Angry at the high fees? That's what everyone predicted the future will be like!

[mvdheuvel1983]

Ordinals and Inscriptions are making use of bitcoin as fee and depending on bitcoin blockchain for making transaction which leads to more mempool congestion, but miner are truly making more money from bitcoin transactions due to it. But bitcoin has been successful since 2009 to 2023 before there was anything like Ordinals and the network was growing and increasing in hashrates. Although, Ordinals are benefiting the miners but bitcoin can survive without it if the price continues to increase. I mean if bitcoin remain an appreciative asset.

The high transaction fee we saw in May of this year was caused by the presence of non-fungible tokens that is stored on the block chaint hat rolled in and now this one which we are experiencing, I think is also related to the ordinals and that is it has lead to congestions in the Mempools in more than half a year. I don't know how long this would persist and if it continues for long, they will need to seek out a solution to it. I know people have said Lightning network would solve this, but I don't think it is that easy. The transaction cost is making spend fiat on some services instead of Bitcoin and I don't like it.

[alani123]

Well, any educated user would know that it didn't need to be this way...
See this following satoshi post quoted:

The current system where every user is a network node is not the intended configuration for large scale.  That would be like every Usenet user runs their own NNTP server.  The design supports letting users just be users.  The more burden it is to run a node, the fewer nodes there will be.  Those few nodes will be big server farms.  The rest will be client nodes that only do transactions and don't generate.

Besides, 10 minutes is too long to verify that payment is good.  It needs to be as fast as swiping a credit card is today.

See the snack machine thread, I outline how a payment processor could verify payments well enough, actually really well (much lower fraud rate than credit cards), in something like 10 seconds or less.  If you don't believe me or don't get it, I don't have time to try to convince you, sorry.
http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=423.msg3819#msg3819

The romanticized idea of decentralization we have now is not what the original vision of bitcoin was. Satoshi himself was ready to sacrifice some decentralization so long as transactions remained immutable. If bitcoin's ability to transact cash is reduced to being worse than banks, then what's the point of calling it a A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System anymore?

This brings us to what's causing the current ongoing issue of high fees. It's not high demand and it's not miners wanting to charge extra for "keeping the chain secure".
It's actually ordinal transactions that put NFT and token data on bitcoin's chain and take away space from actual transactions.
Moreover, by abusing Taproot OP codes and SegWit witness data space, they even get discounts that a regular transaction wouldn't.
See for instance this transaction:
https://mempool.space/tx/77e996de08c48ed282a7b8bc88ca199712a15fa68babb10a0b3ee760674cf21b

The fee would have normally been above 300 USD, but by abusing these newish updates on bitcoin they get away with only paying for a fraction of the space they're actually taking in the blockchain.

Satoshi was also for imposing limits on abuses for what could get in bitcoin's chain as a valid transactions. So if ordinals are the single point of concern on what's causing this problem, then they should be addressed. That's 100% in line with bitcoin's vision.

[joker_josue]

Got to agree with OP in a certain way, though I think personally it's less the dollar cost of the fee (although this will for a long time be the focus) but the percentage of the tx amount. So yes, miners will need the fees incentive but if the sat cost becomes too high, it makes it less interesting for me.

To be as objective as possible, me paying 1 mbtc in fees only becomes worthwhile for a 0.1 BTC send. Right now, I'm actually okay with the the 10k sat fee to pay for a 3 input spend of 10 mbtc. But I can imagine it's annoying to spend 1 mbtc for a couple of pizzas now without LN.

Still think the benefit of sending something over such a secure network is well worth the cost. Was hardly ever my issue anyway, LN or my debit card should cover my pizza spends...

The question, how do you load your LN wallet? And how much money sent to your LN wallet at a time?
Do you think it makes sense, sending $200 and paying $50 in fees?

LN does not solve the problem of super high fees on mainnet. It can facilitate commerce, by having lower fees and faster transactions. But the movement of money between layer 1 and layer 2 continues to have high fees. And in this sense, it continues to be of little interest for the true use of the network.

[stompix]

This brings us to what's causing the current ongoing issue of high fees. It's not high demand and it's not miners wanting to charge extra for "keeping the chain secure".

