Solution to high rates? Maybe not, but it's an idea...

[joker_josue]

A lot of debate has been ongoing regarding the high fees in Bitcoin transactions lately. Many ideas have been suggested: blocking Ordenals or the massive use of Layer 2, while others propose increasing block space. In short, numerous ideas have been put forward, lacking unanimous agreement but fueling discussion and analysis.

I would like to present another idea, perhaps less popular than the previous ones, but which I consider to be minimally viable. This idea wouldn't significantly alter the current functionality; rather, it would serve to ensure that all transactions can be processed in a timely manner.

The idea is as follows: Ensure a percentage of space in the blocks so that older transactions, regardless of the fee amount, can be processed.

I'll try to explain. Imagine that 10% of the block is allocated to process transactions that are over 48 hours old, regardless of the fee used. Similar to the current process, transactions still enter a queue, arranged from the highest to the lowest fee. However, an additional element is introduced to create the queue: the transaction date. In this way, if a transaction is not processed after 48 hours, it enters the queue based on its release date. From that point onward, the blockchain will process the oldest transaction first, regardless of the fee.

For example: imagine that when a transaction is sent, the average fee to be processed in the next block (approximately 10 minutes) is 80 sat/vB. However, the sender only includes a fee of 50 sat/vB. The network continues to operate normally, and after 2 days, the transaction is still not processed. At this point, it enters a waiting queue where the oldest transactions are processed first, in sequential order. Since there are still 100 transactions ahead of it, it will have to wait for several more blocks to be processed. In the end, the transaction is processed, for instance, 52 hours after it was originally sent.

Now the question arises: won't everyone start using 1 sat/vB since they know transactions will be processed in a minimum of 48 hours? Yes, that's a possibility. However, we can consider two factors: if there are many transactions at 1 sat/vB, it might take significantly more hours for them to be processed; secondly, even within the system, rules must exist.

For instance, if two or more transactions have the same date, which one takes precedence? The one with the higher fee.
What if there are thousands of transactions at 1 sat/vB? They will still have to wait their turn, potentially taking many days, similar to the current scenario.

One could also establish a minimum for a transaction to enter the queue based on the waiting time. For example, calculate the average fee of all transactions in the queue after 48 hours. Then, process transactions above this average fee first, maintaining the principle of prioritizing the oldest transactions rather than the highest fee.

This is just a different suggestion to try to minimize the impact of high fees. It provides a minimally viable perspective for ensuring that a transaction doesn't linger for weeks waiting to be processed, even with a reasonably acceptable fee. This approach allows everyone to plan their transactions more effectively while retaining the freedom for each individual to set their fee. The only difference is that there is a probability of the transaction being processed more quickly than in the current model.

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[348Judah]

A lot of debate has been ongoing regarding the high fees in Bitcoin transactions lately. Many ideas have been suggested: blocking Ordenals or the massive use of Layer 2, while others propose increasing block space. In short, numerous ideas have been put forward, lacking unanimous agreement but fueling discussion and analysis.

Since the increase in the ideal percentage of blockspace has birth to having the numerous capacity to contain more than one transaction leading to layer 2 protocols and reduced in thebrate of mempool congestion, this same available space after the increase of block eize to be able to accommodate more transactions leads to how the ordinals swindles it way forward into the increased blockspace for efficiency but now turni the whole network into a competitive survival of the highest bidders between the normal users which are the bitcoin transactions and Ordinals.

The idea is as follows: Ensure a percentage of space in the blocks so that older transactions, regardless of the fee amount, can be processed.

We may not want to decrease the blockspace anymore because it has already solved the problem of delay in transaction confirmation time and mempool congestion,none thig I Know is that the mempool cannot be always thst busy, there will be times it will be more less congested and the fee rate could be as low as less than $3 during weekends or weekdays, in such regard, we cannise viabtc to accelerate our transaction, or make protocols the priotize bitcoin transactions first over Ordinals, but onna real sense the Ordinals are paying more than the host are for their transaction confirmation to be fast.

[bitmover]

The problem is that there is no such thing as "the mempool", every node has its own mempool with the transactions it received. A transaction may be in a mempool of one node and not in other node..

