ViaBTC accelerator minimum fee

[NeuroticFish]

As you know, ViaBTC accelerator can be an option (to accelerate transactions) if one has plenty of time, patience and not much of rush with sending a transaction.
But I tried to accelerate a transaction that was over 11 sat/vByte, and for my surprise, ViaBTC said "Insufficient fee".

At a second read, I noticed what may be the cause: the tx fee has to be at least 10 sat/byte and not 10 sat/vByte, in the way the wallets show it nowadays.

They do tell that, but I thought it's not updated.

No need to sign in, you can submit any TXID of delayed transactions that at least include a fee of 0.0001BTC/KB.

If anyone can confirm / infirm this, please write. And yeah, pay attention and use RBF 

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[LoyceV]

Confirmed. My native Segwit transaction needed about 16 sat/vbyte to be accepted.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yes, it is 10 sats per raw byte, not per virtual byte.

If you want to make sure you are paying over this fee, then after you have created and signed your transaction but before you broadcast it, copy the transaction in hex in to any word processing software which will count the number of characters for you. Half the number of characters will be the size of your transaction in raw bytes. You can then take your total fee, divide by the number you just calculated, and check that you are above 10 sats/byte.

Or you can make sure RBF is enabled so you can later bump your transaction above the limit if the mempool fills up and you want to use their accelerator.

[stompix]

They do tell that, but I thought it's not updated.

And they will probably never do so.
As much as VIABTC is helping some confirm transactions one should never forget they are supporters of BitcoinCash :

Therefore, we should support Bitcoin Cash and big blocks.

so it's highly unlikely they will adopt a measure that is a segwit thing.
To be honest, I'm even surprised they are even allowing transactions to be accelerated, ignoring the war between BCH and BTC, as a pool, they lose money with every low fee transaction they include in a block.

As for the fee, yeah it has to be over 10sat/b, and be careful at the rounding up, there was a guy with a 9.966 sat/b transaction that was shown by some block explorers as 10sat/b but ViaBtc was refusing it.

[Charles-Tim]

To be honest, I'm even surprised they are even allowing transactions to be accelerated, ignoring the war between BCH and BTC, as a pool, they lose money with every low fee transaction they include in a block.

Please never mind this question. How are they losing money? The block reward is still 6.25 BTC irrespective of including or not including the transaction in the block mined by their pool. In my opinion, I only see this as a means to help making the mempool a little not congested as it ought to be.

[stompix]

Please never mind this question. How are they losing money? The block reward is still 6.25 BTC irrespective of including or not including the transaction in the block mined by their pool.

You're forgetting about the fees, for example, during the spike in fees
https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/block/680197

Fee total 2.00430501 BTC

ViaBtc would include transactions with 10-20satb/b and ignoring some worth 100sat/b, how much is pretty hard to approximate as those 100 transactions could mean anything, simple 1inputs 2 output tx or huge ones but even with a 10-15$ per tx lost they would lose 1000$, 24 hours, that's around $25k minimum, could be far more, depending on if they have a  limit in the size of the tx they accept.

[LoyceV]

I only see this as a means to help making the mempool a little not congested as it ought to be.

Mempool is just as full if they include a 10 sat/byte transaction instead of a 200 sat/byte transaction.

ViaBtc would include transactions with 10-20satb/b and ignoring some worth 100sat/b, how much is pretty hard to approximate as those 100 transactions could mean anything, simple 1inputs 2 output tx or huge ones but even with a 10-15$ per tx lost they would lose 1000$, 24 hours, that's around $25k minimum, could be far more, depending on if they have a  limit in the size of the tx they accept.

So they're either using it to advertise their paid accelerator, or just to advertise their mining pool. Either way, it must be worth it in some way for them.

[NeuroticFish]

Confirmed.

Thank you.

Or you can make sure RBF is enabled so you can later bump your transaction above the limit if the mempool fills up and you want to use their accelerator.

I think that RBF is the proper way. In some cases, even if you make all the precautions and the tx should be fine for acceleration, too many others try to use it and you just cannot "get in". At least that's my feeling. And then RBF comes (so) handy.

