Bitcoin miners extorting people that are making transaction?

[Oshosondy]

My friend wanted to make a transaction but it was in the midnight and I was unable to respond to him fast as he was looking for a cheaper way to do it. In the morning, I woke up and he told me that he used almost $10 to make the transaction. He said that miners are extorting people.

I can defend almost everything people are talking about bitcoin before but I was unable to say anything today. We can say it is not really caused by miners but bitcoin developers which have been unable to make bitcoin mempool not to be too much congested.

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

[1714804047]

1714804047

[Zaguru12]

It is not extortion in my perspective, extortion is when force is been used and in this regard it will only be deemed if the miners are the ones that set the fees but no it is not them so nothing like extortion. I think they are just benefiting from the chaos and nothing more. Many people will argue that they can actually choose low fee transactions but I will say nobody will be that generous enough to miss this kind of benefits. Sadly this is the position we have found ourselves.

Also I wouldn’t blame the developers too because this is a decentralized network and consensus needs to be reached first before any changes are made, do we want them to stop the inscriptions or allow only inscriptions make transactions with high fees? That will be censorship. Do we want them to increase the block size Also? That will have to under go community consensus so we don’t end up with something like a bitcoin cash. I seriously too want this inscriptions to go away but it can’t be done just easily,

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

It is actually the more diverse the nodes are more decentralized and protected the network becomes.

[NeuroticFish]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

It's not. He is not forced to make the transaction. The fees go up and down during months, so he can just wait until the fees become more bearable.
However, overall the fees are bound to rise, so it worth thinking on making long term plans for when the on-chain transactions will become even more expensive, i.e. when possible consolidate the funds and avoid making very small-value transactions at high costs.

[tbct_mt2]

I can defend almost everything people are talking about bitcoin before but I was unable to say anything today. We can say it is not really caused by miners but bitcoin developers which have been unable to make bitcoin mempool not to be too much congested.

Bitcoin developers do their programming work, community, nodes vote to agree upgrades or disagree. Users are free with what they do like when broadcast transactions, choose fee rates to use and more like joining Ordinals minting or ignore those useless activities which are harmful for Bitcoin blockchain and mempools.

Bitcoin project and this blockchain are decentralized so Bitcoin developers are not responsible for all things are happening.

LukeDashjr and his opinion on Bitcoin Core

Bitcoin Core has, since 2013, allowed users to set a limit on the size of extra data in transactions they relay or mine (`-datacarriersize`). By obfuscating their data as program code, Inscriptions bypass this limit.

[headingnorth]

I would argue that making the fees so high that most people cannot afford to even use bitcoin at all is a form of censorship.

The best use case for bitcoin is as a store of value, and the best way to invest in bitcoin as a store of value is to dollar cost average.

But when fees are so high it makes no sense for the average person to dollar cost average, with for example a hundred dollars a week,
when the cost of doing that is $10, $20, or $30+  dollars for each hundred dollars you put in.

It makes absolutely zero economic sense to invest in something when to do so immediately causes you to lose 20 to 30 per cent of your investment.
That is no better than throwing away your money into a scam altcoin.

In the long run this will absolutely destroy bitcoin as a store of value and a legitimate asset class, because very few can afford to invest in it.

Are we going to prioritize bitcoin as a store of value or as a speculative vehicle to speculate on garbage meme coins and NFTs, inscriptions, or whatever the hell you want to call them??

Because if it is the latter then bitcoin has become no better than ethereum or any other run of the mill shitcoin out there -- bitcoin has then lost all the properties and everything that makes it unique.

If you want to play around with pixelated images of cats and monkeys then that is what ethereum and a million other altcoins are for! You don't need bitcoin for that.

[Apocollapse]

What I don't understand is why people keep complaining about high fees in Bitcoin when we can use other alternative (altcoins)? are people can't really wait for few weeks or months? does 100% of their money are invested in Bitcoin?

Miners aren't extorting people to spend money for transaction fees, it was created by demand, if you don't mind to pay $30 then do it, if you don't want to pay $10, cool down and wait until the mempool less congested.

[bitterguy28]

as long as we have the right to choose , there will never be a extortion but at some point it is almost the same because it leaves us no chance but to choose such huge transaction fees.
I have this same feeling with your friend recently even asking to how will I ever send without paying such big fees but I ended up customizing my fees to the economy and use acceleration service(the free one ViaBTC) that also takes time to have a service because of tons of users waiting .
Maybe the only way to save fees now is conversion or else wait till time  drops fees in which I believe will come longer from now .

[Hatchy]

But when fees are so high it makes no sense for the average person to dollar cost average, with for example a hundred dollars a week,
when the cost of doing that is $10, $20, or $30+  dollars for each hundred dollars you put in.

Although that wasn't the main question, it's kind of related. In situations like this, using the Dollar-Cost Averaging (DCA) method might not be the best for getting more Bitcoin. Instead, you could consider using the lump sum method. Just save up all the money you want to invest and buy Bitcoin at once. Even though high transaction fees might not last, this approach can help you avoid paying too much in fees while accumulating Bitcoin through DCA.

