Outrageous Bitcoin Fees

[nycfed]

The bitcoin fees right now are absolutely outrageous, anybody have any idea on when it will go down? Exodus user here, and to send bitcoin the fees range anywhere from $15-30! Been like this for a minute, reminds me back in 2020 when the fees were about the same as now for a month. Hopefully it doesn’t stay like this for much longer, but anybody got predictions on how much BTC will hit by the end of 2024?

[Ever-young]

I’m not sure any one knows when the fee will come down to as low as it was earlier before the ordinal madness started, but it will be important for you to start getting use to it for the main time and start making use of means where you can transact with cheaper rate i means making use of wallets that can allow you customize your fee to as low as 30 Sats which if you are not in a hurry to get the BTC across to the next wallet that will help maybe it will take couple of hours or days but it will go through and if you are able to accelerate it then you can see it within few hours in your next wallet.

[nycfed]

I used to use the blockchain crypto wallet, and back in 2020, I set my fee to the lowest option, which was around like $1, and the transaction did not confirm for 2 weeks. Thought my bitcoin was gone, that’s why I haven’t thought about using a low fee since then. Didn’t think that this would happen again though, but bitcoin has skyrocketed. It’s almost crazy to think that about 2 months ago, bitcoin was low 20k, but now it’s reached 40k! It’d be pretty sweet if it could get past 50k, near it’s all time high by the end of 2023, but I’d wish the transaction fees would reduce by a good amount.

[Cricktor]

Use https://whatthefee.io/ or https://mempool.space/ to estimate currently required transaction fees in sat/vB if your wallet doesn't do that properly for you. (I don't use closed-source wallets like Exodus or stupid web wallets of questionable quality.)

Demand for transaction volume, for whatever reasons, fuels transaction fees. Of course, when Bitcoin price rizes it's not uncommon that transaction volume rizes, too. But same when price drops it's not uncommon that we see high transaction volume and high fees.

[LoyceV]

As long as spammers are willing to pay $40+ to create dust transactions, this madness won't stop.
Who's funding this?

[BabyBandit]

As long as spammers are willing to pay $40+ to create dust transactions, this madness won't stop.
Who's funding this?

It's crazy now. Do you think this will stick around for a long time? Thanks in advance.

[LoyceV]

Do you think this will stick around for a long time?

Who knows? It stopped last October, but started again a month later. Could it be money laundering through miners?

[Ever-young]

Who knows? It stopped last October, but started again a month later. Could it be money laundering through miners?

Obviously YES…
Who are the parties who are to benefit more in such case ??

[ABCbits]

Do you think this will stick around for a long time?

Who knows? It stopped last October, but started again a month later. Could it be money laundering through miners?

AFAIK nobody say "tainted" coins used to BRC-20, so i doubt that's the case. In addition, since almost all Ordinals TX broadcasted to whole Bitcoin network, they only able to collect fraction of money spend for TX fee which depends on their overall hashrate.

[Zaguru12]

Obviously YES…
Who are the parties who are to benefit more in such case ??

Once you pay a higher fee it is always the miners or let me say specifically the pool that mines the block in which your transaction is included benefits from that fee.

My understanding is that the fee hike is still cause by those shitokens on the bitcoin network, it was ORDI that’s was at the hallmark of it throughout last month but when it’s own hype started reducing we started seeing the transaction fee reducing from hundreds of sats to tens of sats as fees. Then the listing of STATs was done on top exchanges and the congestion started again. I still see this shittokens as the reason for this and not majorly money laundering.

[pooya87]

Similar to 2017, Bitcoin is under attack. This time the codename of this attack is Ordinals and the problem with this type of attack is that it creates an incentive for regular newbies to participate in this attack.
Fees won't go down as long as this attack continues and this attack will continue until bitcoin core developers fix the exploit Ordinals scammers are abusing to perform their attack and unfortunately the dev team doesn't seem to be interested in fixing this exploit! so we need to find another way...

[NotATether]

Do you think this will stick around for a long time?

Who knows? It stopped last October, but started again a month later. Could it be money laundering through miners?

That got me thinking, Ordinals could be used for making money laundering transactions, because if a bunch of exchanges let you access the same collection(s) that you bought, you can just buy them on one exchange, and then sell them on another exchange and it will basically be treated as clean money for forensic purposes.

[BabyBandit]

Do you think this will stick around for a long time?

Who knows? It stopped last October, but started again a month later. Could it be money laundering through miners?

