Mempool full? Long transaction times + fees x10!

[serveria.com]

Something is brewing in the Bitcoin world? For the last 2-3 days I can I witness slow transactions and huge fees. I got used to 1sat/byte transactions and they always get through so I sent a couple of sats to myself but you can't imagine how surprised I was when I saw my tx is ~75mb from tip! My wallet suggested a fee of 10sat/bytes! So, what's going on? Is this connected with that ordinals mumbo-jumbo? 

[bitmover]

Something is brewing in the Bitcoin world? For the last 2-3 days I can I witness slow transactions and huge fees. I got used to 1sat/byte transactions and they always get through so I sent a couple of sats to myself but you can't imagine how surprised I was when I saw my tx is ~75mb from tip! My wallet suggested a fee of 10sat/bytes! So, what's going on? Is this connected with that ordinals mumbo-jumbo?  

Take a look at http://mempool.space/ to get the fee rate you need to use, this is the best site available  for that.

Now you need 22 sat/vbyte for a confirmation,  which is not huge.

The reason is an app called Ordinals, something like an NFT using bitcoin blockchain

The introduction of the Ordinals Protocol, which enables the development of Bitcoin-based NFTs, has coincided with significant changes to mempool activity and transaction size, new data by CryptoSlate and Glassnode show.

https://cryptoslate.com/how-ordinals-are-affecting-bitcoin-mempools-transaction-size/

[stompix]

Something is brewing in the Bitcoin world? For the last 2-3 days I can I witness slow transactions and huge fees.

You have missed this thing:


There were just a few days of low fees with 1sat/b after 20 days of high fees, something way higher than before.

Take a look até http://mempool.space/ to get the fee rate you need to use, this is the best site available  for that.
Now you need 22 sat/vbyte for a confirmation,  which is not huge.

Funny enough, his wallet suggested a way cheaper fee. 
I guess he looked at the last confirmed fee, for a few moments of fast blocks indeed a 10sat/b tx got through, but right now we only had 2 blocks in 60 minutes, so even mempool.space might have been misleading an hour ago.

[Pmalek]

I guess you didn't make any transactions in the past month. Otherwise you would have known about the state of the mempools. Ordinals were introduced in January, and ever since we have witnessed 10-30k of unconfirmed transactions. There was a brief period when the meter dropped down to just a few k, but it didn't last long. Never initiate a bitcoin transaction before you check mempool.space or Jochen Hoenicke's site.   

[serveria.com]

I guess you didn't make any transactions in the past month. Otherwise you would have known about the state of the mempools. Ordinals were introduced in January, and ever since we have witnessed 10-30k of unconfirmed transactions. There was a brief period when the meter dropped down to just a few k, but it didn't last long. Never initiate a bitcoin transaction before you check mempool.space or Jochen Hoenicke's site.   

Not really, as a matter of fact I make transactions regularly, 2-4 times a week and I was able to get away with 1sat/byte fee mostly. I also spotted that bech32 wallets need higher fees to send a tx than older "legacy" wallets. Identical transactions, almost same time and bech32 took longer and demanded higher fee. Just a coincidence?

So, ordinals are to blame for this, exactly as I thought... can we (Bitcoin community) do something to get rid of them? Nodes can ignore them perhaps? This crap has to be stopped, it reminds me of 2017 and tx spam by big blockers, people paid thousands in fees... 

Regarding this:

Never initiate a bitcoin transaction before you check mempool.space or Jochen Hoenicke's site.   

I'm not sure why you're so ultimative. One can always bump fee, you don't risk anything. And I'm not in a hurry most of the time... 

[bitmover]

Never initiate a bitcoin transaction before you check mempool.space or Jochen Hoenicke's site.   

I'm not sure why you're so ultimative. One can always bump fee, you don't risk anything. And I'm not in a hurry most of the time... 

I guess his suggestion is meant to avoid paying higher fees.

Most users just use the fees suggested by the wallet. And those fees are usually much higher than those in the mentioned websites.

You are right to use lower fees when you are not in hurry

[logfiles]

If you sent out a transaction at 10 sats/vbyte, just wait it out. It could get confirmed anytime. I don't think you will wait for so long.

Never initiate a bitcoin transaction before you check mempool.space or Jochen Hoenicke's site.   

This is what I always do and I have never been disappointed when I am sending out a transaction.

I really hate how this NFT bullshit is spreading to the Bitcoin blockchain and spamming it, but I guess there is nothing we can do as of now.

[jrrsparkles]

I remember few days ago I made a transaction with higher fee that is required for my transaction to be included in the next block but in a minute or later when I checked its 12 blocks away so even checking the mempool may not be enough so we have to enable RBF so incase if we stuck in a situation and need to make the transfer in a hurry then we can increase the fee again to current state and make the transaction pass through.

[pawel7777]

Take a look até http://mempool.space/ to get the fee rate you need to use, this is the best site available  for that.

Now you need 22 sat/vbyte for a confirmation,  which is not huge.

Not sure how reliable is this one: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/
But it's currently showing the fastest and cheapest tx to be at 102 sats/byte, which, for median-size tx, converts to >$5, which is quite a lot.



ps. anyone can give a quick explanation on the Byte Vs vByte difference?

[franky1]

a better/fun visualisation

https://txstreet.com/v/btc

you can see southpark characters. the bigger their head the bigger the bloat is of a tx
pending

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Something is brewing in the Bitcoin world?