As I explained in the first post and multiple times in the topic, this is a comparison and refers to the period where there will be no more reward, making the miners live on from fees! Again and probably for the last time, it doesn't imply fees will be double, it simply says that in order to have the same level of security you will have to pay up! Simple, as that, you either pay or you agree to have a less secure network, there is nothing else about it, simple economics!

Even now, nobody is forcing you to pay a dime, If you want to get a fast transaction you pay more, in the future you want a secure network you will have to pay, you pay less, and you go down bitcoin gold style.

Got to agree with OP in a certain way, though I think personally it's less the dollar cost of the fee (although this will for a long time be the focus) but the percentage of the tx amount. So yes, miners will need the fees incentive but if the sat cost becomes too high, it makes it less interesting for me.

Exactly, the fee increases in terms of dollar price it isn't gonna be an issue but when the fee needed is about 10 or 20% of the TX size of day-to-day transactions then the system could fall apart, to be honest.

But you guys talk about the same thing, you say that the only annoying thing is the relation between the sats paid in fees and the size of the tx, but being angry about paying
- 1 mbtc for 2 mbtc
is no different than saying
- $40 for a $80  transfer

Besides I really doubt too many would know to say in a split second if paying 17295 satoshi for a transaction for example is expensive or not without doing the math in $.

[summonerrk]

At this point it is becoming confusing. I read somewhere that the high fees is as a result of Ordinal or NFTs on the Bitcoin network. According to the said comment, the Ordinals is a new trend that is massively being traded, hence the congestion of the Bitcoin network.

I do know that this is not the first time I'm witnessing the situation we are facing now. So it becomes confusing knowing what to believe to be the cause of the high fees and if there is any other way around it with respect to the future because fees like this is a kind of discouraging!

Having logged into my wallet the day before yesterday, I wanted to throw $ 20 to the exchange for my trading manipulations, but I saw that for this I would need to pay a commission of more than $ 3! I do not know for what reason it happened again, but I remembered the recent situation with Ordinals who polluted the network so that some signature campaigns suspended activity on the forum. Again, this is an indicator of how outdated the bitcoin network is, and it's a shame. And someone can call it a safe haven currency, comparing it with gold. I hope the period of increasing commissions will not last long.

[buwaytress]

Still think the benefit of sending something over such a secure network is well worth the cost. Was hardly ever my issue anyway, LN or my debit card should cover my pizza spends...

The question, how do you load your LN wallet? And how much money sent to your LN wallet at a time?
Do you think it makes sense, sending $200 and paying $50 in fees?

LN does not solve the problem of super high fees on mainnet. It can facilitate commerce, by having lower fees and faster transactions. But the movement of money between layer 1 and layer 2 continues to have high fees. And in this sense, it continues to be of little interest for the true use of the network.

I don't =) Like I said, LN or debit card, and debit card is now how I pay for food buys. It was expensive even in normal times on chain (because the processor*cough*Bitpay*cough forces you to overkill on network fees). I've simply stopped using Bitcoin for those buys. Hasn't changed other deposit/sending habits, so I don't see that "true" use being harmed.

There's also the time, convenience, KYC, cost factored. The certainty of sending. These true nature things don't change. Just in September, a client asked for a bank transfer instead of crypto. One off. The transaction went through on my end, not on hers. Two weeks of confusion, calls, wondering where the hell the money went, finally to conclude a clerk in her branch rejected the amount because of wrong spelling of currency. This is 2023, but I wasn't shocked. I have 15 years of remote and distance work across multiple countries to know how difficult it can be to transmit money!

Bitcoin's true nature in a nutshell: if we follow the rules, I send something to you, I say exactly how much you get, I say exactly the fees I pay, you know exactly how much you get, you know for certain you'll get it, you know no one else will, you know it will never be revoked. People don't understand how precious this certainty and finality of settlement is... until you live and work all over the world (and have a not-so-desirable passport).

I'd happily pay these onchain settlement fees if I needed to maintain a node though, if most businesses knew the cost comparison with regular processor and all traffic uses Bitcoin, they'd move too.

