Mempool fees and Solutions

[UmerIdrees]

These days we are experiencing high transaction fee most probably due to Bitcoin ordinals. Anyone who wants to make a small transaction, he may have to pay a higher fee sometimes equal or even more than the actual transact amount.

Is there a way to know if the ordinals traffic will be low in the coming days and the mempool fee will decrease?
https://ordiscan.com/ does not tell such prediction or data.

What is the solution to this probelm other than to hold our transaction (if we can) and wait for a suitable time when the mempool fees are low again. I remember I used to see only 2 or 3 sat/vbyte two months back. Such low fees seem to be a dream these days.

[1714668898]

1714668898

[1714668898]

1714668898

[un_rank]

Best possible solution is to use a transaction accelerator, only trusted one I know of is ViaBTC. The other solution-ish is something you should have done months back when the fees were low and that is to consolidate your small transactions into one single UTXO, so you pay lower fees when you want to send.

Bonus point is using Segwit address and Lightening network for small transactions.

- Jay -

[TheUltraElite]

Here are the viable solutions that I have found to be working till date:
1. Use an altcoin for the time being. LTC, DOGE are good options if you dont want to stretch it.
2. Use SegWit if not already and learn how to use the Lightning Network along with its arguments and counter-arguments. There is a lot of pro/anti voice surrounding LN in this forum.
3. Just wait it out - might not be feasible for everyone though.
4. ViaBTC accelerator is the only working one.

In this context I would like to raise a question on how do you confirm that an accelerator service actually helped your transaction speedup or was it just a placebo effect? The second one has been exploited by certain unscrupulous users of this forum essentially extorting users of money by doing nothing in the name of speeding up transactions - their prevalence has dropped but they still operate and we need some concrete argument to stop them once and for all.

[hugeblack]

Transaction fees have started to decrease and are now approximately 22 sat/vB. reduce the number of Inputs when network fees are low, Use SegWit addresses, use a wallet that supports RBF CPFP, but in the end you will reduce the fees you pay compared to what you would have paid if you had not Do these solutions.

2. Use SegWit if not already and learn how to use the Lightning Network along with its arguments and counter-arguments. There is a lot of pro/anti voice surrounding LN in this forum.

A Lightning Network transaction is 2 onchain transactions, and therefore you will not reduce the fees if you open a channel now. Open a channel when the fees are low and enjoy zero transactions, close the channel when the fees decrease, and so on.

ViaBTC accelerator is the only working one.

Some members like @macbook-air had access to F2Pool's transaction selector but I don't know if they still have that access and can help you.

[Lucius]

~snip~
Is there a way to know if the ordinals traffic will be low in the coming days and the mempool fee will decrease?

Perhaps it is best to follow what is happening with mempool, and if the number of unconfirmed transactions starts to decrease (as is the case now), we can assume that the fees will start to decrease in the coming days. We currently have about 163 000 transactions that are in the range of 1-24 sats/vB out of a total of 183 000 unconfirmed transactions, while the fee for high priority is about 30 sats/vB.

If there is no new ordinal madness, it is realistic to expect that soon the mempool will start to be cleaned of transactions that pay less than 25 sats/vB, which is exactly what is happening.

[dkbit98]

Is there a way to know if the ordinals traffic will be low in the coming days and the mempool fee will decrease?

Yes, you need to visit local gipsy fortune teller and ask here about future of ordinals and transaction fees  

What is the solution to this probelm other than to hold our transaction (if we can) and wait for a suitable time when the mempool fees are low again. I remember I used to see only 2 or 3 sat/vbyte two months back. Such low fees seem to be a dream these days.

I don't know how often you use bitcoin, but I don't remember that low fees few months ago, except maybe during weekends.
Average transaction right now is around 30sat/vB or $1.8 ^{(this is probably less or similar like fees on eth chain)} and I don't think this is so terrible like you say.
If you want to have minimal fees for bitcoin just use Lightning Network or other bitcoin sidechains like Liquid with L-BTC.
Last option is not to use bitcoin and you wont spend any fees.

[BitcoinsGreat]

wait for a suitable time when the mempool fees are low again.

What is the low mem pool fee in your opinion?

I don't know how often you use bitcoin, but I don't remember that low fees few months ago, except maybe during weekends.

Since OP has given one option is to delay the bitcoin transactions until the fee becomes normal, still one can wait for the weekends and get a relatively low tx fee. Even in these days, we get a really good Tx fee maybe under 20 sat/vbyte is acceptable.

[Synchronice]

These days we are experiencing high transaction fee most probably due to Bitcoin ordinals. Anyone who wants to make a small transaction, he may have to pay a higher fee sometimes equal or even more than the actual transact amount.

Is there a way to know if the ordinals traffic will be low in the coming days and the mempool fee will decrease?
https://ordiscan.com/ does not tell such prediction or data.