In my opinion,  The problem isn't the economy of the ecosystem  , the incentive of the miner or how they chose the transactions thay goes into blocks.  Those things should not change, as they work in a very delicate equilibrium.

Ordinals problem should be faced directly imo. They should move to l2 solutions,  or l2 solutions should be improved so everyone could use them. I don't think LN is enough,  as it is still hard to use imo.

Ordinals in LN would be amazing for everyone.

[hugeblack]

For example: imagine that when a transaction is sent, the average fee to be processed in the next block (approximately 10 minutes) is 80 sat/vB. However, the sender only includes a fee of 50 sat/vB. The network continues to operate normally, and after 2 days, the transaction is still not processed. At this point, it enters a waiting queue where the oldest transactions are processed first, in sequential order. Since there are still 100 transactions ahead of it, it will have to wait for several more blocks to be processed. In the end, the transaction is processed, for instance, 52 hours after it was originally sent.

This solution already exists. You can create a 23 sat/vB transaction, broadcast it, and then use ----> https://mempool.space/ speed up service in order to speed up obtaining confirmations. Then you can use your bank card, gift card, or other payment method in order to speed up Confirm the transaction.

In short, the mining pool can choose any order of transactions it wants and accept them for a fee of 1 sat/vB, but why would they do that? They already earn an average of 1.0299 additional BTC/block with each block mined, so why should they settle for 0.3 Bitcoin? If someone told you that the price of Bitcoin is high and it is better to fix the price at $10,000 so that everyone can buy, would you agree?

[stompix]

The idea is as follows: Ensure a percentage of space in the blocks so that older transactions, regardless of the fee amount, can be processed.

I'll try to explain. Imagine that 10% of the block is allocated to process transactions that are over 48 hours old, regardless of the fee used. Similar to the current process, transactions still enter a queue, arranged from the highest to the lowest fee. However, an additional element is introduced to create the queue: the transaction date. In this way, if a transaction is not processed after 48 hours, it enters the queue based on its release date. From that point onward, the blockchain will process the oldest transaction first, regardless of the fee.

It has been proposed a numerous of times, the end result will be the same, it allows spammers to spam cheaper.

Instead of flooding the mempool with 30-50 sat/b they now know for sure that for a fraction of that cost 1sat/b they are going to clog 10% of the block space, so in the end you will end up with worse results.  It costs around $4 for a 10kvb tx, so with $40 a block one spammer could just make this 1sat/vb impossible, so you will select only 2sat/kvb then 5sat/kvb then the order book for the old tx part will look the same as the normal book since a competition will happen there too, you just start with a different first attribute but in the end the fee will dictate this also.

Furthermore, with just 90% of the block left for people wanting to get a quick confirmation the rate race will intensify and the fees will spike even higher.

The problem is not order is capacity.
You have 2 liters of water/s pouring in a 1 ton tank and only 1 liter/s coming out, the tank will inevitable flood.
What you propose is to change that for 900ml/s and a 100ml/s way out of the tank, situated at different levels, the inevitable will still happen, the only difference is  just that different molecules of waters (see them as tx) will get out before the tank floods.

[bitmover]

For example: imagine that when a transaction is sent, the average fee to be processed in the next block (approximately 10 minutes) is 80 sat/vB. However, the sender only includes a fee of 50 sat/vB. The network continues to operate normally, and after 2 days, the transaction is still not processed. At this point, it enters a waiting queue where the oldest transactions are processed first, in sequential order. Since there are still 100 transactions ahead of it, it will have to wait for several more blocks to be processed. In the end, the transaction is processed, for instance, 52 hours after it was originally sent.

This solution already exists. You can create a 23 sat/vB transaction, broadcast it, and then use ----> https://mempool.space/ speed up service in order to speed up obtaining confirmations. Then you can use your bank card, gift card, or other payment method in order to speed up Confirm the transaction.

He is suggesting that  the old transactions get confirmed even if they pay low fees.

Mempool.space service is offering a way for you to confirm your transaction while paying for that service. You just pay for miners directly instead of paying fees. That's a bit different..