But you guys talk about the same thing, you say that the only annoying thing is the relation between the sats paid in fees and the size of the tx, but being angry about paying
- 1 mbtc for 2 mbtc
is no different than saying
- $40 for a $80  transfer

It makes a difference to talk about percentage, not raw cost.

So yes, I'm not angry paying 1 mbtc for 100 mbtc, or $37 for $3700 (let's put it like that). Because to send the same $3700 with PayPal costs me 4% fees + bad rate. A bank costs me a flat fee but very poor rate. A remittance costs me 1.5% at great rate.

So to make my point clear, it's not the dollar value, but the percentage cost.

Besides I really doubt too many would know to say in a split second if paying 17295 satoshi for a transaction for example is expensive or not without doing the math in $.

Actually, when people complain about the cost, they usually convert the fee amount to dollar, precisely why they then conclude expensive or not. But it's not meaningful without comparing percentage cost.

I agree it's expensive now to do small purchases/sends. I now keep mt spends to debit card. But my regular remittances/big purchases/deposits still far cheaper with BTC.

[joker_josue]

As I explained in the first post and multiple times in the topic, this is a comparison and refers to the period where there will be no more reward, making the miners live on from fees! Again and probably for the last time, it doesn't imply fees will be double, it simply says that in order to have the same level of security you will have to pay up! Simple, as that, you either pay or you agree to have a less secure network, there is nothing else about it, simple economics!

Even now, nobody is forcing you to pay a dime, If you want to get a fast transaction you pay more, in the future you want a secure network you will have to pay, you pay less, and you go down bitcoin gold style.

Why will paying lower fees result in a less secure network? It is not the fees that make the network more or less secure. The difference between being more or less safe is the number of different miners - the more there are, the safer.

It can be said that it is the high rates that will attract large and small miners. But I honestly don't agree. This is only valid in a short-term view.

I already gave an example of accounts:
a) 10x50$ = 500$/block
b) 2000x0.50$ = 1000$/block

Which is more advantageous for the network? I believe the second option is the best. It pleases both miners and users.

What we have to motivate is a greater circulation of BTC, not a greater increase in fees.

The more transactions there are, they do not need to have a high fee to be highly profitable. They will say that the increase in fees occurs because there are many transactions. In part, it may even be true. So I suggest dedicating a percentage of the block, so that older transactions are guaranteed to pass in a minimally reasonable time.

[stompix]

Why will paying lower fees result in a less secure network? It is not the fees that make the network more or less secure. The difference between being more or less safe is the number of different miners - the more there are, the safer.

The hashrate didn't grow from 1 petahash to 400 exahash becuase there was a $1000 pot to be earned a day.
Again, end scenario is that fees will be the only reward miners will get, you think you will have miners with the same hashing power on 600k a day tx playing each 20 cents?

I already gave an example of accounts:
a) 10x50$ = 500$/block
b) 2000x0.50$ = 1000$/block
Which is more advantageous for the network? I believe the second option is the best. It pleases both miners and users.

Yeah, the only problem is that you've stopped short of the actual capacity, so let's get the picture of the real situation:
- block reward, 6.25x144, 900 BTC, ~ $ 31 million
- current fees in the last 24 hours, 106 BTC ~ 3,5 mill
- transactions in the last 24 hours, 516,878

So for the fees to cover the block reward you have two choice
- people pay 10 as much
- you have 5 million tx in a day...
But as you can see in a multitude of other topics, 10 MB blocks would break the law of the universe!
Not to mention it will also break and turn into dust the ego of some!

[examplens]

The hashrate didn't grow from 1 petahash to 400 exahash becuase there was a $1000 pot to be earned a day.
Again, end scenario is that fees will be the only reward miners will get, you think you will have miners with the same hashing power on 600k a day tx playing each 20 cents?

Why must the number of miners constantly increase? Isn't it logical that at some point after reaching its highest level, it starts to decline?
There is a huge difference in efficiency between today's mining hardware and that of 10 years ago. Shouldn't we expect additional improvements in 5 or 10 years, for example?

