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

[garlonicon]

Ensure a percentage of space in the blocks so that older transactions, regardless of the fee amount, can be processed.

It was like that in old versions: it was possible to send transactions for free, if some conditions were met. And yes, it can be introduced without any forks, just convince major mining pools, and it will happen.

Imagine that 10% of the block is allocated to process transactions that are over 48 hours old, regardless of the fee used.

Some people called that "coinage", because inputs and outputs are sometimes called "coins", and then there were rules, to check, how many confirmation a given input has. More than that: you can use the same code for calculating something called "priority" for each transaction, and include them into blocks, based on that.

But of course, in the past, people abused free transactions, and since then, we moved into space-based transactions, counted in "satoshis per byte", and later counted in "satoshis per virtual byte", when Segwit was introduced. But still, nothing stops any mining pool from making a room for cheap/free/old/whatever transactions.

When it comes to solutions, I can see something like that:

1. Sidechains, mentioned by pooya87. Ordinals are only about cloud storage, and pushing data, which means, you can just sign existing mainchain coins, and put a signed message into the sidechain, and then handle it there in a trustless way. Also, in this way, the real ownership can be enforced properly, and some bugs can be fixed, for example related to assigning numbers to Ordinals with zero satoshis. Note that because Ordinals are not about payments, no soft-fork is needed to enforce any amounts, all that is needed, is just signing messages, and making sure they are unique.

2. Transaction batching. Regular users need a way to compete with Ordinals. Which means, transactions should be batched, so that thousands of users, paying one satoshi per virtual byte, could join their efforts, and make one transaction, which will have a higher feerate, and will handle all of their payments. Because one user paying 0.01 BTC is the same as thousands of users, paying 1000 satoshis each, if transaction size is identical.

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[bitmover]

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.

$1 a transaction was basically the on-chain cost just a month ago....

I dont see this coming to LN, which was designed to cost sub satoshis (an unit specifically created for LN fees)

And as i said, I don't think LN is enough (as it is too complex to use) and more layer 2 option will show up

[so98nn]

I think idea is great but there could be issues with it once peeps start finding back doors to transact faster. Lets assume it is a time stamped transaction with low fees which will get included on the following day irrespective of its values. So it may happen peeps will set the lower fees intentionally and just wait for the following day to get their transaction picked and confirmed. This time there wont be any miner preferences so that could become chaotic. Miners might get lower revenue due to this feature and their profitability ROI might become even higher. This would be like taking out users burden and putting it on the shoulders of miners. I dont know if this will happen for sure but it seems most prominent way to trick the entire fee system. Tomorrow it may happen users with thousands of dollars in transaction could just broadcast it at lower fees even though they can afford higher fees. You see, its not confirmed events but we need to take care of it now before moving further.

[stompix]

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.

This is here the free market comes truly into play!

With mining there is limited space, you need to compete with the others for this, and only one entity gets a timeslot, it's like an auction for a newly found van Gogh, with LN is like your superstore or your airliner, you can choose the one doing it cheaper, and there will always be somebody who is happy with 99 cents rather than $1 and someone who thinks well 5 cents is good enough for basically doing nothing.

Besides, you're going to have an ally in websites and exchanges, they will be willing to pay for the extra hardware with minimal consumption and the fee to open a few channels when they can cut on paid fees. Rembert that although exchnges charge for withdrawals, they also have costs when collecting your free deposits,  and this is what hurts them as they have to move hundreds of inputs also.

If 1 million users want to set-up channels there is nothing stopping them and you have 1 million channels with 0.0001 fees, if they choose to mine, they will still get 144 blocks a day just as we are now.

[moneystery]

this idea may be attractive to users, but it has the flaw in that it can fill the network with transactions with low fees since they know that their transactions will still be processed even if it takes longer.

compared to proposing an idea like this, it is better for us to move ordinal to another network. maybe they could have their own network like bitcoin cash or other bitcoin derivatives do, that way it might make the network less congested than it is now.

[kryptqnick]

I like the op's idea, it looks like the op thought of different aspects and came up with a reasonable solution. Of course, not a full solution, because many wouldn't consider a transaction finally getting through after a couple of days a win, but it would be an improvement, I believe.
As for the fees, they are still higher than desirable, but they're not outrageously high if one follows mempool.space instead of going by websites that track average fees or by wallet recommendations, that seem particularly off lately (at least on Electrum).
That being said, I support bitmover's point that it's also important to address the matter of Ordinals directly.

