Will transaction fees affect Bitcoin in the future?

[Natalim]

The impact on the daily users is quite huge and they will decide not to use them but instead choose other coins that have cheap transaction fees.
Paying 2-3$ is quite acceptable but paying more than that seems to be difficult. We can simply think that as the demand continues to rise, fees may rise as well and we can expect this in the future. That is why I could imagine if you are in business and accepting Bitcoin as a payment option, I don't think it works, for sure they prefer to use fiat rather than paying $1 if they just buy an item worth $5.

[coolcoinz]

It's hard to say how this will evolve, but you can expect bitcoin fees to rise in future and also new solutions to be invented, the way LN was.

Not sure if you have been in 2017, if I remember correctly, in the last quarter, specially November-December, the fees also increased that big.

Because there was a network spam happening back then when Craig Wright and Roger Ver wanted to show the world that Bitcoin is slow and bitcoin clones are not, but that was because they were spamming bitcoin and nobody used their shitcoins.

[Yatsan]

If gas or transaction feed would be higher in the future to the extent that it would be more expensive than with FIAT by that time, then yes. The prinary use of this blockchain is as a digital currency. Logically speaking, this is meant for transactions such as purchasing of goods and wants. If things would be expensive why would it still be preferred by its users and consumers? The only thing we wouldn't be able to trading this technology is due to anonymity with big transactions and also with taxation of goods. If it won't be serving its purpose of a faster and cheaper transaction, might as well move to other mode of payment to be more practical.

[Z-tight]

This has to be solved, but it will be solved when it is taken as a problem first because most of the developers are not even taking it as a problem because to them the fee is not high but it is high for middle or lower class adopters (those who have lesser BTC). <-- I just came up with this term hehe.  

Solved by who, BTC is not a centralized project that has a central third party that can arbitrarily 'solve' problems and take any decision. Take note that in the BTC network nobody fixes tx fees, the same way nobody can 'solve' the issue of high tx fees, it is the 'network' and the community of BTC users that collectively decide on the fees, If there is a congestion, fee rate rises because you have to outbid another user for block space and if there is less congestion, fee rate drops. Right now, ordinals is creating the traffic in the network, and you don't expect miners to blacklist their tx's, because the network is censorship resistant and they also need the fees.

What's more worrisome is the fact that there are people defending the inflated transaction fees justifying it stating it has happened in previous bull runs but my question is why should it be that way? Bitcoin was created for P2P and not just for huge business transactions, I definitely get bad impression when it comes to transaction fee.

You're missing the point because you don't understand how BTC tx fees work, nobody is setting these fees, not even the miners; fee rate goes up when there is a congestion in the network, and it does not mean you are 'forced' to pay a high fee, you can still attach any fee rate you want to your tx, but because of the bidding for block space and other users willing to pay a higher fee for confirmation; your tx will probably be stuck and will be unconfirmed for a long time, or possibly purged from the mempool.

[taufik123]

It's hard to say how this will evolve, but you can expect bitcoin fees to rise in future and also new solutions to be invented, the way LN was.

Of course there will be a solution for all these improvements.
When the price of Bitcoin can reach a new ATH, fees increase and profits also increase.
A good solution is like the use of the LN network, but the LN network is still under development and there are some people who are also against it.

Not sure if you have been in 2017, if I remember correctly, in the last quarter, specially November-December, the fees also increased that big.

Because there was a network spam happening back then when Craig Wright and Roger Ver wanted to show the world that Bitcoin is slow and bitcoin clones are not, but that was because they were spamming bitcoin and nobody used their shitcoins.

The last congestion is due to the BRC20 Ordinal network, which makes fees increase sharply and transactions are stuck for quite a long time.
Costs increased 10x due to network congestion.

[hatshepsut93]

It has been affecting Bitcoin's viability as a payment method for awhile now. Back in 2017 I bought games on Steam with BTC a few times, and even back then there were problems with fees and they made Steam drop support for Bitcoin because customers were setting low fees, transactions were getting stuck, customers were contacting support and it all was just not worth it to maintain. I'm sure a lot of merchants who look into Bitcoin today see the situation with fees and imagine how they would have to deal with their customers having their transactions stuck and decide that now is not the time to adopt Bitcoin payments.