I am to bad at the theqnical stuff. But I was checking mempool last hour and "High Priority" did go from like 100 something to 300 in just matter of minutes. Then down to 150 again still in just minutes and now up to 265.
(I can have wrong with some numbers so I apologize) But the thing was that it happen so fast, but that maybe normal? Maybe hackers want to destroy for us BTC enthusiasts.

May I ask since I am pretty sure you have good knowledge about this, what do you think is the reason for this?


EDIT: And now when I posted this post it was down to 185 again!! WTF? That's almost 50% change in less then 15 minutes.

[LoyceV]

That got me thinking, Ordinals could be used for making money laundering transactions, because if a bunch of exchanges let you access the same collection(s) that you bought, you can just buy them on one exchange, and then sell them on another exchange and it will basically be treated as clean money for forensic purposes.

In my mind it works the same as art: part money laundering, part hoping that someone else is going to pay more for it.

I'm not sure how money laundering through miners would work, but if they get several Bitcoins in fees per block, that adds up to 10 million dollars per day or more.

"High Priority" did go from like 100 something to 300 in just matter of minutes. Then down to 150 again still in just minutes and now up to 265.
~what do you think is the reason for this?

Look at Johoe's graph: if a block gets found, fees drop. If a new block takes long, fees go up. It's the same as it was in 2017: too many automated system automatically increase fees. They're all competing for the scarce block space.

[FatFork]

And now when I posted this post it was down to 185 again!! WTF? That's almost 50% change in less then 15 minutes.

The fees people pay when they use Bitcoin are set by the network's software, for the most part.  The algorithms try to guess the best fee to get your transaction into the next batch of transactions added to the chain.  But nobody can fully predict the future rate of incoming transactions or exactly when a new block will go out.  So the suggested fees bounce around a lot based on guesses and estimates.

[BabyBandit]

And now when I posted this post it was down to 185 again!! WTF? That's almost 50% change in less then 15 minutes.

The fees people pay when they use Bitcoin are set by the network's software, for the most part.  The algorithms try to guess the best fee to get your transaction into the next batch of transactions added to the chain.  But nobody can fully predict the future rate of incoming transactions or exactly when a new block will go out.  So the suggested fees bounce around a lot based on guesses and estimates.

Oh okay I understand. Could I ask you one question? If I example receive 0.0005 BTC to my wallet twenty times or recieve 0.01 one time. and I want to send away everything. Why is it so much expensive to send the "0.0005 BTC to my wallet twenty times " then the "recieve 0.01 one time"? I am totally useless in this technical stuff I am more about trading.


Instead of creating a new thread that I think it's unnecessary I post it here.
I want to take a chance here to apologize to some users you can laugh if you want but I meaning what I am saying. Instead of creating a new thread that I think it's unnecessary I post it here.

I want to take time to apologize to GazetaBitcoin for doubting that it was you that created the imposter account. I was stupid new and silly. now after some months  I see more clearly and it's obvious that what you did was for the forums best and nothing else. The reason I attacked you was because saw many guys against one single guy and i don't like that, but now i understand and see clearly you did the right thing!! So sorry and I hope we can start over, and so you now I stand behind you about Ratimov now when I got more information. So sorry

I also want to apologize to suchmoon for my bad attitude against you, you been here much longer then me so I don't have right to tell you how things work. Sorry mate!

[apogio]

Similar to 2017, Bitcoin is under attack. This time the codename of this attack is Ordinals and the problem with this type of attack is that it creates an incentive for regular newbies to participate in this attack.
Fees won't go down as long as this attack continues and this attack will continue until bitcoin core developers fix the exploit Ordinals scammers are abusing to perform their attack and unfortunately the dev team doesn't seem to be interested in fixing this exploit! so we need to find another way...

Would it be a huge speculation to say that "someone" attacks bitcoin to prove it is not good enough? Perhaps they plan to create a fork and introduce it to the world?

Take mempool block 0 for example, the one waiting to be mined. It is full of dust...

[LoyceV]

If I example receive 0.0005 BTC to my wallet twenty times or recieve 0.01 one time. and I want to send away everything. Why is it so much expensive to send the "0.0005 BTC to my wallet twenty times " then the "recieve 0.01 one time"?

That's because each input and output make the transaction larger (in (v)bytes), which means it takes up a larger share of the available block space. You should read my topic on consolidating small inputs.

[BabyBandit]

Similar to 2017, Bitcoin is under attack. This time the codename of this attack is Ordinals and the problem with this type of attack is that it creates an incentive for regular newbies to participate in this attack.
Fees won't go down as long as this attack continues and this attack will continue until bitcoin core developers fix the exploit Ordinals scammers are abusing to perform their attack and unfortunately the dev team doesn't seem to be interested in fixing this exploit! so we need to find another way...

