current cycle goes wild will all the price jumps and trader sentiment on the positive.

[hatshepsut93]

two of those last blocks were paid to f2pool. f2pool pockets the fees

what is their incentive for LN adaptation.

Pools have absolutely zero say in LN adoption. LN doesn't even require any updates to Bitcoin Core, so miners wouldn't be able to refuse to update their nodes. LN can already be used, and there already are users who use it on mainnet.

But it's wrong to think that LN will make onchain transactions obsolete, some users will like the extra security of onchain transactions, and LN is limited in maximum amounts, so big transactions would still happen on chain.

[pooya87]

BTW this idea that LN will end/lower fees is wrong major pools will resist it.
what is their incentive for LN adaptation.

pools don't have to adopt LN! people (services and their users) have to adopt it and pools can't do anything about that, and it doesn't even affect them.

LN is not a solution to high fees, it is more of a helper. it has the capability of taking a large number of transactions that actually work a lot better on LN to its own network while reducing the on-chain traffic. a good example of such transactions is the ones traders make and is palpable whenever price rises like these days. but the ultimate solution is always going to be on-chain scaling. we had one back in 2017 with introduction of SegWit and we still need more.