[suzanne5223]

A couple of times the mempool has been congested resulting in high transaction fees which is mostly not too healthy for the network as most users who do not have that much to spare for fees tend to cease transactions till the fee rate subsides.

Transaction congestion is seen as something that didn't make the Bitcoin network due to the frustration and limitations of transaction confirmation but if we look at the long span it somehow helps in the security of the network.
It's a state of affairs of everything that comes with disadvantages always has an advantage as they say.

Also owing to the fact that Bitcoin has become more adopted over time, users have also increased too therefore logically, as the Bitcoin adoption rate increases, so does the price of Bitcoin however it has also partially led to increase in Bitcoin fees over time.

Yes, but there are some alternatives you can use to boycott the huge transaction fee or long time waiting for transaction confirmation.

aside from the implementation of the layer 2 what other possible ways would help keep Bitcoin transaction fees as low as possible.

The use of SegWit/Bech32 BTC wallet addresses and the adoption of Schnorr signatures.

[EluguHcman]

There is a logic trends in trading that the lower the demand is the lower the price also as the higher the demands is the higher the price.
On the context of this note and yours at OP, I am not so sure but I would have to say that there is no boycott to escape any give fee rate in an exchange. This is just like there is no other choice so even if you gets to other exchanger you would still face same thing or similar.

Why is it so? It is primarily because the exchange is only functionable and valuable on when crypto currency is on trades so as the price of Bitcoin is increased, the exchangers also take its advantages by increasing their transactions charge fees.
We all already knows that the more Bitcoin demands are trending (increased) so is the value rate of Bitcoin is also increased. This is also basically how the mechanism of crypto exchangers is formed that the more crypto users are Increased is the more the fees are also increased.

You can also get less charge fees from exchanges that are likely not broaded (popular) yet. Meaning crypto exchange that yet has less number of its users and that is because they are yet to build reputations that is to attract users to its platform just in a main time.
This should be a careful move so non falls into unreliable exchange simply because we want it cheap.

[dothebeats]

Fees are affecting bitcoin now in such a way that it hinders most of the transactions in the network when it is overloaded. It will always be a vital part of bitcoin that will continue affecting how we use the said cryptocurrencies. There are tons of proposals on how to manage high transaction fees in the future, and up to now the community is divided on the approach on how to do this. I myself see the benefits on both sides (2nd layer vs change in algorithm), though I haven't come into a conclusion on how to go about it as each also presents some cons alongside the pros.

For now, a second layer seems to be the most viable option, though it kinda undermines miners whom are the primary workers of the chain as they receive less fees that doesn't incentivize them to continue running their machines.

[Darker45]

It has affected Bitcoin in the past. It is affecting Bitcoin now. And it will continue to affect Bitcoin in the future. And those effects are significant. Although there are a number of ways to somehow mitigate it like using SegWit or consolidating UTXOs, those aren't actually remedies. Lightning itself doesn't address the problem.

However, Bitcoin remains cheap and efficient when it comes to huge and international transactions. Sometimes I'm convinced that Bitcoin is meant for this. Smaller ones on a day-to-day basis could make use of off-chain or other alternatives.

[joniboini]

For now, a second layer seems to be the most viable option, though it kinda undermines miners whom are the primary workers of the chain as they receive less fees that doesn't incentivize them to continue running their machines.

If I'm not wrong, some side-chain proposals suggest merge mining where miners will also earn their coins/tokens when they participate in their chain. Basically, miners will earn their BTC fees plus the side-chain tokens to incentivize their participation. However, I'm not sure how quickly this will run into the same bottleneck unless they use a different algorithm for the blockchain.

Personally, I think we can take time and see which solution provides the best answer. While the recent spam on the network due to NFTs causes some spikes, it won't last long, just like what had happened in the past. Maybe it will be such a headache in the next 5-10 years so.

[UchihaSarada]

Use LTC and Doge for small numbers.

Use BTC for big numbers.

