Something still has to be done about transaction fees!

[kryptqnick]

Here we go again. Bitcoin is on the rise, and even though it's up about 30% from the usual price of the recent times, the transaction fees are up 10 times. I've just sent 0.01 BTC, and the suggestion for a regular fee was $12! The priority was a couple of dollars more, and I went for it. There hasn't been such a spike since the 2017-2018 craze, but now enormous fees are apparently back, and they remind that we need a solution to the scalability issue. The LN is not inspiring, but nothing better is coming up. I think that such fees are a huge obstacle to Bitcoin adoption as money and should be considered a top priority. What do you think about the fees and the perspectives?

[tranthidung]

What do you think about the fees and the perspectives?

• Price of bitcoin will become more stable (maintains around $13000 or dump first then has a new stable price range). People will not be crazy accept high fee because their demands to buy or take profits will become less.
• Next difficulty adjustment will help to deal with latest drop in total hashrates.
• Mempool will be better (smaller size) and fee will become cheaper

To compare transaction fees over periods, I think it is better if you use fees in satoshi or BTC, not in USD. 2 transactions with same transaction size, same fee rate will have different fees in USD.

[fiulpro]

The fee is actually not dependent on the price of bitcoins therefore most of the times the transaction fee remains same in the numerals but at the same time price fluctuates. One cannot change the transaction fee now and again every moment it changes in price. I still remember how I once paid equivalent amount of money to be transferred since at that time I was using a wallet which had high transaction fee.
It would be wonderful if one just have to pay fee in specific percentage.
But then again , aren't we forgetting something ?

-we have SegWit
-we have lightning network ( this one still needs a lot of work)

But we do have options. Therefore I believe we should try to use them more and there you can change transaction fee according to your preference, according to how urgent it is.

Maybe in the future we will have better options in the future.

[wack slacker]

Bitcoin transaction fees come from the transaction demand, the transactions want to quickly need to give high fees, which is the form of the auction. Want to stabilize the transaction cost is the only way to bring Bitcoin to Proof of stake or wrap Bitcoin on other blockchains with stable transaction costs.
If you are in no rush set a fee that you find acceptable and wait for your turn.

[royalfestus]

What do you think about the fees and the perspectives?

• Price of bitcoin will become more stable (maintains around $13000 or dump first then has a new stable price range). People will not be crazy accept high fee because their demands to buy or take profits will become less.
• Next difficulty adjustment will help to deal with latest drop in total hashrates.
• Mempool will be better (smaller size) and fee will become cheaper

To compare transaction fees over periods, I think it is better if you use fees in satoshi or BTC, not in USD. 2 transactions with same transaction size, same fee rate will have different fees in USD.

This jump in transaction isnt new and we have gotten over it severally, however, I still believe bitcoin still offer a lower transaction fee compare with other forms of transaction. It even benefit large fund transaction than small, it could vary with wallet and exchanges, at the moment till December we are likely to experience this until Q1 2021 with the short bull.

[BrewMaster]

i don't mind the spike in transaction fees and i actually believe that it is showing that bitcoin is working as it is supposed to. a fee market that turns the block space into a valuable commodity that can not be  cheaply spammed.
but the problems begin when the fees remain up after the spike. for now it hasn't been long enough to become concerning. if we end up seeing the same situation as 2017 specially since price is rising similar to 2017, we should start worrying because this time the growth is going to be a lot bigger and with it can come a much bigger fee spike.

[Rengga Jati]

Some days ago, I still got the usual fee transaction, and they were very cheap, from the electrum.
But, it may be different from others.
Bitcoin's price is rising up. Some people are willing to move their BTC to the market in order to sell and take profits. That is why it probably needs more fees in order to fasten the transaction to be finished.
And the high fee is actually a choice. If we are hard to accept the fee, we can hold our coin and wait for a lower fee. Commonly, there are also several hours where the fees may be lower than usual. Just consider what you need right now, for what reason you set the faster fees, and also consider the profits that you may take reduced by the fees

[Expecto]

It seems like as long as Bitcoin price continues to increase and reaches new aths, the transaction fees will continue to increase too. If nothing will be done for this problem, it will give headaches for Bitcoin users. I assume that there won't be so many people who are willing to pay hundreds of dollars for a transaction fee.

[pixie85]

To compare transaction fees over periods, I think it is better if you use fees in satoshi or BTC, not in USD. 2 transactions with same transaction size, same fee rate will have different fees in USD.