What is the solution to this probelm other than to hold our transaction (if we can) and wait for a suitable time when the mempool fees are low again. I remember I used to see only 2 or 3 sat/vbyte two months back. Such low fees seem to be a dream these days.

Check your UTXOs. If you have to spend as much as you have received, you can make small size transactions, as low as 113 byte and pay a lower fee. If you make bitcoin transaction and unite all of you UTXOs, then you are significantly increasing the size of your transaction and will end up paying a lot.

Best possible solution is to use a transaction accelerator, only trusted one I know of is ViaBTC. The other solution-ish is something you should have done months back when the fees were low and that is to consolidate your small transactions into one single UTXO, so you pay lower fees when you want to send.

Bonus point is using Segwit address and Lightening network for small transactions.

- Jay -

ViaBTC free accelerator is not for everyone, transaction has to be lower than 0.5 KB with higher than 0.0001BTC/KB fee. There are many paid transaction accelerator like ViaBTC paid service, Binance's transaction accelerator, F2POOL's accelerator. These are legit paid services but they ask you to pay so much that it doesn't really worth it.

Just found another accelerator on Bitcoin.com (I know it's a shit website owned by Roger Ver, don't remind me please), so, I have no idea about them but anyone can check it if they wish: https://txa.cc

[hosseinimr93]

Check your UTXOs. If you have to spend as much as you have received, you can make small size transactions, as low as 113 byte and pay a lower fee.

You probably meant vbyte, not byte.
It's possible to make a normal segwit transaction including 1 input and output and with the (virtual) size of around 109 vbyte.

ViaBTC free accelerator is not for everyone, transaction has to be lower than 0.5 KB with higher than 0.0001BTC/KB fee.

To be eligible to use ViaBTC free accelerator, there's another requirement too and it's that the transaction must not have any unconfirmed output.

[Z-tight]

In this context I would like to raise a question on how do you confirm that an accelerator service actually helped your transaction speedup or was it just a placebo effect?

If you successfully submit your transaction to an accelerating service, you will know they accelerated your transaction because it would be included in the next block mined by the mining pool. If you use a paid tx accelerating service, then your tx can either be mined by the pool themselves or their cooperating pools. Take note that there are a lot of scam accelerating services and some who only rebroadcast tx's, but collect payment from gullible bitcoiners for that.

[joniboini]

What is the low mem pool fee in your opinion?

This will vary greatly depending on who you ask. Personally, anything below 50 sats/vbyte is fine for me. I do like it if it can go as low as 5 sats to get confirmation on the next block though, especially if I need to consolidate my transactions. I don't think it will happen anytime soon sadly.

Anyone who wants to make a small transaction, he may have to pay a higher fee sometimes equal or even more than the actual transact amount.

If this small transaction is related to liquidating your BTC to other forms of money, waiting seems to be the best choice. As long as the input doesn't become too big, you should be able to save some money too. If this is related to making regular payments to services you regularly use, that depends on the service I guess. Some support LN so you can just open a channel with some amount of money that can last for several payments, for example. You can also look for other services that support LN, RBF, or something similar. For example, I paid for my VPN with BTC, they allow RBF transactions and the confirmation window is quite long so the risk of being uncredited is small.

[pooya87]

Spam attacks by nature are unpredictable because there is an attacked that will continue to fill the mempool with junk to intentionally inflate the fees.
A spam attack such as Ordinals is a special type of attack that provides the incentive for the attackers (that also happen to be regular newbies) to attack bitcoin themselves without feeling like they are performing such an attack.

The only solution for this is to either patch the exploit they are using in the Bitcoin protocol to perform this attack. Which doesn't seem likely in the near future since a small part of the community still insists that preventing this type of abuse is considered "censorship"!!!!
Or the other solution is to wait and wish for the scam market where they rip people off with the junk they inject into the blockchain to die. Which is very unlikely considering how the scam has grown and how greed works. We've already seen it in the ICO scams in 2017 that died but never disappeared.

[TheUltraElite]

In this context I would like to raise a question on how do you confirm that an accelerator service actually helped your transaction speedup or was it just a placebo effect?

If you successfully submit your transaction to an accelerating service, you will know they accelerated your transaction because it would be included in the next block mined by the mining pool. If you use a paid tx accelerating service, then your tx can either be mined by the pool themselves or their cooperating pools. Take note that there are a lot of scam accelerating services and some who only rebroadcast tx's, but collect payment from gullible bitcoiners for that.

The second point is exactly what is happening to many users out there. If they are not showing which pool they are working with and just rebroadcast the transaction they are essentially running a scam. However more work needs to be done from our side to shine such scammers without any loophole and outcast them from the forum.

Some of them are nicely operating from this forum itself which makes me cringe.

[Z-tight]

The second point is exactly what is happening to many users out there. If they are not showing which pool they are working with and just rebroadcast the transaction they are essentially running a scam. However more work needs to be done from our side to shine such scammers without any loophole and outcast them from the forum.