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

He might be misunderstanding. Miners don't decide the fees, and they're not trying to force anyone. Based on what you explained, he chose a high fee to speed up the transaction. The miners didn't make him do it, and if he had more time, he might have picked a lower fee. Times like this when there is congestion, miners focus on transactions with higher fees to increase their total earnings.

[NeilLostBitCoin]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

If you're looking to process a transaction quickly, paying a higher transaction fee may be an option to prioritize it over those with lower fees. It's important to remember that this is not extortion, and you can wait for the blockchain to be less busy, which may offer a cheaper fee. It's also important to consider other crypto-currencies for daily transactions to avoid high fees when the Bitcoin blockchain is congested.

[EarnOnVictor]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

What is happening in the mempool now calls for concern, a lot of people who would have easily adopted Bitcoin will be wary of it due to this development, this is as business transactions will prefer to use other alternative coins/tokens. This is happening already, which is why I implore the miners and the developers to come to a reasonable conclusion that will be for the common good of all and not for their selfish interests. Fine, miners would want to make money, but Satoshi wouldn't want the money to be made in the exploitative way we see now. And I can't blame the miners, I blame the system which causes the monopoly in which miners can do whatever they like without anyone cautioning them.

We know human beings, it is business as usual for them when they see the opportunity, and if there is no restriction to compel them to do the needful, they will continue like that. This is simply because they don't care about "Bitcoin" as a whole but care about their pockets. Well, as it is now, I believe that the developers must still do something, and this time, it must be a lasting solution that will curb the monopoly in the mempool and block mining. There are brains among these guys but I believe they are not doing anything yet possibly because their hands are tied due to the miner's voting dominance. Miners have kinda of hijacked the system now in the guise of Ordinals and BRC-20, all that seems to profit them more. They should vote for a solution if they truly want Bitcoin's transaction to be welcoming to users.

As for your friend, so far he is not deeply rooted in Bitcoin, you can't blame him and I don't expect anyone to. Imagine if he used Litecoin, maybe a $0.007 fee at times would have delivered the same amount. Now, compare it to the $10 deducted from his money, it looks exploitative.

[PrivacyG]

What I don't understand is why people keep complaining about high fees in Bitcoin when we can use other alternative (altcoins)? are people can't really wait for few weeks or months? does 100% of their money are invested in Bitcoin?

I am typically all in 100 percent for supporting Bitcoin and very optimistic but in this situation I can not be.  Almost every year there is a period where Bitcoin Transactions are too expensive.  This will affect the Network increasingly.  More people are willing to spend than ever and during even worse times like a quick crash or a hack they all become even more desperate so they try to pull out or purchase without thinking about the effect they will have on the Mempool.

It is very sad reading so many people, even Bitcoiners, starting to advise people to use Altcoins.  The only Altcoin I suggest using is Monero.  All the rest are pure Bull Shit.

But moving to Altcoins in such times is not the fix.  We need a better fix.  You may have 100 Altcoins, but many of us Bitcoiners hold most of our funds in Bitcoin.  I should be able to spend BITCOIN when I want, not be forced to purchase some Shit Coin instead.  It is pointless anyway.  What is the point of purchasing 100 Dollars worth of a Shit Coin that devalues by 30 percent within a day or two when I can simply spend 100 Dollars in Bitcoin plus 30 Dollars Fees instead.

[KiaKia]

Are miners that ones that build BRC20? I believe the answer is a no, why is your friend saying that miners are extorting people? Also the meaning of extortion is forcefully taking something from someone or a company, I am not seeing this happening.

Tell your friend to use LT Network instead or just use other digital currency, mind you, this is just getting started, the transaction fee will get even more annoying by the time Bitcoin makes it to 70k, maybe after the halving event or after ETF approval.

I am now thinking about layer 2 solution built for solving Bitcoin high transaction fee, someone tell me this is possible or it's just another possible money grabbing opportunity?

[ABCbits]

If your friend going to blame anyone, most blame lies to people and group who create and facilitate BRC-20 transaction. If the developer were to make Ordinals (which used by BRC-20) non-standard or even invalid, they'll take major risk where they accused to censor Bitcoin and some people ignore update released by developers anyway.

[Dave1]

If your friend going to blame anyone, most blame lies to people and group who create and facilitate BRC-20 transaction. If the developer were to make Ordinals (which used by BRC-20) non-standard or even invalid, they'll take major risk where they accused to censor Bitcoin and some people ignore update released by developers anyway.

Yeah, that's why I don't understand why the miners are to be blame here, sure they are raking millions as compare to the beginning of the year, but the problems is BRC-20 ordinals that is congesting the network that we think it's a deliberate attack on Bitcoin.

As if they are really trying to force Bitcoin to adapt or have fork or whatever devs might think to be able to ease the congestion that we are seeing right now.

Miners on the others are getting the profits, but we can't blame them as this is a big business and it just to happen that they are reaping the benefits from the BRC-20 spam.