Would it be a huge speculation to say that "someone" attacks bitcoin to prove it is not good enough? Perhaps they plan to create a fork and introduce it to the world?

Take mempool block 0 for example, the one waiting to be mined. It is full of dust...

If I example receive 0.0005 BTC to my wallet twenty times or recieve 0.01 one time. and I want to send away everything. Why is it so much expensive to send the "0.0005 BTC to my wallet twenty times " then the "recieve 0.01 one time"?

That's because each input and output make the transaction larger (in (v)bytes), which means it takes up a larger share of the available block space. You should read my topic on consolidating small inputs.

Thank you both for the answers! Can I bother you one last time.
To avoid high fee's can you go around the system or something or you can just wait or use another currency?

(Sorry if my questions sound stupid but I just trying to learn)
And LoyceV. I would like to ask you one thing about something else. Is it okay if I send you a PM so I don''t spam here more?

[apogio]

Thank you both for the answers! Can I bother you one last time.
To avoid high fee's can you go around the system or something or you can just wait or use another currency?

You can:

1. wait until the mempool is not too congested
2. use the lightning network. But opening a channel now is expensive too because it requires an on-chain transaction. But you can use something like Wallet of Satoshi or MUUN wallet. You will still need to top-up your wallet though, so I don't know how cheap this will be.
3. use altcoins, but be carefull which ones you trust. I use only monero and bitcoin personally. Do your own research on altcoins, I have no suggestions to provide.
4. use FIAT

[LoyceV]

To avoid high fee's can you go around the system or something or you can just wait or use another currency?

It depends on what you're trying to do. If you have 20 small inputs, it's best to wait. If you want to make a small payment, any low-fee altcoin can do.
I hate seeing Bitcoin this unusable!

And LoyceV. I would like to ask you one thing about something else. Is it okay if I send you a PM so I don''t spam here more?

Sure. Or find a topic where it fits better.

[philipma1957]

Do you think this will stick around for a long time?

Who knows? It stopped last October, but started again a month later. Could it be money laundering through miners?

I am to bad at the theqnical stuff. But I was checking mempool last hour and "High Priority" did go from like 100 something to 300 in just matter of minutes. Then down to 150 again still in just minutes and now up to 265.
(I can have wrong with some numbers so I apologize) But the thing was that it happen so fast, but that maybe normal? Maybe hackers want to destroy for us BTC enthusiasts.

May I ask since I am pretty sure you have good knowledge about this, what do you think is the reason for this?


EDIT: And now when I posted this post it was down to 185 again!! WTF? That's almost 50% change in less then 15 minutes.

Because the higher fees are thin (ie not a lot say 400 tx's  at 300 sat) so 2 quick blocks can wipe them out.

look below. 300 to 600 sat tx's can vanish with 2 quick blocks there are only 768 tx that paid at 300+

but 250 is deeper 3123  and so is 200 = 7493 that is time consuming

If you look closely 100 sats is 25,495 tx's in line that is over 25 blocks worth.  and manipulation by a big pool like foundry is easy.

they have a cushion of 25,000 tx's so they can send 0.00001 with a fee of 95 sats  to one of their own wallets over and over and over do it with bots. and if the mempool

drops a lot to 80 sats  they will have time to stop the cycle and they made you pay over 100 or 200 sats by clogging the mempool at 95 sats.  So if the high fee run goes for a long time over 1 week and it has they can not lose money doing it. and they do. not need any ordinals to do it.

[Z-tight]

To avoid high fee's can you go around the system or something or you can just wait or use another currency?

You can use ViaBTC free accelerator if your tx size is less than 500 bytes, with the tx amount ~ 20 sat/vbyte and if your tx doesn't have any unconfirmed parent, and take note that they only accept 100 tx's for free acceleration per hour. There is really no other way you can go around the system if you don't want to pay a high fee, anyway you can wait if the tx is not so important at that time, but i don't think the fee rate in the mempool is going to drop anytime soon, so waiting may not solve anything.

[pooya87]

That got me thinking, Ordinals could be used for making money laundering transactions, because if a bunch of exchanges let you access the same collection(s) that you bought, you can just buy them on one exchange, and then sell them on another exchange and it will basically be treated as clean money for forensic purposes.

You won't need to buy anything, all it takes is to create one of these scams yourself. You inject one of those arbitrary messages onto the chain then sell it for a million dollars to yourself on an exchange without KYC. That way you easily "clean" a million bucks!