All problems will be greatly reduced.

I agree to choose altcoins if can not afford to pay transaction fee on Bitcoin blockchain when it is expensive. The chart shows Dogecoin and Litecoin are good alternatives.

https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactionfees-btc-doge-ltc.html#3m

Litecoin is even better than Dogecoin.
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactionfees-doge-ltc.html#3m

But Dogecoin network has higher hashrate than Litecoin network and it is safer a little bit for on chain transactions. It's harder to be attacked than Litecoin network.
https://howmanyconfs.com/

[bluebit25]

It's not attractive for small transactions, but I think it won't fundamentally affect people's interest in this area . Because everyone knows the profit opportunity when investing in it, if you look back at previous price increase cycles, the issue of fees is always an opportunity for many developers to exploit and launch new products. And it's clear that the goal is still to create convenience for users to access the market.

Competition in trading would probably be eased if we saw increased profits, which I can sympathize with for those willing to spend large fees on trading. But anyway, with the development of crypto, I think fees only cause confusion for newcomers, and when they see the benefits, they will be willing to pay.

[HONDACD125]

A couple of times the mempool has been congested resulting in high transaction fees which is mostly not too healthy for the network as most users who do not have that much to spare for fees tend to cease transactions till the fee rate subsides.Also owing to the fact that Bitcoin has become more adopted over time, users have also increased too therefore logically, as the Bitcoin adoption rate increases, so does the price of Bitcoin however it has also partially led to increase in Bitcoin fees over time.Here is a chart which shows Bitcoin Avg. Transaction Fee.Relatively
fees have increased over Time and even exponentially during periods of congestion of the network.Yes topics concerning fees have been raised over time however aside from the implementation of the layer 2 what other possible ways would help keep Bitcoin transaction fees as low as possible.

Of course, the problem of such increase in transaction fees has been seen recently, and many times before, small investors often face problems due to the increase in transaction fees. Due to the increase in fees, big capitalists do not matter much, but where people work daily or weekly and get paid in bitcoins, the rising fee is a problem for them.If I need to send bitcoins to my hard wallet in a hurry, I won't be able to because of the high fees

Now, in order to avoid high fees, either the transaction should be done in one go, or the transaction should be done by converting the bitcoin to another altcoin and then you can convert it back to whatever form you want. However, this sometimes happens for a few days after which it returns to its normal position, so there may be an uncomfortable wait.

[Kakmakr]

The transaction fees should not have an influence at all in the future, if people use the Lightning Network for the "currency" part of this technology and the Blockchain for everything else. (accept for these Ordinals nonsense)  

Also, if you do only "bulk" transactions now and again.... like moving a bunch of tokens into and out of cold storage... then we will not have a problem with congestion. (Limit the micro transactions on the Blockchain)  

[thecodebear]

By the time Bitcoin is used at a mass scale for buying things the vast majority of bitcoin usage will have to be on higher layers like LN. Bitcoin is a base layer, as such its design purpose is security and decentralization. Efficiency comes on higher layers.

So in the future, yes transaction fees won't be cheap, but people will only be hitting the base network on rare occasions like for perhaps making very large purchases (in which case the tx fee will be trivial), or to move money around or when they are just getting exchanging fiat for bitcoin. Whatever Bitcoin's exact future ends up being, it needs to be based around the fact that only a handful of transactions can happen on-chain globally each second, and thousands of transactions per second will be happening off-chain. So the network layers of Bitcoin need to be set up in such a way as to make on-chain transaction only be need in rare occasions.

On-chain can do something like 150 million transactions per year (granted when considering batching of custodied transactions it's probably a bit higher). If let's say 1.5 billion people are using Bitcoin that means only one in ten people can make an on-chain transaction each year. But the average person should very rarely have to ever interact on-chain, generally just on-boarding onto L2 networks or perhaps buying a house or something with bitcoin. L2 networks (whether LN or whatever networks will be designed in the future) need to be designed with the goal of only essentially only ever REQUIRING to hit the blockchain once when onboarding. LN does a pretty good job of this though its not perfect.