[Husires]

It is a double-edged sword. If fees continue to rise, people will stop using Bitcoin, the price of Bitcoin will decrease, and these miners will lose, especially since some mining companies have loans with high interest rates.
The beneficiary is the one who continues to keep paying $50 for this spammers to continue on the network, and the ability of these spammers is what will determine when this high fees will stop. As for the miners, they are trying for the average new fees to be 40 satoshis per vByte and for people to forget the idea of 2 satoshis per vByte completely

[pakhitheboss]

Extortion is a big word and it is aligned with criminal activity, the transaction fees are very high which I agree. I today paid the same amount of $10 as the transaction fee. The transaction was confirmed within 10 minutes which was fine as it was my requirement, which I am not happy about. There was a time before these high fees when we used to pay 12 or 20 sat as a fee on the Bitcoin blockchain. Nowadays we are paying 200 or more sats for a transaction, which made me recall the time when ETH was going through the same phase. The fee at that time on the Ethereum blockchain was way higher than what we are seeing now on the Bitcoin blockchain. Eventually, it will go down as soon as the hype of Ordinals goes down the drain.

Miners are making the best out of this issue before halving, they are the ones who make Bitcoin what it is meant to be. While they make more than what they expected, it would be unethical to call them extortionists. They are doing what they are supposed to do which is to give preference to those transactions that pay high fees. They are not doing anything illegal here and are only following what the blockchain is set for them to do. The problem is being created by those idiots who are trying to pay fees which most of us won't dare to do.

[moneystery]

What I don't understand is why people keep complaining about high fees in Bitcoin when we can use other alternative (altcoins)? are people can't really wait for few weeks or months? does 100% of their money are invested in Bitcoin?
...

not everyone is rich like you. some people need money for urgent needs, so they have to make transactions right away or for some other reason that makes them have to make transactions at that time. so when people comment on the fees which are quite high nowadays, this is very normal. unless this fees problem only happens once, then people will make sense of it, but this fees problem occurs frequently and makes many users fed up with a congested network and bitcoin developers who don't seem to make any decisions regarding the problem.

[Wexnident]

~

He willingly paid for the service with his own free will though?  He wanted the transaction immediately at that time and I'm assuming that he knows transaction fees are supposed to be paid, whatever it is at the time for every transaction. In a sense miners are just doing their job really, fees are afaik no way influenced by them (or at least, the job itself anyway). They are raking in money though with the recent high fees though.

As for the devs though, they can't exactly cater to only one side of things. The community itself votes for what gets pushed and not to the development of Bitcoin so it's definitely going to take a lot of time and effort for something to happen, if it ever happens.  

~

Then simply play around to make the losses minimal. If it requires you to DCA every month instead, then plan that out. I've never particularly had any issue with me doing it monthly instead of weekly tbh.

[Cryptomultiplier]

Extortion is a big word and it is aligned with criminal activity, the transaction fees are very high which I agree. I today paid the same amount of $10 as the transaction fee. The transaction was confirmed within 10 minutes which was fine as it was my requirement, which I am not happy about. There was a time before these high fees when we used to pay 12 or 20 sat as a fee on the Bitcoin blockchain. Nowadays we are paying 200 or more sats for a transaction, which made me recall the time when ETH was going through the same phase. The fee at that time on the Ethereum blockchain was way higher than what we are seeing now on the Bitcoin blockchain. Eventually, it will go down as soon as the hype of Ordinals goes down the drain.

Miners are making the best out of this issue before halving, they are the ones who make Bitcoin what it is meant to be. While they make more than what they expected, it would be unethical to call them extortionists. They are doing what they are supposed to do which is to give preference to those transactions that pay high fees. They are not doing anything illegal here and are only following what the blockchain is set for them to do. The problem is being created by those idiots who are trying to pay fees which most of us won't dare to do.

I can agree that the word 'extortion' makes the case on hand more of an accusation than a theory and although, I can say that it is because we are nearing the halving that's why such is happening with high fees than normal.

Something should be done about this quickly because we can't be preaching about how Bitcoin is the currency of the future, how it is easy to be used for transactions across borders with lower fees than the fiat system and still expect people to throve in to use a system that is now way more expensive than before with prospects of it rising further and making it even difficult for those with some of it to spend or reinvest it due to high fees demand from miners.

[Churchillvv]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

I would say your friend was very wrong, miners have no hands on the increase of transaction fees they are only enjoying the result of the high tx, because no miner decides what price a transaction worth but are only claiming the rewards for securing the network.

The ordinary meaning of extortion could defend miners in this case because it's deals with force or threat for it to be classified extortion hence your friend wasn't force to carry out the transaction by force, he/she choice to take the fee. If your friend wasn't in haste he could wait for the price to go down before making transactions.

It is very sad reading so many people, even Bitcoiners, starting to advise people to use Altcoins. 

It's even more sad to me as a beginner because when we talk of Altcoins it sounds like it's a big mistake to get involved with any altcoins. but now this same people advise you use them when we have such issues with Bitcoin spending. doesn't that sound weird? BTW, desperate times comes with desperate measures.