That's one important thing.

The other is that it's natural that sending a transaction when 1 Bitcoin is worth 7000 dollars like in the beginning of this year will cost less in USD than sending the same transaction when the price is 12000.

People who count fees in USD often complain that the fees are higher and forgetiing that price tripled this year low to high.

Their coins increased in value and all they care about is that the fee also did.

[dothebeats]

This always happens when there is a sudden spike in the price. Most people are eager to send their bitcoins in or out of the exchanges and do some form of trading or holding. Personally, I don't really do much transfers to and from exchanges during these times, and wait for a particular time wherein both time zones are seemingly resting, or if there is a decline in activity within the blockchain (usually is around noon here in the Pacific). Most of my transaction still confirms within an hour or two even if the fee I paid for is lower than the average recommended fee at that time since there isn't much activity happening around. It's a workaround that actually works for me, and I have timed it somewhat perfectly since this has been my go-to solution during these times when the network is at an increased activity due to price hikes.

[death69]

Too bad to hear this information. I have not transferred any bitcoin yet. Luckily, most of my bitcoin locating on Binance. People might consider this is a dangerous action because any exchange can be hacked and stolen. Well, I accept the risk. The drop in hash rate of bitcoin mining recently maybe the main reason for this higher fee. This will draw back the intention of mining companies and surely actions will be done in order to balance the hash rate / fee

Dev team right now is up to something and I believe sooner or later, they will improve bitcoin and make the fee cheaper

[Pffrt]

a fee market that turns the block space into a valuable commodity that can not be  cheaply spammed.
but the problems begin when the fees remain up after the spike. for now it hasn't been long enough to become concerning.

Wouldn't that affect the adoption in real world? The fee is high enough at the moment for paying $100 and lower. I have done a tx recently with a fee of $6 but it's still unconfirmed (it's because of the price increase though,otherwise, it would be lower).
We need solution of adoption of Lightning Network I think, to use BTC for paying 100 bucks or lower.

[pawanjain]

Here we go again. Bitcoin is on the rise, and even though it's up about 30% from the usual price of the recent times, the transaction fees are up 10 times. I've just sent 0.01 BTC, and the suggestion for a regular fee was $12! The priority was a couple of dollars more, and I went for it. There hasn't been such a spike since the 2017-2018 craze, but now enormous fees are apparently back, and they remind that we need a solution to the scalability issue. The LN is not inspiring, but nothing better is coming up. I think that such fees are a huge obstacle to Bitcoin adoption as money and should be considered a top priority. What do you think about the fees and the perspectives?

Completely agree with you on this. I just made an online purchase through bitcoin a few days before for price of $21 and the optimum fees displayed was about $4.
I just adjusted the fees to $0.57 and broadcasted it and since then my transaction is unconfirmed till date.
Now I am worried that my order doesn't get cancelled. 
The higher transaction fees has really become an issue and we must soon try to find a solution for the scalability issue.

[yhiaali3]

It is normal for the fees to rise with the rise in the bitcoin price, because the cost of the fees is calculated in satoshis / byte, so the higher the bitcoin price, the higher the fees.
Here you can find the historical bitcoin fee table:
https://privacypros.io/tools/bitcoin-fee-estimator/

The problem of scalability is still the first problem for Bitcoin, and the lightning network has not been sufficiently developed and its spread is still very limited. It is assumed that work on developing and adopting the lightning network is done more quickly until the problem of high fees is solved.

[Lanatsa]

This always happens when there is a sudden spike in the price. Most people are eager to send their bitcoins in or out of the exchanges and do some form of trading or holding. Personally, I don't really do much transfers to and from exchanges during these times, and wait for a particular time wherein both time zones are seemingly resting, or if there is a decline in activity within the blockchain (usually is around noon here in the Pacific). Most of my transaction still confirms within an hour or two even if the fee I paid for is lower than the average recommended fee at that time since there isn't much activity happening around. It's a workaround that actually works for me, and I have timed it somewhat perfectly since this has been my go-to solution during these times when the network is at an increased activity due to price hikes.

I do have this kind of behavior where I do set much lower to the average fees suggested but it do ends up neither hit or a miss yet a few or couple of hours some of those tx
had been processed but bigger portion is still unconfirmed that's why I do end up on not to make any transactions yet.

Its pretty common that in times like these where bitcoin is tending to have a price rally then people will normally react which would result into making active transfers.
Neither they do make tx between exchangers or from their wallet to platform to make sell or have bought coins back to their wallets and so forth.