[joker_josue]

Ordinals problem should be faced directly imo. They should move to l2 solutions,  or l2 solutions should be improved so everyone could use them. I don't think LN is enough,  as it is still hard to use imo.

Ordinals in LN would be amazing for everyone.

Layer 2, in my opinion, has three problems:
1 - We move on to custody services, as it will be difficult for everyone to have it on their own and in their own channels.
2 - The fees are still there, but camouflaged. In other words, the person still has to pay a high fee to transfer from L1 to L2.
3 - There is no guarantee that L2 rates will not increase. With increased usage, channel operators and node have found an excellent opportunity to make money from fees. While miners still make a return on the base block reward, channel operators depend their entire return on fees.

For these reasons, I see it difficult for L2 to solve the problem. In 10 years, are we discussing moving transactions to a future L3? In 50 years, how many layers will we have?

Now, if they say that L2 is to support everything other than transactions, it makes perfect sense. But to do that we have to take them there, which seems to be difficult.

[Helena Yu]

I think your idea is like free acceleration by viabtc, but in large scale since viabtc can only accelerate 2,400 transactions while average Bitcoin transactions are around 400K-500K. Of course this might be the solution, but this could encourage transactions with small fees might be confirmed after 2 days.

I guess we need something like prioritizing Bitcoin transactions over ordinals, so even though there are a lot ordinals transactions, there's a limit like only 10-20% of the block, so it won't conflicting with the Bitcoin transactions.

[hugeblack]

He is suggesting that  the old transactions get confirmed even if they pay low fees.

Mempool.space service is offering a way for you to confirm your transaction while paying for that service. You just pay for miners directly instead of paying fees. That's a bit different..

In principle, there is no difference, as in the future you can broadcast a transaction with low fees and speed it up via Mempool.space, and payment is done by watching advertisements or performing specific tasks instead of paying higher fees.
The main problem is that POW means that each megabyte inside the block is expensive and therefore higher fees must be paid.

@joker_josue Since the main purpose of confirmations is to ensure that double spending will not occur, some cryptocurrencies like DASH have added additions to speed this up. You can read more about Dash InstantSend if that is what you mean.

[YUriy1991]

In principle, there is no difference, as in the future you can broadcast a transaction with low fees and speed it up via Mempool.space, and payment is done by watching advertisements or performing specific tasks instead of paying higher fees.
The main problem is that POW means that each megabyte inside the block is expensive and therefore higher fees must be paid.

Mathematically sound. It's like we are being forced by the miners to want to pay more to finish quickly, the same as the cost of a plane ticket whether you want economy class or VIP.

Yes. This is a consistent and very fast trend of increasing fee costs. Just choose, follow the request to enter their pool or not.

[pinggoki]

Can this be like done now though, and can you explain it like how 5 year old like me could understand? Because I feel like I'm not getting it right, you're saying that there should be validators that would only process older transactions and they can't do anything besides confirming those? Because the space that's allocated are based on validators right?

[uneng]

Now the question arises: won't everyone start using 1 sat/vB since they know transactions will be processed in a minimum of 48 hours? Yes, that's a possibility. However, we can consider two factors: if there are many transactions at 1 sat/vB, it might take significantly more hours for them to be processed; secondly, even within the system, rules must exist.

1 satoshi might be an extremist scenario, but of course people would send transactions paying much cheaper fees to take advantage of this feature. It would impact miners in a negative way, discouraging them from working on the network, consequently decreasing even more the speed transactions are concluded, increasing fees and the number of stucked transactions on long run. And in this case probably forever, because there isn't an incentive anymore for new miners to join the duty. Fees have to increase when the network is congested, as that will work as an encouragement for potential miners to put more power to solve transactions.

The system was designed to work perfectly, and actually it is. There isn't much to change. I believe what can be done is to increase the network's power to work faster, but not the rules of the game.

[EarnOnVictor]

No one using Bitcoin for payment right now can be happy with the system, it is too high fee payments while some people are enjoying low payment with altcoins. This can be so frustrating if the person is forced to use Bitcoin for the transaction since some people do not have a choice but to follow the directive of the parties they are dealing with. All the businesses I know are not looking for alternatives and advising their business partners otherwise. This is unless the money dealing with is huge and the party do not care.