The same, if the miners' wishes were to come true and the trend of high fees were maintained in the long term, with the eventual expected growth in the value of Bitcoin, wouldn't that result in a mass shift from BTC to other cheaper currencies? Won't that cause fewer transactions, thus less potential earnings for miners?

It is clear to me that miners like the current high fee situation because it is good for their profits, but it is certainly not good for the entire ecosystem.

[alani123]

This brings us to what's causing the current ongoing issue of high fees. It's not high demand and it's not miners wanting to charge extra for "keeping the chain secure".

As I explained in the first post and multiple times in the topic, this is a comparison and refers to the period where there will be no more reward,

Well then you picked a very weird time to make this post. We're facing very high fees as bitcoin users in this moment, which as you're rightly pointing out is pricing out many bitcoin users and provides counter-incentive to use bitcoin for most types of normal transactions.

So saying that bitcoin is absolutely bound to have high fees due to it not having tail emissions, while true, isn't something that would have to be discussed now. Maybe after 2 or 3 more halvings? But that's years away from now. Even based on this logic, we don't NEED to have big fees neither now nor at any point in bitcoin's usage. If the capacity for transactions was simply increased, more people could be paying fees, albeit smaller, but this increased capacity would eventually balance out to higher fees in total.

So really the solution of providing incentive to keep the network secure even after emissions in the form of block rewards end, the simplest solution to provide miner rewards could just be making it easier for more transactions to happen.

[stompix]

The hashrate didn't grow from 1 petahash to 400 exahash becuase there was a $1000 pot to be earned a day.
Again, end scenario is that fees will be the only reward miners will get, you think you will have miners with the same hashing power on 600k a day tx playing each 20 cents?

Why must the number of miners constantly increase? Isn't it logical that at some point after reaching its highest level, it starts to decline?

It doesn't, the numbers are for keeping the hashrate stable.

There is a huge difference in efficiency between today's mining hardware and that of 10 years ago. Shouldn't we expect additional improvements in 5 or 10 years, for example?

Efficiency doesn't scale security proportionally.
The security of the chain does not only count hashes, it counts how much $ it costs to buy and run something to overcome the network and in this efficiency has little to say.
If the network is protected by 10000Th/s and
- it costs $2000 to buy a 100Th/s machine the attacker needs to cough up $200 000
- it costs $2000 to buy a 2000Th/s machine the attacker needs to $10 000  

Well then you picked a very weird time to make this post. We're facing very high fees as bitcoin users in this moment, which as you're rightly pointing out is pricing out many bitcoin users and provides counter-incentive to use bitcoin for most types of normal transactions.

No, I picked the perfect time for it!
Because everyone was always saying when there are no more bitcoins to be mined miners will live on from fees!

When I told people what that meant during times when the fees were 1st/b they didn't show interest, when I told them the same thing now, look at the revelation, think of it as telling a kid about brushing his teeth, one time when he is just fine and doesn't give a damn and the other time when he is on the dentist chair for an extraction.  

If the capacity for transactions was simply increased, more people could be paying fees, albeit smaller, but this increased capacity would eventually balance out to higher fees in total.

Be my guest to open a topic about increasing the capacity, I'm grabbing my popcorn!
Common, do it, I can't wait for it!

As for me, I was just this week shown how it's physically impossible to have blocks larger than 4MB because only nodes that own a Titan computer and their own private global fiber optic cables would be able to cope with larger blocks!

[joker_josue]

The hashrate didn't grow from 1 petahash to 400 exahash becuase there was a $1000 pot to be earned a day.
Again, end scenario is that fees will be the only reward miners will get, you think you will have miners with the same hashing power on 600k a day tx playing each 20 cents?

Why must the number of miners constantly increase? Isn't it logical that at some point after reaching its highest level, it starts to decline?

It doesn't, the numbers are for keeping the hashrate stable.

But why do you have to maintain or increase hash power?
Hash power has increased, not to generate security, but because there is great competition among miners to obtain the block reward. With the gradual reduction in the reward value per block, this competition starts to make less sense. Because the cost increases for the block reward. I don't think it's logical to overload the network with fees to sustain this mining war.