[franky1]

ASIC's do not choose the transactions.. they just sha256 hash

[Cookdata]

My friend wanted to make a transaction but it was in the midnight and I was unable to respond to him fast as he was looking for a cheaper way to do it. In the morning, I woke up and he told me that he used almost $10 to make the transaction. He said that miners are extorting people.

I believe your friend saw other options like TRC which he can use and pay some cents instead of the $10 worth of bitcoin but he chose to use bitcoin. No offence but this is not new and I'm very sure he is aware of these ups and downs especially times like this when the bull run is fast approaching, the fees will be higher as the mempool becomes so congested with the transaction and the miners didn't design the chain, they met it like that and they have to use it in accordance to the consensus protocol. If only there was a way this would have been reduced or solved without affecting the decentralization and security of Bitcoin, I believe they would have done so all these years.

I can defend almost everything people are talking about bitcoin before but I was unable to say anything today. We can say it is not really caused by miners but bitcoin developers which have been unable to make bitcoin mempool not to be too much congested.

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

See my friend, if you are saying that miners are extorting people, that's a false accusation because this has been the same since the inception of Bitcoin right in 2010, there have not been any changes regarding this but the only thing I can accuse miners and developers are ordinal inscriptions that were allowed in bitcoin network. Just because something is open source should be a strict rule to disallow some playmakers from taking advantage of people, these ordinal meta structures have taken more than half of mempool transactions and they are paying way more than what ordinary people are paying for their transactions.

Who is enjoying these fees, the miners and their activities are affecting ordinary people who are trying to use Bitcoin. There has been a call to stop it on the network but currently, miners are already in their peak of 2022 revenue fees and they are enjoying it, they don't want their revenues to be affected else if this is not generating fees, it would have been stopped by now but we know meme better how they ended after the 2022 run, even these ones will settle down after the trend and will become useless as usual. They are even given excuses that these ordinals will force people to use LN, like WTF? Must I use LN to use Bitcoin?

[DooMAD]

he told me that he used almost $10 to make the transaction. He said that miners are extorting people.

Seems a little melodramatic.  It's like an auction.  If there aren't many rival bidders, you could get something really cheap.  If there are lots of bidders all trying to buy the same thing, it's probably going to cost you a lot more.  That's not the definition of 'extortion'.  That's just how life goes sometimes.  

[Tamaperdana]

Snip

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Regarding the high cost of Bitcoin transactions, in my opinion there is no element of extortion at all. Because this is absolutely caused by network congestion. One of the reasons is the BRC 20 token. So your friend's opinion is completely incorrect. Because transaction fees in Bitcoin can actually be regulated, and there is no pressure to always comply with expensive fees.

[m2017]

My friend wanted to make a transaction but it was in the midnight and I was unable to respond to him fast as he was looking for a cheaper way to do it. In the morning, I woke up and he told me that he used almost $10 to make the transaction. He said that miners are extorting people.

Miners extorted money from your friend with a gun to his head? What prevented him from using any other cryptocurrency, faster and cheaper, of which there are millions thousands? After all, these altcoins were created as an alternative to bitcoin (faster and cheaper), right?

I can defend almost everything people are talking about bitcoin before but I was unable to say anything today. We can say it is not really caused by miners but bitcoin developers which have been unable to make bitcoin mempool not to be too much congested.

A couple of weeks / months ago (and also in the last cycle, when the bitcoin's price was ~$70k), these developers were not guilty of anything, right, but now they suddenly turned out to be so. It seems to me that we should look for the real reason for what happened.

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

$10 is not such a high commission that others have encountered. Also, your friend could delay his transaction or use alternative solutions. In any case, he was the one who pressed the “send” button.

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

And I will say, we need to look for a solution to this problem, because this is not the first time this has happened and each time it creates a lot of whining and extra costs for users. Only miners is happy.

[tjtonmoy]

This is not extortion by any means. The network is crowded because more people are making transactions. If they don't do it, there will be less traffic and the fees will be low. If we choose to make a transaction when the network is crowded, how does that make it an extortion? We are the ones choosing to give fees in order to make transactions. So we hold the power in this case. All we can do right now is to wait for the mempool to become normal again or use some alternatives.
Imagine when the BTC price will skyrocket. It will be more crowded than this. And people will still pay higher fees because they will be making more profits anyway. So it is always a "US" issue. The miners or the developers have nothing to do with this. They can come up with a solution but things takes time.

[Latviand]

It's not an extortion scheme but it's not a good thing for many people, it's like an exploit scheme more than anything but then again, we can't blame miners for going with all this even if it's a dogshit times for doing transactions due to ordinals, they're trying to get as much profit as they can while halving hasn't arrived yet. Your friend is lucky OP, he's only paying 10 dollars for the transaction meanwhile I'm still sitting on my bitcoins in Binance waiting for the fixed transaction fee to go down, the amount that I'm paying is enough to buy myself a novel so I'm waiting for the opportunity that it finally goes much lower, losing sleep waiting for the tx fees to go down.

[Fiatless]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

I don't think it is extortion because the money they are making is legally earned. You won't also blame them because everybody wants to make a profit. If you are in their shoes you would want this inscription to continue. Except miners take a moralistic position on Ordinals inscriptions, it will continue because money is now the determining factor.  

