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.

[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.