It happened many times in the past and it will appear again in future.

For the last 2-3 days I can I witness slow transactions and huge fees. I got used to 1sat/byte transactions and they always get through so I sent a couple of sats to myself

Cheap fee rate and cheap transaction fee won't last forever. You learned a lesson this time so let's be prepared better for next times. When transaction fee is cheap (means you can get a confirmation with lowest fee rates like 1 sat/vbyte or 2 sat/vbyte, you should move your bitcoin or consolidate your small inputs.

Take advantage of such time to consolidate small inputs that is helpful to reduce transaction size later when you need to send it to somewhere. It is very helpful and fee-saved when network and mempools are heavy and you have to use higher fee rate.

See your Tx in mempool with Bitcoindata.science and impacts on transaction sizes by inputs and outputs.

[Guide] Consolidate your small inputs

you can't imagine how surprised I was when I saw my tx is ~75mb from tip! My wallet suggested a fee of 10sat/bytes!

Not surprised at all. Centralized exchanges and centralized platforms always proceed user withdrawals with very high fee rates but they charge very expensive withdrawal fee on users. As a user, you can not control it and another lesson is: if you want to control fee rate you use for your transaction, let's use self custody wallet and broadcast your transaction from it.

So, what's going on? Is this connected with that ordinals mumbo-jumbo? 

Likely the cause is partially from Ordinals.

However, more general, Bitcoin network usually has more demands when BTC price moves sharply upwards or falls down rapidly. It results in greed and panic that will cause more demand to move Bitcoin on the network as fastest as possible.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

Likely the cause is partially from Ordinals.

As far as I can see there are about 20,000 unconfirmed transactions at the moment but about 12,000 are on a 1sat/vbyte fee, about 5,000 on a 2sat/vbyte fee and the rest on a higher fee. According to what I have read, this could be due to what you say about the ordinals or consolidations, otherwise the average fee would be higher.

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

a better/fun visualisation

https://txstreet.com/v/btc

That visualization tool reminds me about my childhood when I played such old style car racing games. I loved it when I was a kid but now this tool is not interesting with me.

Anyway if anyone need funny visualized tools, let's find them from [LIST] Bitcoin Visualization. Funny but not too useful.

[pooya87]

Not sure how reliable is this one: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/

Not only this sites is unreliable but also it is a malicious website designed to inflate bitcoin fees to unreasonable levels. It has always been reporting outrageously high fees.
For example right now it is still reporting 102 satoshis/byte and calls it "fastest and cheapest transaction fee" whereas even in worst case scenario in the past couple of days the "fastest and cheapest transaction fee" never surpassed 30 and right now it is around 2-3 satoshi/vbytes. In other words this site is maliciously reporting a fee that is 3400% higher!

ps. anyone can give a quick explanation on the Byte Vs vByte difference?

vbytes is the virtual bytes calculated by taking witness into account (everything gets a factor of 4 except witness) so the size is smaller for SegWit transactions hence you pay less fee.

[NotATether]

ps. anyone can give a quick explanation on the Byte Vs vByte difference?

Bytes was the original estimate where each byte in the transaction counted towards the fee. Vbytes is a more recent estimation that still counts in bytes, but does not count the bytes of certain parts of the transaction such as the witness data (IIRC).

[pooya87]

Vbytes is a more recent estimation that still counts in bytes, but does not count the bytes of certain parts of the transaction such as the witness data (IIRC).

It does.
Virtual size is transaction weight divided by 4 and weight is counting witness by computing "base size" (which is serialized size without witness) multiplied by 3 added to the "total size" (which is serialized size with witness).

[franky1]

Vbytes is a more recent estimation that still counts in bytes, but does not count the bytes of certain parts of the transaction such as the witness data (IIRC).

It does.
Virtual size is transaction weight divided by 4 and weight is counting witness by computing "base size" (which is serialized size without witness) multiplied by 3 added to the "total size" (which is serialized size with witness).

nope

bytes are actual real bytes of the full transaction
then
vbytes change this using cludgy code to give:
a. the entire legacy transaction a 4x meaning its total size is not in bytes but 'weight' of 4x of bytes
b. segwit get multiplied differently

(remember byte are bytes.. the international standard of measuring data!
the weight crap is a dev politic implemented cludge math of silly miscalculation.. its not division or discount of byte, its instead multiplication/premium of byte)

[serveria.com]

If you sent out a transaction at 10 sats/vbyte, just wait it out. It could get confirmed anytime. I don't think you will wait for so long.

Never initiate a bitcoin transaction before you check mempool.space or Jochen Hoenicke's site.   

This is what I always do and I have never been disappointed when I am sending out a transaction.

I really hate how this NFT bullshit is spreading to the Bitcoin blockchain and spamming it, but I guess there is nothing we can do as of now.

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm not in a hurry, so I'll wait.

I want to believe that this ordinals plague can be stopped before it grows to gargantuan size. Can NFT transactions be marked and refused by most nodes? Or perhaps increase fee for NFT transactions?

[leeboy]

The reason is an app called Ordinals, something like an NFT using bitcoin blockchain

NFT make our live worse

[serveria.com]

The reason is an app called Ordinals, something like an NFT using bitcoin blockchain

NFT make our live worse

Absolutely nailed it!