Be it as it may, we can't be wrong to continue giving suggestions on it can be better, and I know that the developers would have been racking their brains for the same purpose as well. Besides, I have made a similar solution to this one on the Mempool issues in July or thereabout, this is to curb the menace in the network, particularly that of miners that have monopolised the system. They are selling it to the highest bidders and this is not helping. Since miners will not stop as it is business as usual for them, the only solution is for the developers to make them stop. They can do it by writing codes that will mandate them to comply and stop rejecting the lower fees transactions. This has consequences too but they can still work around it for the common good of all.

[adaseb]

If you try and broadcast a transaction with a fee of 1 sat/byte what will happen is that it will most likely get rejected because the fee is simply too low. Even with a fee of 10sat/byte will most likely get rejected.

Nothing you can do. It’s Christmas but the fees are still high. If you look at ETH the fees are less than 10 gwei but Bitcoin is still close to 70sat/btye or so. Only going to get worse going into the new year. Best is to consolidate any transactions you have and only do large transfers on the BTC network.

[Oshosondy]

If you try and broadcast a transaction with a fee of 1 sat/byte what will happen is that it will most likely get rejected because the fee is simply too low. Even with a fee of 10sat/byte will most likely get rejected.

Right now, a transaction fee lower than 23.3 sat/vbyte will get rejected.

Nothing you can do. It’s Christmas but the fees are still high. If you look at ETH the fees are less than 10 gwei but Bitcoin is still close to 70sat/btye or so. Only going to get worse going into the new year. Best is to consolidate any transactions you have and only do large transfers on the BTC network.

To consolidate the inputs now is very unrealistic because the fee is high. The best I think that people with low amount of bitcoin can do now is to use side chain and lightning network. Side chain is easy to use.

[pooya87]

I applaud your initiative to try and find solutions to the existing problem but the only viable solution to fixing unreasonably high transaction fees caused by an attack is to stop that attack! All other attempts will be like putting a bandaids on a broken leg.

As long as we are talking about other ideas the solution to Ordinals Attack is simple too. Create a side-chain and call it "Bitcoin Ordinals Chain", merge mine it with bitcoin blocks so that you can use the high bitcoin hashrate and enjoy its security and at the same time provide an additional revenue for miners that find those other blocks. That hits multiple birds with one stone by addressing all the things people discuss regarding this attack!
1) It will reduce bitcoin tx fees as the spam would stop
2) Nothing would be "censored" as some users love to call it
3) Miners revenue would increase which is another false argument some users use to justify this attack
4) The scam called Ordinals will still use the "bitcoin" name so it can continue ripping idiots off
5) It is a completely separate chain/network so it can have its own consensus rules and it means the said transactions would become NFTs for real as opposed to now that they are arbitrary data
6) Being a separate chain means it is not going to be limited by Bitcoin limits (block size, script/smart contract limitations, etc.)

They will never do this though because of a simple reason: they never wanted to create a smart contract platform. They just wanted to attack Bitcoin and make it increasingly harder for real bitcoin users from using this decentralized payment system...

[davis196]

I'm not an expert in BTC blockchain, but I think that your idea doesn't make any sense.
Why separating 10% of the block, since we know that this 10% can still be congested with spam transactions?
My dumb idea about this would be to simply ban all small transactions on the blockchain. What's the point of moving 1 USD or 5 USD worth of BTC here and there? Bitcoin is meant to be "digital gold", so such small transactions don't make any sense. Ban all transactions below 100 USD and blockchain will be free of the spam. A true "digital gold" is being transacted only in big or medium amounts.
I know that this idea might sound stupid and a lot of Bitcoiners won't agree, but I can't see any other solutions(yes, removing the Ordinals is still an option, but sooner or later, the blockchain will get congested again).
If you want to send small amounts, just use altcoins.

[joker_josue]

Can this be like done now though, and can you explain it like how 5 year old like me could understand? Because I feel like I'm not getting it right, you're saying that there should be validators that would only process older transactions and they can't do anything besides confirming those? Because the space that's allocated are based on validators right?