The point is that 1T/H processes the same number of transactions and blocks as 600E/H. So this idea that this has to be always increasing doesn't make sense. In the next halving or two halvings from now, this mentality has to start changing, otherwise we will start to have absurd fees that will discourage new users from entering the network. Most people aren't going to have dozens of BTC to compensate for paying extremely high fees.

Why does this war for hash power have to be fueled? Why can't mining be made even more decentralized again, as long as more users have a processing machine? When mining is reduced to two or three pools (which is the path this is taking), won't this be more dangerous for the security of Bitcoin?

[franky1]

As for me, I was just this week shown how it's physically impossible to have blocks larger than 4MB because only nodes that own a Titan computer and their own private global fiber optic cables would be able to cope with larger blocks!

quoting for posterity..

great comedy, such idiocy

4mb every 10min...
0.4mb every minute..
6kb/sec... i think stompix is stuck on 1980's dialup

wake up stompix its 2023 calling, you are 43 years older then when you went to sleep
your 1980's cloth insulted telephone line might have been sheathed in fabric, but that didnt make it "fibre"



as a counter argument
seems some idiots think it fine for bitcoiners that want to use bitcoin should pay $2-$16 a day(average daily tx fee range)
well an average PC that can handle 4+ years of use is well under $400

yet fees:
$2 a day for 4 years in fee's $2920
$16 a day for 4 years in fee's $23,360

the idiots that think the problem is a PC at under $400, but dont see that $2,920-$23,360 fee cost is a big deal to them.. that person is completely ignorant of the problem being discussed in this topic

the problem is not the PC. it IS the fee's for daily bitcoin use that is the problem by a 6x-58x magnitude atleast

[joker_josue]

Whoever told you 4MB required a Titan Computer and fiber optic cables were required , is spreading misinformation.  

That was a good question to ask Satoshi. Why does it define 4MB per block and no more?
10 years ago, computers and the internet were already fast enough to support larger blocks.

[stompix]

The point is that 1T/H processes the same number of transactions and blocks as 600E/H. So this idea that this has to be always increasing doesn't make sense. In the next halving or two halvings from now, this mentality has to start changing, otherwise we will start to have absurd fees that will discourage new users from entering the network. Most people aren't going to have dozens of BTC to compensate for paying extremely high fees.

It does, but a network protected by 1 TH/s can be attacked by a guy spending $100 bucks on a S9 and just unplugging his AC for an hour and he has enough to reorganize 20 blocks, the other takes about ...2 million $10k machines to do, and about 10 nuclear reactors (depending on size)

One is Bitcoin, the other is Bitcoin gold, which got successfully attacked via a 51% three times.
Which one do you prefer?

Whoever told you 4MB required a Titan Computer and fiber optic cables were required , is spreading misinformation.  

~
quoting for posterity..

Of course, I'm a bit exaggerating this but, here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIuuKCm53o
So, we shouldn't increase the blocksize unless we manage to get quantum computers in our smartphones basically..

[franky1]

~
quoting for posterity..

Of course, I'm a bit exaggerating this but, here it is
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHIuuKCm53o
So, we shouldn't increase the blocksize unless we manage to get quantum computers in our smartphones basically..

if only you knew more then the 0.0001% you know about quantum computers you would laugh at yourself for making your final sentence
if only you knew more then the 1% you know about bitcoin you would laugh at yourself for making your final sentence
stop living in the 1980's

didnt you even listen to the first 60 seconds of the video you linked

blocks USED TO be slow because transactions WERE sent twice.. once at zero confirm relay independantly and again combined in a block at confirm with the header..(emphasis past tense)

well things have moved on since 2017..

did you know nodes no longer create blocks. so their outgoing data is far less than 2009-2010. when you look at bandwidth "issue"(non) there is more things about active connections that affect bandwidth, more so than the actual data blocksize limit they call the problem

and right now there are nodes having no problems with upto 120 inbound connections .. so please.. put that in your calculations and run some scenarios
...

funny part is in june 2017 the very same devs of blockstream were screaming blue murder about saying no to 2mb, saying no to 4mb. not due to any real risk. but due to it not being THEIR plan.. and by august they say 4mb is safe, because it was 4mb in their way..