[tjtonmoy]

I think this is a great idea but as you have already mentioned, people will try to take advantage of this scenario and most likely make that part crowded too. And the line in the queue will be as long as this one we are facing now. I have made a transaction 15 days ago and still on pending. If they flood that part of the blockchain too, then we will just have to wait like this. I think in order to prevent this from happening there should be a minimum fee requirement to be able to get in that queue. 1sat/vByte should not be the minimum requirement when the blockchain is congested. At least some extra fee for being able to get in the queue.
Also, if someone is making transactions from the same wallet address with same amount of fee, it should not get included in the next queue. It should be processed as a regular transaction with regular fee. Also people are using paid transaction accelerator, why not use a monthly or weekly subscription for fastest transaction or being included in the queue.

[uneng]

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.

Since the network adjusts itself every 14 days, couldn't the hash power be increased inside one of those periods of time to process the transactions faster, at least for few days? Then for the next cycle of 14 days the difficult will increase a lot, but if hash power keeps increasing as well, transactions will be being constantly solved faster than 10 minutes per block. The high fees being paid for transactions should compensate the high difficult of the network, or not? And once the flux of transactions decreases, there is no need to put so much hash power at work anymore, so things start going back to "normal" once again.

[majeed]

First off, it's a brilliant idea to reserve block space for older transactions, no question about it. A "transaction democracy" of sorts - fair, but practical? Allow me to explain: Bitcoin benefits greatly from reasonable fees. It's a free market at its core. If you implement a flat-rate zone, there's a chance it will annoy people.

Prioritizing by age over fee? Sounds good on paper, but remember, Bitcoin is not just a technology; it's an economy. Higher fees are paid by users for urgency. It's just supply and demand, nothing more. Although expensive fees are disliked by many, they are an indication of a successful network. Not to mention that hefty fees encourage miners, protecting the network.

Theoretically, your model could function. However, balance is required. Perhaps a hybrid strategy? Maintain the fee market while adding a tiny area for previous transactions. It's about evolution, not revolution. We help Bitcoin by making it better, not by creating something entirely new.

[joker_josue]

I think this is a great idea but as you have already mentioned, people will try to take advantage of this scenario and most likely make that part crowded too. And the line in the queue will be as long as this one we are facing now. I have made a transaction 15 days ago and still on pending. If they flood that part of the blockchain too, then we will just have to wait like this. I think in order to prevent this from happening there should be a minimum fee requirement to be able to get in that queue. 1sat/vByte should not be the minimum requirement when the blockchain is congested. At least some extra fee for being able to get in the queue.
Also, if someone is making transactions from the same wallet address with same amount of fee, it should not get included in the next queue. It should be processed as a regular transaction with regular fee. Also people are using paid transaction accelerator, why not use a monthly or weekly subscription for fastest transaction or being included in the queue.

In the idea presented, it indicates a way to minimize this impact.

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.

Now, abuse of the system will always be difficult to avoid.

In any case, I do not argue that this is the ideal model, just a way of analyzing the solution to this problem from another perspective.

Since the network adjusts itself every 14 days, couldn't the hash power be increased inside one of those periods of time to process the transactions faster, at least for few days? Then for the next cycle of 14 days the difficult will increase a lot, but if hash power keeps increasing as well, transactions will be being constantly solved faster than 10 minutes per block. The high fees being paid for transactions should compensate the high difficult of the network, or not? And once the flux of transactions decreases, there is no need to put so much hash power at work anymore, so things start going back to "normal" once again.

Yes this is true. And it seems that some large miners are already playing this "game" in order to obtain greater profits.
So this stops being a real issue, to resolve the issue of fees.

[ABCbits]

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.

That sounds very pessimistic. I expect channel/node run by average Bitcoiner or some LN enthusiast is less likely to set high fees due to either they don't know they can set routing fees or LN enthusiast wish for wider LN adaption. And depending on your usage, routing isn't needed at all.

[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.