Would it be a huge speculation to say that "someone" attacks bitcoin to prove it is not good enough? Perhaps they plan to create a fork and introduce it to the world?

Take mempool block 0 for example, the one waiting to be mined. It is full of dust...

There has definitely been something fishy going on with this attack from the start but I don't think their purpose is to create an altcoin and introduce it as "better bitcoin". So many others have tried with their "flippening" nonsense and have failed.

[philipma1957]

That got me thinking, Ordinals could be used for making money laundering transactions, because if a bunch of exchanges let you access the same collection(s) that you bought, you can just buy them on one exchange, and then sell them on another exchange and it will basically be treated as clean money for forensic purposes.

You won't need to buy anything, all it takes is to create one of these scams yourself. You inject one of those arbitrary messages onto the chain then sell it for a million dollars to yourself on an exchange without KYC. That way you easily "clean" a million bucks!

Would it be a huge speculation to say that "someone" attacks bitcoin to prove it is not good enough? Perhaps they plan to create a fork and introduce it to the world?

Take mempool block 0 for example, the one waiting to be mined. It is full of dust...

There has definitely been something fishy going on with this attack from the start but I don't think their purpose is to create an altcoin and introduce it as "better bitcoin". So many others have tried with their "flippening" nonsense and have failed.

That cleaning money idea does not work.

If you receive a 1,000,000 payment  the government (USA) will want KYC info from the person that paid you the 1,000,000.  Since it was you that paid yourself you don't clean the money.

[BabyBandit]

To avoid high fee's can you go around the system or something or you can just wait or use another currency?

It depends on what you're trying to do. If you have 20 small inputs, it's best to wait. If you want to make a small payment, any low-fee altcoin can do.
I hate seeing Bitcoin this unusable!

And LoyceV. I would like to ask you one thing about something else. Is it okay if I send you a PM so I don''t spam here more?

Sure. Or find a topic where it fits better.

I agree. Do you think this fee's is the new normal or is it just tempoary? It been like this for some weeks now and i think it was same problem some months ago but then it did go back to normal fast.
By the way. if i have many small inputs and then move all my Bitcoin to another wallet. Do I then only have one big input? And is that worth doing if I am planning to hold my Bitcoin for long time.

Thank you in advance and thank you for helping me clarifying for me. 

[LoyceV]

Do you think this fee's is the new normal or is it just tempoary?

I don't know.

if i have many small inputs and then move all my Bitcoin to another wallet. Do I then only have one big input?

Only if you move them in one transaction. It sounds like you should learn how Bitcoin transaction inputs work, looking around on a block explorer may help.

And is that worth doing if I am planning to hold my Bitcoin for long time.

You're late to the party. At current fees, it's not the right time to consolidate small inputs.

[BabyBandit]

Do you think this fee's is the new normal or is it just tempoary?

I don't know.

if i have many small inputs and then move all my Bitcoin to another wallet. Do I then only have one big input?

Only if you move them in one transaction. It sounds like you should learn how Bitcoin transaction inputs work, looking around on a block explorer may help.

And is that worth doing if I am planning to hold my Bitcoin for long time.

You're late to the party. At current fees, it's not the right time to consolidate small inputs.

Thank you for being kind and helping me with my questions. I really appreciate it and you help me more then you think.

It sounds like you should learn how Bitcoin transaction inputs work, looking around on a block explorer may help.

Yes I also think that's would be a good idea and will start to read and learn more about that from now on, thanks for the advice. I think it can be a very good thing to do. Right now I can nothing about the technical for me Bitcoin has just been a investment and a very good trading currency and now when I have learned that a little bit maybe it's time to take next time and look on the technical things.

Thanks again and have a great day.

To avoid high fee's can you go around the system or something or you can just wait or use another currency?

You can use ViaBTC free accelerator if your tx size is less than 500 bytes, with the tx amount ~ 20 sat/vbyte and if your tx doesn't have any unconfirmed parent, and take note that they only accept 100 tx's for free acceleration per hour. There is really no other way you can go around the system if you don't want to pay a high fee, anyway you can wait if the tx is not so important at that time, but i don't think the fee rate in the mempool is going to drop anytime soon, so waiting may not solve anything.

Thank you for this kind sharing information.
May I ask. This was my last transaction: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin/transaction/8357021fef540cc20ac5e2bfa957b7866029416d383619027cb437344de20186 -   Fee per vbyte  was: 131satoshi
You see that some coins go back to my own wallet, and yes I waited hours before I did the tx because it jumped from like 350 to 100 at mempool (High priority) so when it was low I did the tx.
But to my question. If I used ViaBTC will it confirm faster and also help me save some satoshi?
I saw ViaBTC had some free accelator every ihour very kind of them. But if I want to use a service like this where I can pay and use it more often. Is the best way to register at ViaBTC and make a deposit?