Miners aren't extorting people to spend money for transaction fees, it was created by demand, if you don't mind to pay $30 then do it, if you don't want to pay $10, cool down and wait until the mempool less congested.

This high transaction fee is a serious issue that is not affecting just individuals but businesses. Some businesses depend on Bitcoin to pay for goods and services so telling them to wait until the mempool becomes freer makes little sense to them because they need to make urgent payments. Paying high transaction fees will affect the profitability of the business. I think these businesses should consider using the lighting network or switch to an altcoin until the network becomes stable.  

[ImThour]

Umm wrong word used here I would say, they are not extorting anyone. It's just that they are taking advantage of a situation that is going on right now.
Due to these Ordinals, people are willing to pay high amount of transaction value and those who are not involved in these Ordinals are not willing to pay such a high fee which makes them feel like they are being extorted. It's just miners earning money on people being impatient.

[Poker Player]

In short. A lot of people don't understand how markets work and when they don't understand basic things like this, which are based on supply and demand, they start seeing conspiracies.

I've spared myself the "free" market because they are often more intervened than we think but in Bitcoin it's pretty close to what a free market is. If you want a transaction confirmed fast, you pay more.

The use of the word "extortion" is either a joke or not understanding anything at all.

[Razmirraz]

This is not blackmail, when your friend is willing to pay high transaction fees to send Bitcoin, it is called his willingness to pay a certain amount of fees on a transaction. If he objects to high transaction fees, he can postpone it until transaction fees return to normal. He has two options, agree to high transaction fees or not.

Blackmail can be interpreted as coercion or forcing Bitcoin users with all threats to follow the miners' wishes to immediately carry out transactions at high fees. So far I have never seen Bitcoin miners doing such ridiculous things, so what your friend is experiencing is not blackmail.

[stompix]

He said that miners are extorting people.

He's a moron!

Is high transaction fee extortion?

extortion:

the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats

Who did threaten him? Did they take his dog hostage and told him he won't see it unless he will pay up?
NOBODY is forcing you to pay something for a tx, nobody is forcing you do make a tx, nobody is forcing you to use bitcoin!

Think of it as going to a restaurant, nobody is forcing you to go there, but don't expect the owner to allow you to sit a able for 6 hours with a  cola while other customers might pay $300 for a dinner and go out in 30 minutes!

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

Yeah, that's how bitcoin was supposed to work!
Remember how when there will be no block reward you're going to have to pay fees for the security, you're just experiencing it now !

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

Who is enjoying these fees, the miners and their activities are affecting ordinary people who are trying to use Bitcoin. There has been a call to stop it on the network but currently, miners are already in their peak of 2022 revenue fees and they are enjoying it,

NO, they are not!
Income per th/s is 12 cents, it was 20 cents for Q1 2022, and it was 40 cents per th/s much of 2021.
So miner's income is actually 3 times lower than the peak!
https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/bitcoin-mining_profitability.html#3y

[Oshosondy]

He said that miners are extorting people.

He's a moron!

You are correct but it has not gotten up to this unless you want to prove that you are a moron. Just make correction and let us have a happy discussion.

[stompix]

He said that miners are extorting people.

He's a moron!

You are correct  but it has not gotten up to this unless you want to prove that you are a moron. Just make correction and let us have a happy discussion.

Let me spell this again for you!

HE IS A MORON!

definition:
moron
/ˈmɔːrɒn/ noun a stupid person

When you say stupid things, you're being stupid which makes you a moron!
Clear enough for you?

Second, this is not tinder so I have to butter up to you and watch my language so I can have a one night stand with you, I tell things as they are!
And the more people and sooner they do call your fried a moron the sooner he realizes and stops saying stupid things, but pampering him will just lead to more non-sense!

[Oshosondy]

Second, this is not tinder so I have to butter up to you and watch my language so I can have a one night stand with you, I tell things as they are!
And the more people and sooner they do call your fried a moron the sooner he realizes and stops saying stupid things, but pampering him will just lead to more non-sense!

Still with what you have explained I can easily have more points to let him know that he is wrong. Sometimes you may not know the right meaning of the word that you used except the people that are using a native English. People also correct each other.

You can call someone a moron if you want but not in cases like this. We are different and people can not be the same but if you call someone like a friend a moron in something like this. I wonder how your friends would feel comfortable around you unless you are not like this in real life.

There are times to use the word moron, foolish person or a stupid person, but like I said, it has not gotten up to that.

As I have also learned from people like LoyceV and many other veteran members, I have not seen them call anyone a moron or using an abusive word. People are not the same though but I prefer people like LoyceV approach. They make their word also stand out but without abusive words.

[Z-tight]

It is a free market and your friend was free to attach any fee at all to their tx, they chose the fee for high priority in order to outbid other users in the mempool and the miners confirmed their transaction, that is complete freedom and the opposite of extortion. If miners controlled the fee rate in the mempool and forced people to pay whatever they want, then people can complain about the miners, but they don't control the fee rate in the network, the 'community' does, in the sense that when the network is congested, fee rate rises and when it is free, fee rate drops. Your friends has to learn this.