No. There are no validators at all. Everything works as it does now, the miners are the ones who process the transactions in the blocks.
We just added one more element to define the waiting queue, in addition to the fee, it is the transaction date.

And in this case probably forever, because there isn't an incentive anymore for new miners to join the duty. Fees have to increase when the network is congested, as that will work as an encouragement for potential miners to put more power to solve transactions.

The system was designed to work perfectly, and actually it is. There isn't much to change. I believe what can be done is to increase the network's power to work faster, but not the rules of the game.

I don't know if you know, but the network difficulty adjusts every 14 days. So it doesn't matter if there is 1 TH/hash or 1 EH/hash, the blocks will continue to be processed approximately 10 minutes apart.

This is another idea, a little wrong. The network does not need more hashing power to function. And security does not lie in having a lot of hash power, but rather in this power being divided among the largest number of people possible.

I'm not an expert in BTC blockchain, but I think that your idea doesn't make any sense.
Why separating 10% of the block, since we know that this 10% can still be congested with spam transactions?
My dumb idea about this would be to simply ban all small transactions on the blockchain. What's the point of moving 1 USD or 5 USD worth of BTC here and there? Bitcoin is meant to be "digital gold", so such small transactions don't make any sense. Ban all transactions below 100 USD and blockchain will be free of the spam. A true "digital gold" is being transacted only in big or medium amounts.
I know that this idea might sound stupid and a lot of Bitcoiners won't agree, but I can't see any other solutions(yes, removing the Ordinals is still an option, but sooner or later, the blockchain will get congested again).
If you want to send small amounts, just use altcoins.

That's another wrong idea. Bitcoin was not created to be "Digital Gold", but rather as a commercial currency. To combat fiat and the traditional financial and banking system.
What is happening right now is the total opposite. Higher rates than the traditional system, more time to process payments than the traditional system, more difficult to use for small holders and dedicated only to tycoons.

Suggesting to use other currencies instead of Bitcoin is an attitude that is completely contrary to the idea of making Bitcoin popular. No one goes to Bitcoin with this level of fees.


Regarding the use of L2 two, I think many are very clear about what is going on, I made these points clear:

Layer 2, in my opinion, has three problems:
1 - We move on to custody services, as it will be difficult for everyone to have it on their own and in their own channels.
2 - The fees are still there, but camouflaged. In other words, the person still has to pay a high fee to transfer from L1 to L2.
3 - There is no guarantee that L2 rates will not increase. With increased usage, channel operators and node have found an excellent opportunity to make money from fees. While miners still make a return on the base block reward, channel operators depend their entire return on fees.

For these reasons, I see it difficult for L2 to solve the problem. In 10 years, are we discussing moving transactions to a future L3? In 50 years, how many layers will we have?

[ABCbits]

Ordinals problem should be faced directly imo. They should move to l2 solutions,  or l2 solutions should be improved so everyone could use them. I don't think LN is enough,  as it is still hard to use imo.

Ordinals in LN would be amazing for everyone.

Layer 2, in my opinion, has three problems:
1 - We move on to custody services, as it will be difficult for everyone to have it on their own and in their own channels.
2 - The fees are still there, but camouflaged. In other words, the person still has to pay a high fee to transfer from L1 to L2.
3 - There is no guarantee that L2 rates will not increase. With increased usage, channel operators and node have found an excellent opportunity to make money from fees. While miners still make a return on the base block reward, channel operators depend their entire return on fees.

For these reasons, I see it difficult for L2 to solve the problem.

1. People can choose to use non-custodial LN wallet.
2. That's true. It's not practical option for those who don't make much transaction.
3. But with increased usage, there'll more route where your LN wallet choose route with lowest fee.

In 10 years, are we discussing moving transactions to a future L3? In 50 years, how many layers will we have?

No way. I expect people simply use multiple L2 for different purposes.

[joker_josue]

3. But with increased usage, there'll more route where your LN wallet choose route with lowest fee.

And do you think that channel/node managers, if they can earn $1/transaction, will keep $0.05?
You can have thousands of channels, without a doubt, but everyone will seek to obtain the greatest profitability from having equipment connected 24 hours a day to keep the channels open. In addition to the obligation to keep Bitcoin staked in these channels.