That sounds very pessimistic. I expect channel/node run by average Bitcoiner or some LN enthusiast is less likely to set high fees due to either they don't know they can set routing fees or LN enthusiast wish for wider LN adaption. And depending on your usage, routing isn't needed at all.

The problem, we can say, is when mass adoption is done.
10 years ago, no one thought of having this level of transaction fees. With the same line of reasoning: we will want to adopt BTC.

At least I don't see that the LN solution will really solve the issue of fees, because this network has low fees today, due to low adoption.

[pooya87]

At least I don't see that the LN solution will really solve the issue of fees,

LN can easily solve natural fee spikes that is caused by natural increase of usage. For example an exchange that creates a lot of on chain transactions could move to LN and make payments there hence decreasing the on-chain transaction count helping the fees come down.

Otherwise when the fee spike is caused by a spam attack (like these days with the Ordinals Attack), the LN can not help at all because if we move every single bitcoin user to LN, the main chain will still continue being attacked by these malicious attackers and the fees will continue rising.

[Bananington]

How I wish the OP was a developer or had a friend of sort who contributes to the growth of cryptocurrency, this idea would be brilliant. I said so because it helps really much to have more than one solution on ground to combat the high fees rates these days because with new solutions so far like the LN, people have to adopt and use it, for it to gain much relevance. The issue I fear is that once there's is massive adoption of such an ideal solution on fees, suddenly, the fees start increasing and charges too.

For those trading with low fees or low funds, there could be a special network that would make the fees deductible very insignificant that one may not notice just as this idea, but I believe because the adoption and use of other initiatives are being developed like the ETF, to help this issue of high fees and charges, we might yet see an end to the case of high fees because this is even how these cryptocurrencies increase their value.

[franky1]

At least I don't see that the LN solution will really solve the issue of fees,

LN can easily solve natural fee spikes that is caused by natural increase of usage. For example an exchange that creates a lot of on chain transactions could move to LN and make payments there hence decreasing the on-chain transaction count helping the fees come down.

Otherwise when the fee spike is caused by a spam attack (like these days with the Ordinals Attack), the LN can not help at all because if we move every single bitcoin user to LN, the main chain will still continue being attacked by these malicious attackers and the fees will continue rising.

in essence
the solution to tell car drivers to solve car insurance premiums is to tell them to ride a bicycle.. to never need to use car insurance for a while

in essence
not a solution to car drivers desires for lower insurance premiums but just stupidly tell people to stop using a car even if they want to use a car

in essence you did not grasp the problem and understand their wanting a solution to the problem, and in essence you just told them to avoid the whole issue completely and pretend there is not a problem by avoiding using the thing you want to use

i do find it funny how the only promoted solution keeps being the subnetwork that is buggy as hell, yet the only one people want to promote

[seoincorporation]

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.

As you mention, ordinals should be faced directly, i don't feel Ordinals belong to Bitcoin Blockchain, maybe a good solution would be to give Ordinals their blockchain. There could be a bitcoin fork to create the Ordinals branch for those who like that tool, and that way they could spam as they wish their branch without affecting the main Bitcoin blockchain.

[philipma1957]

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.

And we do not talk about this a lot (I do) scrypt has 2 LTC and 10 Doge blocks for every 1 block that sha 256 BTC does.

So they naturally can do 12x the volume that BTC can do.

And large miners seize upon  this fact of carrying ability attacking sha 256 in many ways. It is not just ordinals. It is down clock all of foundry pool for a few days make a log jam of fees . then over clock foundry pool and grab the high fees. you literally save power and make more fees this way.

The time idea would be defeated this way.

Lastly whatever sha-256 does in second layer  scrypt can copy it and do it at 12x the volume.

So if you want a small change money/wealth movement with BTC you will always be fight against the 12x capacity of doge/ltc

Storage of wealth large value movement BTC is clearly better.
Small wealth and large volume LTC/DOGE is clearly better.

every ½ ing will show this to be so.

Think of 2 hammers





so why insist on using the sledge hammer for values under 100 bucks.

if you want to the ways are :

 KYC at an exchange that will allow you to use LN
 Put cash in there.
 Buy BTC
 USE that exchanges LN wallet.

I did a thread that does show it works.


Obviously only do a little of you wealth as this is the workaround for small wealth movements.