As for the fee, yeah it has to be over 10sat/b, and be careful at the rounding up, there was a guy with a 9.966 sat/b transaction that was shown by some block explorers as 10sat/b but ViaBtc was refusing it.

Yep, I prefer to go for 10.1 if it's the case, just for sure.

To be honest, I'm even surprised they are even allowing transactions to be accelerated, ignoring the war between BCH and BTC, as a pool, they lose money with every low fee transaction they include in a block.

It's a very small cost for a huge advertising, so they pose as good guys, more potential miners hear about the pool...
And the cost is translated to the miners, after all. And if you split it between so many miners and machines, it's less than peanuts.

[pooya87]

Yep, I prefer to go for 10.1 if it's the case, just for sure.

As long as you count the bytes of your transaction correction, you'd be fine. The problem is wallets migrated to virtual byte and you have to do it manually and also when you sign the transaction if the code isn't grinding for low r you can end up with 1 or 2 bytes difference (both core and electrum do this so you don't have to worry about the difference).

It's a very small cost for a huge advertising, so they pose as good guys, more potential miners hear about the pool...

They are also advertising the shitcoin called BCash and attack bitcoin a little bit if you read the text on the acceleration page.

[Lucius]

They are also advertising the shitcoin called BCash and attack bitcoin a little bit if you read the text on the acceleration page.

Do you know of any popular crypto service that doesn't promote that so-called fake Bitcoin one way or another? It is supported by all crypto exchanges, PayPal, Grayscale and anywhere else where you can find Bitcoin for trading or as a payment option.

I just know that I have saved a lot on fees over the years using this service, and that it is the only one that offers free acceleration that really works.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Do you know of any popular crypto service that doesn't promote that so-called fake Bitcoin one way or another? It is supported by all crypto exchanges, PayPal, Grayscale and anywhere else where you can find Bitcoin for trading or as a payment option.

You need to differentiate between promoting and accepting. Lots of places accept Bcash, because it boosts their profits. Most crypto exchanges and other sites like PayPal don't actually care in the slightest about the principles of bitcoin, why it was created, what it stands for, etc. They also don't care that Bcash is a centralized scam which has been successfully 51% attacked on more than one occasion, or that its entire business model rests on pretending to be bitcoin and tricking newbies in to buying it by mistake. All they actually care about is their own profits and bottom line. If they can make a profit from trading fees of people getting rid of this scam coin, then they are more than happy to accept it, just as lots of exchanges accept other centralized scam coins like EOS and XRP.

[LoyceV]

They are also advertising the shitcoin called BCash and attack bitcoin a little bit if you read the text on the acceleration page.

I can't really blame them to poke at Bitcoin a bit:

a pending transaction caused by crowded BTC network or low miner fees

It is correct, the Bitcoin network is crowded. If it wouldn't be, we wouldn't be reading the ViaBTC Accelerator page.

Then they continue with "the key to solving jam problem is to increase or even remove block size limit" (which is debatable, especially if you want to grow more than just a couple times more transactions) and "BCH ~ much lower fees". I've always hated full Bitcoin blocks and the high fees it causes, as I think it restricts Bitcoin's growth and adoption.
I've always said that, as a user, I don't really care how Bitcoin scales, as long as it actually does it.
I also hate having to use altcoins or Forkcoins for certain payments because I'm not willing to spend more on fees than my transaction is worth. Every time I do that, it feels like a missed opportunity for Bitcoin.

I do love using LN whenever possible though, and that's something BCH can never do!

[Quickseller]

And yeah, pay attention and use RBF 

If you are trying to pay a minimum amount in fees, at the expense of having to potentially wait a long time for confirmations you should use RBF, however you cannot use RBF if you want any chance of any service accepting your transaction without any confirmations (you will also need to pay a generally higher fee for 'instant acceptance').

ViaBtc would include transactions with 10-20satb/b and ignoring some worth 100sat/b, how much is pretty hard to approximate as those 100 transactions could mean anything, simple 1inputs 2 output tx or huge ones but even with a 10-15$ per tx lost they would lose 1000$, 24 hours, that's around $25k minimum, could be far more, depending on if they have a  limit in the size of the tx they accept.