Frankly speaking this had been a issue with Bitcoin wayback and I don't know whats the viable solution can we have.

[hatshepsut93]

There's nothing that can be done to prevent onchain fees from getting high. You can use SegWit bech32 addresses, choosing manually the most optimal fee, and consolidating inputs to reduce your fees as much as possible. But on-chain fees will always be a thing, and LN won't make them go away. You fundamentally can't have very low on chain fees and be decentralized at the same time, because Bitcoin is only decentralized thanks to limited block space.

[figmentofmyass]

Here we go again. Bitcoin is on the rise, and even though it's up about 30% from the usual price of the recent times, the transaction fees are up 10 times. I've just sent 0.01 BTC, and the suggestion for a regular fee was $12! The priority was a couple of dollars more, and I went for it. There hasn't been such a spike since the 2017-2018 craze, but now enormous fees are apparently back, and they remind that we need a solution to the scalability issue.

one unfortunate reality you're gonna have to accept is that strong bull runs coincide with network congestion. probably the biggest factor is the inefficiency of exchange-related transactions. since the potential gains of leveraged trading and altcoin trading are so large, many users think nothing of the transaction fees involved and the exchanges they use are willing to pay extremely high network fees to facilitate timely customer withdrawals. as a result, on-chain transactions among exchanges skyrocket in volume, and so do on-chain fees.

i don't think there is any quick fix for this. the fundamental problem is the extreme demand for confirmation in the next block. as long as so many users demand instant withdrawals from their exchanges, or are otherwise willing to pay extreme amounts for nearly instant confirmation, fees are going to rise exponentially.

one thing i'd like to see is for exchanges to embrace blockstream's liquid sidechain. so many exchange customers are simply withdrawing bitcoins to other exchanges. if exchanges could settle these transactions using liquid instead of on-chain bitcoin transactions, the fees involved would be miniscule and it would free up so much block space (and lessen fee pressure) for other on-chain transactions.

[Ridcan]

The huge fee is really an obstacle.  What sets Bitcoin apart from other commodities is the low fees.  Normal fees are not really acceptable.  It must continue to transfer with a low fee.  These high fees can be annoying when everything is going well.

[Artemis3]

Here we go again. Bitcoin is on the rise, and even though it's up about 30% from the usual price of the recent times, the transaction fees are up 10 times. I've just sent 0.01 BTC, and the suggestion for a regular fee was $12! The priority was a couple of dollars more, and I went for it. There hasn't been such a spike since the 2017-2018 craze, but now enormous fees are apparently back, and they remind that we need a solution to the scalability issue. The LN is not inspiring, but nothing better is coming up. I think that such fees are a huge obstacle to Bitcoin adoption as money and should be considered a top priority. What do you think about the fees and the perspectives?

And again i tell you sit down and relax. What is the hurry? If you don't want to pay outrageous fees, just wait 3 days for 1 sat/B or 1 day for 3 sat/B. This is nowhere like the beginning of 2018... Its rather insignificant in comparison. This little storm will pass and that is that. In the meantime, miners are enjoying their extra couple bitcoins, from the pools that don't steal them...

How many times do i have to tell people to not let their wallets choose the fee? But do you even listen? Don't blame it on Bitcoin, blame your stupid wallet.

Oh, and if your wallet says nonsensical things like "high priority" or "medium priority", rather than the actual fee, i think you have already overgrown your wallet, get something else that treats you with respect and just tells you the actual fee and the actual guesstimation of how long that would take.

1 sat/B is 3.3 days avg
3 sat/B is 1 day avg.

You are a fool if you let the wallet (that feedback loop themselves at the top, if you haven't noticed) decide the fee for you.

See, for 12 hours the fee goes into 105 sat/B, and from that to "next block" its 280 sat/B.
Its all fake, just wait for the storm to pass or use lower fees manually, and wait a day or three.

And don't forget to get a decent wallet that lets you manually pick fees.

[Lorence.xD]

The huge fee is really an obstacle.  What sets Bitcoin apart from other commodities is the low fees.  Normal fees are not really acceptable.  It must continue to transfer with a low fee.  These high fees can be annoying when everything is going well.

I have to disagree on this one, if you put yourself on the mediums that handle the transactions, I think that it is justified that they get a fee for the services. The reason that they increase their is because they are just matching their original prices with the current market fluctuation.