[SamReomo]

He said that miners are extorting people.

Tell him that miners are not extorting people because the network congestion is a network related problem and miners have nothing to do with it. The miners aren't doing anything to harm the Bitcoin community but those useless ordinals have caused congestion in the network and the miners have their limits which they can't cross.

There are more than 354,110 unconfirmed transactions at the moment of writing this post and the number is growing. Currently, the low priority transaction fee is 353 sat/vB and the high priority transaction fee is 531 sat/vB and that's why the miners aren't accepting the transactions that have no priority, I mean the ones with low fees. I'm sure that the network congestion will end soon and we may have good transactions once again.

The users who want to have their transactions in high priority mode are paying very high fees and if a miner is getting high fee for a transaction then why would he include the low fee transaction in the next block? The system is getting out of control and I believe the whole blame should not be put on the shoulders of the miners.

The users are also increasing the fees to have faster transactions. We should have to find an alternative way for the transactions at the moment, I believe in current network congestion times we may move towards the alternative coins that have low fees, and when network's congestion ends then we can again have Bitcoin transaction or we may move towards LN as that's also a possible solution.

[stompix]

You can call someone a moron if you want but not in cases like this.

You call somebody a moron when he is doing or saying stupid things, this is the perfect example of a situation when one needs to do so!

I wonder how your friends would feel comfortable around you unless you are not like this in real life.

When my friends do or say stupid things I call them the same, idiot, stupid, retarded, my language has a full book for this, and when I do something stupid they do the same, again we're leaving in a country and a society where you don't need to fake everything and just be lovely dovely with everyone.  Look around you and see how this fear of criticizing people and telling them in their face they are fucking morons has led to !

There are times to use the word moron, foolish person or a stupid person, but like I said, it has not gotten up to that.

Yeah, the time is when he is accusing miners of extorting him
I'm a miner, how am I supposed to react when a moron tells me I'm extorting him?
When somebody calls us miners extortionist what am I suppose to do other than tell him to find and ditch and end it?

As I have also learned from people like LoyceV and many other veteran members, I have not seen them call anyone a moron or using an abusive word. People are not the same though but I prefer people like LoyceV approach. They make their word also stand out but without abusive words.

Well, get ready for a surprise. I'm not LoyceV and I can't have his attitude and I don't want to! Also you should rejoice I'm not TMAN because you might have run in the woods if I would have used his language! See, this is the true freedom, something so many of you are afraid of, I can have my own way of thinking, my own way of saying things and my own views, and at the same time I can not give a rat's ass about whose feeling I hurt.  You really need to wake up from whatever fake and false impression of society you have, what you think is pinky unicorn chocolate land is in reality a dystopian nightmare.

And don't even bother keeping this up as it's already boring the hell out of me, if you think I'm going to change my ways for not hurting some stranger's feeling over the internet on an anonymous forum you're in for the shock of your life!

[jrrsparkles]

We can say it is not really caused by miners but bitcoin developers which have been unable to make bitcoin mempool not to be too much congested.

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

We know that it's caused by spam transactions and its not going to last forever unless these stupid investors got unlimited funds to fund the miners to move their worthless tokens over Bitcoin network. As there are many speculations we may expect a fix that eliminates these spams from the bitcoin mempool but also people say it's not possible because Bitcoin never intends to have censorship so which one do we have to choose now?

[pawanjain]

My friend wanted to make a transaction but it was in the midnight and I was unable to respond to him fast as he was looking for a cheaper way to do it. In the morning, I woke up and he told me that he used almost $10 to make the transaction. He said that miners are extorting people.

I can defend almost everything people are talking about bitcoin before but I was unable to say anything today. We can say it is not really caused by miners but bitcoin developers which have been unable to make bitcoin mempool not to be too much congested.

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

Bitcoin is decentralized and if bitcoin transaction fees is getting increased it means there are people on the other side who are willing to pay higher fees.
As long as there are people paying higher fees to get their transactions processed then the miners won't take low fee transactions for processing.
In such cases, we can only wait till the tx fees are back to normal or increase the tx fee ourselves.
We cannot call it miners' extortion but the demand for bitcoin transactions and that's how it works.

[348Judah]

My friend wanted to make a transaction but it was in the midnight and I was unable to respond to him fast as he was looking for a cheaper way to do it. In the morning, I woke up and he told me that he used almost $10 to make the transaction. He said that miners are extorting people.

If he made the same transaction without using a mixer, he would have spent more than what the mixer charged from him, you can consider that the network is busy and the transaction fee is high already, I don't think the mixers have charged more than they should considering the level of how things are fast changing and increasing, miners are not extorting anyone, it's normal with the principle of economics that as demands increases, price also increases along, the ordinals are clogging the network by affording to pay any fee charged, why wouldn't they be considered being the highest bider, you will do same if you're a miner.