So they're either using it to advertise their paid accelerator, or just to advertise their mining pool. Either way, it must be worth it in some way for them.

I think viaBTC is trying to promote the use of bcash with their acceleration service. They force users to pay using bcash, and the acceleration website itself gives their version of the "benefits" of using bcash.

I would advise against relying on any free service to confirm below market fee transactions. There isn't a guarantee their service will continue being offered, and it will likely stop being if doing so stops being economically viable.

[magneto]

I have precisely the same problem as you.

Sent a transaction with 11 sat/byte from a Ledger wallet and tried to accelerate it with ViaBTC. Came back with the insufficient fee prompt.

The transaction is RBF but I can't seem to find a way to do that within the ledger live interface. Oh well, I guess I'll just wait an eternity until the confirmations come and the mempool miraculously unclogs itself

[Quickseller]

I have precisely the same problem as you.

Sent a transaction with 11 sat/byte from a Ledger wallet and tried to accelerate it with ViaBTC. Came back with the insufficient fee prompt.

The transaction is RBF but I can't seem to find a way to do that within the ledger live interface. Oh well, I guess I'll just wait an eternity until the confirmations come and the mempool miraculously unclogs itself

You can always create a CPFP transaction to increase the fee of the original transaction.

If you are trying to send your bitcoin to cold storage, it would probably be better to have it sent directly into cold storage so you aren’t sending bitcoin to yourself when fees are high.

[stompix]

Oh well, I guess I'll just wait an eternity until the confirmations come and the mempool miraculously unclogs itself

Eternity? No!
You might even get it confirmed before the weekend, there was a serious drop in the number of transactions and from what I see on the graphs the 12sat/vb was briefly touched a few times, one two days at this speed and yours will be confirmed too.

I've always said that, as a user, I don't really care how Bitcoin scales, as long as it actually does it.

This is one of the things hardcore fans refuse to accept, that people care more about how easy stuff is to use than what powers it.
I'm growing bored of the same stuff getting thrown in BTC defense like the clearing time of card payments, who the f* cares about what's happening in the system, the average user knows he swipes his card he goes out with his stuff, the bitcoin user knows he has to postpone transactions if he doesn't want to pay 20$ for it, and you can't tell this to people indefinitely.

I have a feeling we have hit a dead end and the only way out depends on people who are not really that keen on helping out, as I was mentioning exchanges, each of them has its own plan, some have their own coin, they are slapping huge fees on BTC and zero for their chains with a purpose, not randomly.

~
It's a very small cost for a huge advertising, so they pose as good guys, more potential miners hear about the pool...

Like an ad in which you advertise a 8h/day job with the mention, you pay only for 7hours as the rest is getting donated to strangers 

[NeuroticFish]

Oh well, I guess I'll just wait an eternity until the confirmations come and the mempool miraculously unclogs itself

Unless you can RBF or CPFP, you will have to wait. But that "eternity" may last only until this week-end though  

I have a feeling we have hit a dead end and the only way out depends on people who are not really that keen on helping out, as I was mentioning exchanges, each of them has its own plan, some have their own coin, they are slapping huge fees on BTC and zero for their chains with a purpose, not randomly.

Of course, everybody is trying to earn an extra buck if they can. But the users' pressure can do wonders; it has happened in the past, it will happen in the future.
And the Bitcoin scaling problem, while it indeed hurts, we are still one leap forward than what we had in the previous bull run. It's not what should be, I know, but still... (and Bitcoin is renown for how slow the things advance).

~
It's a very small cost for a huge advertising, so they pose as good guys, more potential miners hear about the pool...