Thanks in advance.


Now I gonna stop bother your time and start to learn and read more about this, but I want to say thank you to everyone that took their time to answer me correct and kindly. Thank you all.

Best regards
BabyB

[LoyceV]

You see that some coins go back to my own wallet

That's change, and that's normal. But: your transaction included 3 inputs. If you would have used Coin Control, you could have picked only the largest inputs instead of consolidating all of them. That would have lead to a smaller transaction, and saved money on fees. Coin Control means manually choosing which inputs you use. You can do this for instance in Electrum or Bitcoin Core.

If I used ViaBTC will it confirm faster and also help me save some satoshi?

It depends: you could save on the transaction fee, at the risk of not getting through. And ViaBTC counts bytes instead of vbytes, which means 3 inputs may or may not be above the 500 byte limit already. It won't be faster than paying a high fee, but it will be faster than waiting for fees to drop if you paid a low fee.

I saw ViaBTC had some free accelator every ihour very kind of them. But if I want to use a service like this where I can pay and use it more often. Is the best way to register at ViaBTC and make a deposit?

No. Paid transaction accelerators are a last resort: it's definitely (much) more expensive than paying a high enough on-chain transaction fee, using RBF or using CPFP.

[Z-tight]

But to my question. If I used ViaBTC will it confirm faster and also help me save some satoshi?

You wouldn't have been able to use ViaBTC free accelerator on that tx, because the size of your tx was 519 bytes, and ViaBTC only accept tx's that is 500 bytes or less. But if your tx was within their criteria, it would have helped you to save fees, because instead of paying 131 sat/vByte which you paid, you would have set your tx at 20 sat/vbyte and used their free accelerator.

As for being faster, if you use ViaBTC free accelerator, your tx would be included in the next block that they mine, so paying the fee for high priority would be faster, because that should get you in the next block, but with ViaBTC you have to wait until they mine a block, except they mine the next block immediately after your acceleration request.

[Findingnemo]

As for being faster, if you use ViaBTC free accelerator, your tx would be included in the next block that they mine, so paying the fee for high priority would be faster, because that should get you in the next block, but with ViaBTC you have to wait until they mine a block, except they mine the next block immediately after your acceleration request.

Since the congestion, not every transaction that is submitted for free acceleration is not included in the next block mined by the Viabtc pool which means you may have to wait several hours so it only helps those who are not in a hurry and making tx with less number of inputs and outputs.

[Zaguru12]

Since the congestion, not every transaction that is submitted for free acceleration is not included in the next block mined by the Viabtc pool which means you may have to wait several hours so it only helps those who are not in a hurry and making tx with less number of inputs and outputs.

Can we say this is because of the congestion that they have now with many people using this free service. If you look Viabtc has around 10% or more of the total hash rate and mined a block At least 2 hours with a total of 12 everyday day. If you we look at how the number of 100 free service gets filled compared to the past that means they always have 200 transactions per each they would want to mine next plus the number of paid services too (although paid service are accelerated also by other pools) and then we can say they also face with congestion too. My guess is they only include 100 free transactions into a block they mined and that’s why we see some still been unconfirmed or say not accelerated for long time

[Alpha Marine]

I think it's getting better even though the prices are still too high for smaller transactions. The prices are still fluctuating though because high priority went from 176 sat/vB to 181 sat/vB within a second., but it's still positive news to see how low the price has gotten from the peak of this madness.


ViaBTC is the only reliable accelerator I know but lately even that has been occupied.  They do 100 free transactions an hour and that free slot gets filled up within the first 10 seconds of the hour.
In October, there was no time ViaBtc had zero free transactions, but now, there are technically no free slots except if you're fast enough.

[philipma1957]

We will likely have high fees until LN gets far more adaptation.

Options now are join an exchange that allows LN use.

Kraken does. do Kyc give 500 cash buy BTC. All low cost so far.

You can then use their LN wallet.

Just remember you can have all that money frozen or stolen classic not your keys not your coins.

It you want a second LN setup.

join nicehash do KYC

Transfer 250 usd worth of btc via LN to nicehash.

you then can use two different LN wallets without complicated work.

I have about $350 worth of Btc on kraken and I mine about $100 a day to my nicehash wallet.

so I can easily pay and receive btc with two different companies.

I am well aware I can lose my coin 🪙

I have a small amount on those companies . Plus cold wallets.