Labeling Electrum's fees in sats/vbytes in the Create Transaction UI

[NotATether]

We have been computing transaction fees in sats/vbyte for some time now, which correctly calculates the size of segwit transactions but is otherwise like sats/byte. But Electrum still lists the Target Fee as a value in sats/bytes. This causes confusion among newbies when they go to a block explorer and it displays the actual sats/byte value, and they see a sats/vbyte value but don't know what that's used for. So then they think that Electrum is estimating bigger fees than what the block explorer lists but that's really not the case.

Changing the label of the fees to sats/vbytes will resolve this situation because that's the label they will look for on a block explorer, and they'll understand when sats/bytes is a different value from it.

What is the likelihood of a PR that changes all these labels to vbytes being merged?

[1715671568]

1715671568

[1715671568]

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[TryNinja]

For reference, that's what it was said 2 years ago:

Note that this (vbyte; kvByte) is the unit used by Electrum all over the UI. We just chose not to confuse the user, by not mentioning explicitly it's "virtual".

[AB de Royse777]

Sorry to put a question here but I think instead of creating a topic for that - this topic is relevant to get my answer.

This is a simple transaction on Blockchain


There are two fees in here. One is 3 sat/B and another is 5 sat/B. The 5 sat/B is what I set in Electrum but what is this 3 sat/B?
Sorry if I sound stupid :-P

[TryNinja]

There are two fees in here. One is 3 sat/B and another is 5 sat/B. The 5 sat/B is what I set in Electrum but what is this 3 sat/B?

Pay attention to the unit. It's 5 sat/vByte and 3 sat/Byte. The former is related to the new unit representing the block sizes after Segwit, which is called weight unit.

In your case, this tx has a size of 236 Bytes and 142 vBytes.

710 satoshis/142 vBytes = 5 sat/vByte
710 satoshis/236 Bytes = 3 sat/Byte

If you send coins from a Segwit address, your tx actually weights less, so your sat/vByte rate is higher than if you used a legacy address with no Segwit. That's why you have a discount on the fees.

[NotATether]

For reference, that's what it was said 2 years ago:

Note that this (vbyte; kvByte) is the unit used by Electrum all over the UI. We just chose not to confuse the user, by not mentioning explicitly it's "virtual".

I think virtual bytes was the wrong name to give this metric in the first place, it implies that the fee doesn't exist, but it's actually a different way of calculating measuring the fee size. The problem with the way things are labeled now is that this implies sats/bytes is the real fee of the transaction, but ironically, the real fee is actually the one in vbytes. Since I never see the word "virtual" written anywhere when someone describes vbytes, it doesn't need to be explained in the program apart form I guess a footnote in the documentation about where the historic name came from.

~snip

This is exactly what I mean. Even seasoned users are getting confused with the correct fee.

[AB de Royse777]

Pay attention to the unit. It's 5 sat/vByte and 3 sat/Byte. The former is related to the new unit representing the block sizes after Segwit, which is called weight unit.

Until now, I did not notice vByte for the unit of the 5 satoshi :-D

In your case, this tx has a size of 236 Bytes and 142 vBytes.

How do we find it out?

This is exactly what I mean. Even seasoned users are getting confused with the correct fee.

It's kind of my fault. I never put much thought on those before until I saw this topic.

[TryNinja]

How do we find it out?

Use Blockstream.info's explorer.

Or if you want the formula:
weight = (3 * base_size) + total_size
vSize = weight / 4

Base size is the block size in bytes with the original transaction serialization without any witness-related data, as seen by a non-upgraded node.

Total size is the block size in bytes with transactions serialized as described in BIP144, including base data and witness data.

The new rule is block weight ≤ 4,000,000.

[NotATether]

Finally after 3 years, they are going to change the fees to vbytes. At least according to the last comment. I don't think they have created the commit or Pull Request for it yet, but it shouldn't take too long.

[NotATether]

Finally after 3 years, they are going to change the fees to vbytes. At least according to the last comment. I don't think they have created the commit or Pull Request for it yet, but it shouldn't take too long.

As a follow-up to this, they have finally committed the requested change. Therefore, this thread will be locked.