Like an ad in which you advertise a 8h/day job with the mention, you pay only for 7hours as the rest is getting donated to strangers  

LoL! You are exaggerating, since the ratio is far from that and many miners won't understand nor care about that tiny difference.
On the other hand, I think that the other post with advertising BCH as payment for the acceleration, may also be a reason. Also, if the payment for acceleration is also split between miners (I simply don't know whether that happens or not), the things may be better for the miners (and for the ad too )

And yeah, pay attention and use RBF 

If you are trying to pay a minimum amount in fees, at the expense of having to potentially wait a long time for confirmations you should use RBF, however you cannot use RBF if you want any chance of any service accepting your transaction without any confirmations (you will also need to pay a generally higher fee for 'instant acceptance').

I prefer to rely on RBF than on the benevolence of various websites which may or may not care of anything until the tx gets at least one confirmation.
Of course, in case of shops this may not be an option. Everybody has to think and know his use case.

[LoyceV]

They force users to pay using bcash

They don't force it: their default is BCH, but they also accept BTC and LTC.

I would advise against relying on any free service to confirm below market fee transactions. There isn't a guarantee their service will continue being offered, and it will likely stop being if doing so stops being economically viable.

ViaBTC's transaction accelerator has been around for years, and although it gets harder to use when fees get higher, I can usually get it to work.
You could of course just keep RBF as a backup.

[Quickseller]

And yeah, pay attention and use RBF 

If you are trying to pay a minimum amount in fees, at the expense of having to potentially wait a long time for confirmations you should use RBF, however you cannot use RBF if you want any chance of any service accepting your transaction without any confirmations (you will also need to pay a generally higher fee for 'instant acceptance').

I prefer to rely on RBF than on the benevolence of various websites which may or may not care of anything until the tx gets at least one confirmation.
Of course, in case of shops this may not be an option. Everybody has to think and know his use case.

If a site is going to accept a zero confirmation transaction, they will generally tell you in advance the requirements for them to accept it. The requirements will always include the transaction not being RBF.

Don’t get me wrong, RBF is a good feature and there are many circumstances in which it should be used, but there are also situations in which using RBF is not appropriate.

They force users to pay using bcash

They don't force it: their default is BCH, but they also accept BTC and LTC.

Ive never used their accelerator. I didn’t know they accept other currencies. I was going off what they posted on their website.

I would advise against relying on any free service to confirm below market fee transactions. There isn't a guarantee their service will continue being offered, and it will likely stop being if doing so stops being economically viable.

ViaBTC's transaction accelerator has been around for years, and although it gets harder to use when fees get higher, I can usually get it to work.
You could of course just keep RBF as a backup.

As transaction fees increase, the cost of running the free accelerator also increases. This is both in terms of USD and BTC.

Years ago, 10 sat/byte was often not an unreasonable fee for a transaction to get confirmed in a modest amount of time. Today, paying that fee rate is not going to get your transaction confirmed for a long time on its own. I would expect them to increase their minimum fee rate for their free service.

[o_e_l_e_o]

The transaction is RBF but I can't seem to find a way to do that within the ledger live interface.

There isn't. Ledger Live enables RBF by default, by doesn't yet provide a way to actually make an RBF replacement transaction.

However, it is very easy to set up and use Electrum as an interface for your Ledger hardware wallet. It is safe to do, does not require you to export any keys or use your seed phrase at all, and won't affect your Ledger Live wallets. You can download and verify Electrum, and then follow the instructions here (https://support.ledger.com/hc/en-us/articles/115005161925-Set-up-and-use-Electrum) to link it to your existing hardware wallet. Once you've done this, you can simply right click on the unconfirmed transaction in Electrum's interface and selecting "Increase fee".

Years ago, 10 sat/byte was often not an unreasonable fee for a transaction to get confirmed in a modest amount of time. Today, paying that fee rate is not going to get your transaction confirmed for a long time on its own.

I think that's a bit of an exaggeration. For the majority of the last 6 months, 10 sat/byte was more than enough to get confirmed in a reasonable amount of time. There have been a couple of periods (such as the last 2 weeks, and 2 weeks around the end of February) where this has not been the case, but it certainly hasn't been years since 10 sat/byte was a reasonable fee. Before the hash rate drop off we were down at 4 sats/vbyte, and we've been confirming some 10 sats/vbyte transaction at multiple times over the last 24 hours.