[Odusko]

Regardless of how bad this situation feels, I won't still consider your friend incident as extortion from minners that is wired of him but since you mentioned that you could have helped him out to sort for ofher alternatives,  make it conclusive to say that, your friend is a newbie and lack basic knowledge on Bitcoin,  it transaction and what causes networks congestion all this are very important point to know before making such statement.
I think minners don't benefit from this directly and more likely that miners are also suffering from this meme pool congestion, and for that, we shouldn't excuse them of extortion that is too harsh a word to use in this situation.

[Captain Corporate]

Yeah its free market and not extortion. There is no limit, there isn't something like "transaction fee can be only 1$, anything above that will be sent back" type of thing that we all take turns to, its all free for everyone to decide how much they want to pay. If I want to, I can send money for just 2$, I will have to wait a lot, maybe not even get accepted to the chain, but I have the free will to do that, but I can also use 200$ to send as well if I want to, its all up to what I want to do. This means, miners also have free will to accept whoever pays the most, its not like they stop working and ask for more, they just take a look at who paid more, and do this automatically, and whoever pays the most will get it, its not extortion, its free market working just as intended.

[Z-tight]

If he made the same transaction without using a mixer, he would have spent more than what the mixer charged from him, you can consider that the network is busy and the transaction fee is high already, I don't think the mixers have charged more than they should considering the level of how things are fast changing and increasing, miners are not extorting anyone,

I think you have a typo there, it is miners and not mixers. Miners do not charge you a fee when you want to broadcast a BTC tx, BTC tx fees are paid to miners, but nobody sets the fee, it is the 'community' that collectively sets the fee. Miners earn the fee as incentive to them for using their gears and paying maintenance cost to keep the BTC network secure. If the network becomes less congested, the fee rate would drop, miners have no control over what you pay.

[majeed]

You say extortion? Don't overreact. High transaction fees aren't a shakedown; they indicate system strain. Friends' experience? It's unfortunate, but the market works. Miners? They're gamers responding to supply and demand. Indeed, mempool congestion is a problem. Let's not blame coders as villains. Ideal solutions are few in their complex system.
Bitcoin's evolution is remarkable. However, every system has limitations. Emerging technology faces growing pains. Not perfect, but what is? The extortion story is oversimplified. Bitcoin has bugs like any other system. The issue is mechanics, not malice. Many consider bitcoin digital gold as it evolves. Why? Because it's a hedge against financial instability and a store of value. My take? Bitcoin's value proposition is evolving, which is fine. It indicates an adaptable system. History is being made as a currency becomes a new asset. That's impressive, friends.

[lionheart78]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Miners are just following the system.  It is the sender that is giving away their money.  If people have the knowledge to set their transaction fee manually and agree to have a uniform TX fee, then the system would probably become first come first serve basis and not a high fee priority basis.  Miners are only mining what is inputted on the TX fee so I guess it is the people who are sending the transaction giving away their funds by paying a higher fee just to be in front of the line.

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

True that, the more profitable mining is the more people will likely invest in Bitcoin mining farms and obviously the more hashes to secure the network.  If only the Bitcoin system was created in a way that more miners the lesser the network congestion, but sadly it is not.

[Alpha Marine]

It's not extortion. It's capitalism.
It's normal for everybody to choose something that will give them more money. It's not their fault. Nobody will see a transaction of $10 and pick one of $1 instead. It's just business. They didn't set the price, it's not their fault the mempool is congested.

My issue is, that there's a way for developers to fix the problem of congestion, but they have refused to. So miners just make more money out of the situation. It's like a pharmacist selling more drugs during a virus outbreak, he's just making more money from the situation,

[Z-tight]

My issue is, that there's a way for developers to fix the problem of congestion, but they have refused to.

What solution do you propose, when i mean solutions, i don't mean one that supports or promotes censorship in the network, and that is because the BTC network is censorship resistant. We can't be double standard and complain when miners censor Ofac sanctioned tx's, but we want the same miners to censor transactions we do not like.

Miners are just following the system.  It is the sender that is giving away their money.  If people have the knowledge to set their transaction fee manually and agree to have a uniform TX fee, then the system would probably become first come first serve basis and not a high fee priority basis.

It is a free market and it is not possible for everyone using the network to agree to a uniform fee, some people would surely want their tx's confirmed faster than others, that is why there is a 'priority' to choose from. It is up to BTC users to choose the priority they want for their tx, there is no problem with how the system works, and if you want your tx to be confirmed fast, you have to outbid others.

[The Cryptovator]

Many people are blaming miners for manipulating transaction fees. I believe there is something wrong that we don't know. Otherwise, fees become unrealistic, surpassing Ethereum transaction fees. There aren't a lot of BRC20-standard tokens compared to Ethereum. But how dramatically are transaction fees increasing? When we need to spend our bitcoin, we can't wait to see when the transaction fees will be lower. We have to spend whenever we need to. Most likely, miners want to maximise their profits before the halving. Developers should think of something to reduce transaction fees.

[Mahanton]

What I don't understand is why people keep complaining about high fees in Bitcoin when we can use other alternative (altcoins)? are people can't really wait for few weeks or months? does 100% of their money are invested in Bitcoin?