To begin with, using a paid tx accelerator doesn't even make much sense to me, it is expensive and you can use the money to either pay an appropriate fee or bump your tx with rbf, so i can recommend that people should not really use paid accelerators.

Now as for free accelerators, ViaBTC is the only one that is working, if you can successfully submit your tx to be accelerated by them amidst the current congestion, with too many people also waiting to use the free service, you can be sure they accelerated your tx because it would be in the next block that they mine. It may be worth mentioning that if someone wants to use a paid accelerating service for any reason, then ViaBTC offers one, and you can be sure it works.

[Die_empty]

Is there a way to know if the ordinals traffic will be low in the coming days and the mempool fee will decrease?
https://ordiscan.com/ does not tell such prediction or data.

What is the solution to this probelm other than to hold our transaction (if we can) and wait for a suitable time when the mempool fees are low again. I remember I used to see only 2 or 3 sat/vbyte two months back. Such low fees seem to be a dream these days.

Prediction when the traffic will be low might not be possible but the price has started decreasing gradually. If the transaction you want to carry out is not urgent, you can wait for a few days because the end of this ordinal bullshit might be in sight. Observing the mempool could be another to see if the transaction fee is low at a given time.   

Now as for free accelerators, ViaBTC is the only one that is working, if you can successfully submit your tx to be accelerated by them amidst the current congestion, with too many people also waiting to use the free service, you can be sure they accelerated your tx because it would be in the next block that they mine. It may be worth mentioning that if someone wants to use a paid accelerating service for any reason, then ViaBTC offers one, and you can be sure it works.

Using the free accelerating service by ViaBTC is limited. One can only accelerate transactions with at least 0.0001BTC/KB transaction fees and it will only handle transactions with a volume ≤0.5 KB. Using this free service can also be slow since only a hundred transactions are carried out in an hour. A paid accelerator is better if you can afford the cost because it has more benefits and options. 

[philipma1957]

Here are the viable solutions that I have found to be working till date:
1. Use an altcoin for the time being. LTC, DOGE are good options if you dont want to stretch it.
2. Use SegWit if not already and learn how to use the Lightning Network along with its arguments and counter-arguments. There is a lot of pro/anti voice surrounding LN in this forum.
3. Just wait it out - might not be feasible for everyone though.
4. ViaBTC accelerator is the only working one.

In this context I would like to raise a question on how do you confirm that an accelerator service actually helped your transaction speedup or was it just a placebo effect? The second one has been exploited by certain unscrupulous users of this forum essentially extorting users of money by doing nothing in the name of speeding up transactions - their prevalence has dropped but they still operate and we need some concrete argument to stop them once and for all.

Well it is simple use viabtc free service correctly .

which means under 500kb size
which means 2 inputs or 1 input

Pay 11 sats per byte not per v/byte--- at the moment this would never ever ever clear. other than using viabtc service and wait for via btc to hit a block look for your tx in it.

it works. all others are bullshit.

I have pushed hundred of them free on viabtc since 2016.

[Z-tight]

A paid accelerator is better if you can afford the cost because it has more benefits and options.  

Paid transaction accelerators are expensive and isn't really recommended, if you use a paid service you may end up spending more than you would have spent if you had attached an appropriate fee before broadcasting your transaction or if you use rbf to replace your transaction with another one paying a more appropriate fee for fast confirmation.

[BlackHatCoiner]

Or the other solution is to wait and wish for the scam market where they rip people off with the junk they inject into the blockchain to die.

You have to understand that people are voluntarily doing this. They know what they're putting themselves into; meaningless, digital trash. And they do it, because they think they are smart to resell it in a higher price. Everyone involved in this scheme is equally guilty. I can't blame a small group of Ordinal fans, because that'd be unfair. The buyers are conscious of their decisions, they should not be treated as sheep.

I say everyone has the freedom to burn their money.

[NeuroticFish]

I say everyone has the freedom to burn their money.

That's true, however I agree with @pooya87 in this: it's all about greed. Many of those people don't comprehend they are burning their money, they think they invest it into something others will buy very expensive someday soon.

[BlackHatCoiner]

That's true, however I agree with @pooya87 in this: it's all about greed. Many of those people don't comprehend they are burning their money, they think they invest it into something others will buy very expensive someday soon.

And many of the gamblers don't know they are wasting time and money either, but fortunately, we live in a world where you have the freedom to do that. I mean, why couldn't you? People do all sorts of nonsense with their money all the time. They throw coins in fountains, gamble, buy designer brands, shitcoins, cigarettes, accumulate excessive debts, the list is endless. And again, people should not be treated as sheep. Just because someone is under the impression they can make money by selling jpeg rocks, who am I to stop them? Everyone is responsible for their actions and pays for their mistakes. Greed is human.

The reason pooya wants this thing banned isn't to protect them from their foolishness, but to lower the transaction fees.