realise they pretend there are risks of how it would require servers for blockchains if blocks get bigger ..more recently same guy spouting needing a subscription service they want to offer for block storage/supply if blocks get too big, because it double promotes their business plan. it fools people and makes people want their commercial subnetworks, and commercial software.. they want people to get annoyed and abandon bitcoin or be fooled into using their subscription software-as-a-service things they are hoping to develop, commercialise and then charge fee's on separate from mining fee's

their sponsors threw hundreds of millions at them and their sponsors want ROI via middle-men service fees.

but if you actually look at the real world, outside of their pitches and pitchforks.. you will see that 4mb/10minute is less than dialup speeds in reality

heck 4mb on clearnet is such a non-problem. that they dont even see it as a problem on darknet(tor) which is 10x slower+

as for the 8yo salespitches about hard drive bloat..
well if they cared about lean blockchains they would:
fix their exploit of meme junk.
fix the cludgy code that segregates input-output 1mb witness 3mb walls. to be a unified 4mb space to allow true bitcoin input-output utility in the full 4mb space to allow more transaction count.

but when you realise why thy allow more bloat but dont want to expand transaction count.. you soon learn its not about bitcoin efficiency. its not about expanding bitcoin utility for more of the community to use. its not about making bitcoin economically viable.. its simply to give bitcoiners an expensive headache experience USING bitcoin, so that people are forced(for "convenience") to use middle man services/subnetworks they own/develop as 'solutions'

to realise why blockstream frontmen get on stage to say what they say, you wont find the answer in any technical risk detail of internet speeds or hard drive costs.. you will however find their reasoning for their words when you see who sponsors them to get on stage
...
need me to go on and explain the next 2minutes of the video to you??.. i can go on all day

[joker_josue]

It does, but a network protected by 1 TH/s can be attacked by a guy spending $100 bucks on a S9 and just unplugging his AC for an hour and he has enough to reorganize 20 blocks, the other takes about ...2 million $10k machines to do, and about 10 nuclear reactors (depending on size)

One is Bitcoin, the other is Bitcoin gold, which got successfully attacked via a 51% three times.
Which one do you prefer?

Of course, the value I indicated was merely indicative, to mention that everything happens the same way with a lot or a little hash.

Regarding the famous possible 51% attack, unfortunately I see it more likely to happen as mining becomes centralized in half a dozen large miners and pools, than the other way around.

Since we are talking about the future, in 20 years, there will probably only be 2 or 3 pools left, which will together concentrate +50% of the hash power. What prevented them from getting together and organizing an "attack" on the network? Anything... The world is full of examples of lobbies, when 2 or 3 large companies in a market come together to align strategies.

[franky1]

Since we are talking about the future, in 20 years, there will probably only be 2 or 3 pools left, which will together concentrate +50% of the hash power. What prevented them from getting together and organizing an "attack" on the network? Anything... The world is full of examples of lobbies, when 2 or 3 large companies in a market come together to align strategies.

look to the past.. 2017 NYA lobby to get pools to flag something at a unnatural 100% level...

[stompix]

Bumping this as we're seeing some records

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-fee_to_reward.html#3m



The % of fees in reward went above 35%.

Remember than in the scenario where fees would need to compensate for the block reward disappearing they would have need to be already at 50%. So despite sky high fees, we're still not generating enough in reward to compensate for the block reward, meaning that right now, you would need to pay TWICE AS MUCH for the same security of the chain.

Reward (last 24h)   943.75+418.28 BTC
BTC943 being the block reward and BTC418 the fees for the last 24 hours.

So everyone who was cheerfully and easygoing as they claimed miners will earn from the fees and they will still keep the chain secure, you might have to re-write your script!

[examplens]

So everyone who was cheerfully and easygoing as they claimed miners will earn from the fees and they will still keep the chain secure, you might have to re-write your script!

In the Bitcoin ecosystem, the most important thing is that miners earn as much as they think they need. Other participants, users, and businesses are neither necessary nor important. Let them find their way and move on to other networks. I suggest that some kind of foundation be formed that will collect donations and distribute them to Bitcoin miners because they are at the greatest loss here.