Miners aren't extorting people to spend money for transaction fees, it was created by demand, if you don't mind to pay $30 then do it, if you don't want to pay $10, cool down and wait until the mempool less congested.

Totally situational on this case and here's the following examples and this is why some people do really get angry or disappointed with the current fees.

1. They cant DCA when we do speak about active depositing/withdrawals from exchange to personal wallet & vice versa.
2. They cant be able to do gambling on making transfers because of that almost $10-20 fee
3. Earning on bitcoin but cant cash out or make transfers because of fees.

Yes, 10 or 20 bucks might not really that much but we know that not all does really have that financial capacity for them to be able to not to bother with this current network condition.
Speaking about extortion then i dont see that it does fit out for those miners to be called like that, they arent that being forced, it is really just that normal that they
would be giving priority to those who are paying up much higher fee on which i could say that it would be just that a normal thing to be done.

[icalical]

Miners never force people to increase the fee, it's their decision to increase the fee because they wanted their transaction to be processed early. Bitcoin is a decentralized network, thus it act like a free-market. When the number of Bitcoin transactions is through the roof, miners service to verify those transaction will have more demand than supply, and that will increase miners fee.

What I don't understand is why people keep complaining about high fees in Bitcoin when we can use other alternative (altcoins)? are people can't really wait for few weeks or months? does 100% of their money are invested in Bitcoin?

Miners aren't extorting people to spend money for transaction fees, it was created by demand, if you don't mind to pay $30 then do it, if you don't want to pay $10, cool down and wait until the mempool less congested.

There are several possible reason for this, first one could be because the person who received the fund demands bitcoin, sender could only send Bitcoin. The second is that sender aren't holding enough altcoins to make the payment because it's high-risk to hold much altcoins. Other reason is that probably their altcoin were considered as investment and not for payment purposes.

 

[Samlucky O]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

I think it's miners are the reason behind the high transactions fee. Those guys are gradually becoming greedy. Before the transaction fee was not that high but now due to high demand of transactions is making them to charge higher for each transaction. And if Te is not taken it will be worst than this and people will start loosing interest in bitcoin transactions.

[batang_bitcoin]

It is not extortion but part of the network mechanismthat we have to pay the fee what's being asked and the miners don't even set these fees, right?
All of us are also free to do the transactions at our own will. So if the fees are that much, we just can ignore it and wait until the fees drop a bit. No one forces us to pay these fees but we gotta do what we have to do and that's why we're paying these high fees.

[hatshepsut93]

Miners don't dictate fees, the simply choose to mine the highest fee transactions that users voluntarily set up. The developers don't dictate fees either, they could make changes that would result in slightly lower fees, but choose not to because that would negatively impact other aspects of Bitcoin network.

If you want to blame someone, blame the NFT enthusiasts who brought NFTs to Bitcoin and now pay huge transaction fees to outbid regular users, because money is not a concern for them.

[EluguHcman]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion

Your friend was being too eager to make the transaction without your consent for guidance at when you were unreachable but though I would assume it probably demanded an emergency or and urgency.
I should assume your friend doesn't know much about Bitcoins transaction and after he was charged $10, he felt cheated so you at OP, I should expect that you ask to know how much he transacted because it could be that he was charged such amount depending the total amount of his transactions so basically, he might be charged a fixed rate but happens the fee rate was beyond his expectations.
So, I should believe he confirmed how much he was going to be charged before he proceeded with the transactions and if so, there is no extortion since that of your friend was not convinced In any ways neither was he forced in to accept the transactions fees conditions of the $10.

[justdimin]

Did what my friend said somehow right? Is high transaction fee extortion?

Some people will say that the more money miners see the more they will want to increase their hash rate and the stronger the blockchain.

It is quite established that miners do not decide the price, we do and yet there are still so many people who are not aware of it. Miners just mine, and they get what they can get, they do not decide the price, but because we do pay the fee, we could up the price to get ahead of everyone else.

You may still say 1 dollars to a million dollars worth of transaction, but it won't pass because someone will pay 2 dollars, and another will say 3 dollars and that's how it goes up. Think of it like auction, whoever pays the most gets their transaction handled first, and the others do have to wait before all the ones that paid more than them ended up getting their transactions done, that's how it would work and should be important to handle.

[Apocollapse]

It is very sad reading so many people, even Bitcoiners, starting to advise people to use Altcoins.  The only Altcoin I suggest using is Monero.  All the rest are pure Bull Shit.

Do you not use fiat to pay groceries or bills in your country? I still use fiat because I'm forced to, it doesn't mean I trust fiat. I think it's fair to use small amount of money for altcoins/shitcoins and hold most in Bitcoin or other assets.

not everyone is rich like you. some people need money for urgent needs, so they have to make transactions right away or for some other reason that makes them have to make transactions at that time.

Honestly I'm not rich, far from rich, I'm not even want to spend $10 only for fees.

Although I mostly invest in Bitcoin, but I still hold fiat for emergency needs, so whenever I need money ASAP, I don't have to sell my coins. I don't think people completely invest 100% of their money in Bitcoin, since Bitcoin is a high risk asset for most people.