Bitcoin miners extorting people that are making transaction?

[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.