Anyway, tx fees in the future will be settled by the market for those rare large transactions / money money around / on-boarding onto L2's. People will have to decide how badly they need to hit the blockchain in those rare circumstances, and based on their needs collectively as the fee market the fees will settle at some amount. Whatever that amount is it is certainly going to be a lot higher than today. Depending on how much large transaction business is done in Bitcoin it could be higher or lower, since paying $5 vs $50 vs $500 fee doesn't make much difference if you're sending $1 million - $1 billion. If there are a higher rate of large tx's on the network then that will crowd out the occasional small transaction which is why L2 networks really need to make it so you only really need to do an on-chain tx once to get onto the L2 and then it is never required again.

[yhiaali3]

This problem is the main concern of the Bitcoin community currently, since the emergence of ordinals on the Bitcoin network. This problem is becoming more apparent, and the fees have become very annoyingly high for everyone (except for miners, of course).

It is true that the ordinals are what caused the current problem, but they gave us a serious indication about the fate of the Bitcoin network if global adoption occurs. Now the question must be strongly asked: Is the Bitcoin network ready to accommodate global adoption? If Ordinals creates all this congestion and high fees, what will happen to the network upon global adoption?

The problem needs a real solution.

[BIT-BENDER]

The fact that the fees are high now and if you choose against using those high fees you transactions would be completed after taking very long time that has caused so much inconvenience right now and it's affecting many Bitcoin users, yes many people have their own theory as to why this issue still exist the biggest reason now is the ordinal.

This won't be the first time we would see the Bitcoin transactions fee being a problem so I think it's about time the cause of the problem get checked and see if their is a possible solution because in the future miners may have so much power over transactions than they have now this isn't what Decentralised system should be.

[Faisal2202]

This is certainly not the case. There has been a number of improvement proposals geared towards making transaction cost cheaper, one of them is SegWit. There are also off chain solutions that has been implemented.

I don't continuously visit platforms where these proposals are made, but AFAIK the segwit solution is it not an old thing. I mean segwit addresses are the solution that was already implemented as it helped in increasing the number of transactions to be added in a single block. Which was a good thing and still is, but I did not get what other SegWit proposal are you talking about, it would be great if you would share that proposal as I can then look into them, and yeah I am aware of off-chain solutions like LN.

I am not certain what you are talking about, but what is more important to the fees is the inputs in the transaction, and this cannot be fixed by simply sending transactions in batches.....

Actually, I was talking about multiple transactions, for example, if you have to make 10 different transactions of $100, one by one creation of transactions will cost more because each transaction will have its own fee but if you will make a bundle of these individual transactions then you don't have to spend a huge amount of fee just like centralized exchanges do, they make withdrawals requests (transactions) in a bundle to avoid the huge fee and to deduct more commission.

[Abiky]

If I have my way it will be to find a way to avoid this shit coins like ORDI and it’s likes been built on bitcoin blockchain and make it bitcoin only blockchain, at least that would save up some space for more transactions, but that isn’t possible.

There are some people that actually are suggesting a fork to increase the block size which I don’t like because that will definitely affect the decentralization of bitcoin.

For now my suggestion is every user should implement personal manual management like consolidating their UTXOs when the fees gets low, use wallets that allow to customize fees, bump transactions and even have the coin control feature just incase you need that. And we should treat bitcoin as an alternative payment method, use it when it is cheap and convenient or use other means.

High transactions fees WILL affect Bitcoin in the future. We can blame Ordinals for that. Some developers talked about adding some changes to the code that would restrict/block Ordinals transactions. But that would be introducing censorship right into the BTC blockchain. This leaves us with only one option. And that is scaling BTC on-chain by either increasing the block size or reducing the block time.

Still, we'd need to be aware of the risks of centralization that comes by doing this. There's nothing we can do other than wait until fees decline or switch to an altcoin with little-to-no network congestion. I've been using both DOGE and LTC for constant day-to-day payments. If BTC tx fees stay high, we would only be able to use it as a store of value (large transfers). Don't count on Bitcoin's Lightning Network, especially when it's full of bugs. No one can predict the future, so lets hope for the best.