[joker_josue]

And large miners seize upon  this fact of carrying ability attacking sha 256 in many ways. It is not just ordinals. It is down clock all of foundry pool for a few days make a log jam of fees . then over clock foundry pool and grab the high fees. you literally save power and make more fees this way.

Hence I say that Ordenals are just a tool to generate this fee problem, but it is not the only tool.

Pools and large miners have already figured out the most appropriate mechanism to ensure that rates remain high most of the time. It's because? Because Bitcoin already has a movement that allows it to generate this type of situation.

I think that was what we had to think about combating, or better yet, minimizing this impact. Because I believe that miners should always earn for the work they do.

so why insist on using the sledge hammer for values under 100 bucks.

if you want to the ways are :

 KYC at an exchange that will allow you to use LN
 Put cash in there.
 Buy BTC
 USE that exchanges LN wallet.

I did a thread that does show it works.


Obviously only do a little of you wealth as this is the workaround for small wealth movements.

Your idea in itself is not bad. And it looks very interesting to explore.
But we're back to the same thing, you're just hiding the fees, they're still there.

If I'm a new user (I'm buying BTC) or I'm a miner (I'm earning BTC), it's not complicated to manage it. Place the new BTC you obtain on an exchange directly, and then migrate to LN.

The problem is for someone who already has BTC and wants to use it. The person is not going to move thousands of BTC to LN, they just want to move what they want to use in the next few days/weeks. If you do this, you will have to suffer from the high rates charged.

[philipma1957]

And large miners seize upon  this fact of carrying ability attacking sha 256 in many ways. It is not just ordinals. It is down clock all of foundry pool for a few days make a log jam of fees . then over clock foundry pool and grab the high fees. you literally save power and make more fees this way.

Hence I say that Ordenals are just a tool to generate this fee problem, but it is not the only tool.

Pools and large miners have already figured out the most appropriate mechanism to ensure that rates remain high most of the time. It's because? Because Bitcoin already has a movement that allows it to generate this type of situation.

I think that was what we had to think about combating, or better yet, minimizing this impact. Because I believe that miners should always earn for the work they do.

so why insist on using the sledge hammer for values under 100 bucks.

if you want to the ways are :

 KYC at an exchange that will allow you to use LN
 Put cash in there.
 Buy BTC
 USE that exchanges LN wallet.

I did a thread that does show it works.


Obviously only do a little of you wealth as this is the workaround for small wealth movements.

Your idea in itself is not bad. And it looks very interesting to explore.
But we're back to the same thing, you're just hiding the fees, they're still there.

If I'm a new user (I'm buying BTC) or I'm a miner (I'm earning BTC), it's not complicated to manage it. Place the new BTC you obtain on an exchange directly, and then migrate to LN.

The problem is for someone who already has BTC and wants to use it. The person is not going to move thousands of BTC to LN, they just want to move what they want to use in the next few days/weeks. If you do this, you will have to suffer from the high rates charged.

They do not have to move small numbers constantly. 

If you have 5 btc or more in cold storage leave it there.

Do KYC at kraken exchange put in 500 cash no fees so far.

Buy btc and send it via kraken on LN.

a small fee to buy the new BTC
a small fee to send it on LN

no hard maintain a LN node yourself.

If you have the 5 BTC or more stored offline putting in 500 in cash and doing kya does not reveal much about you.


Now if you have 0.2 btc or less it is more of an issue.
also if there is not an exchange you can use LN on with KYC it is an issue.

and keeping $500 on an exchange if you have only 0.2 BTC total is a bigger loss if there is a fuckup..


ie 500/8600 is about 5.8%  loss while

500/215,000 is only 0.23% loss


the question is how many with 0.001-0.200 btc are getting crushed by this.  I do not know

[Mate2237]

All ideas that have been given and suggested are redundant and there is no effort from the developers to coil the situation though I will not know if they are trying their best behind the scene. And all what we need right now is the solution and not any suggestions and ideas. The developers know what to do stop this maladies because they are in control of the system. And this high transaction fee is really affecting everyone both the investors and traders and all the people that use Bitcoin for transactions.

And as I said before, Bitcoins are stuck in wallets because this. Though it might help some to save their coins.