Bitcoin Future Transaction Prices

[Seabiscuit342]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices. As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted? I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

My understanding is at the current moment while it is still becoming adopted, the value of the Bitcoin held should scale with the transaction costs. I am more wondering about long term viability of personal cold wallets, and how the different layer 2+ scaling projects (lightning, Fedimint, etc.) as well as custodial services may play into the long-run transaction costs. Anyone with knowledge or resources they could point me to would be greatly appreciated!

[jrrsparkles]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices. As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace.

We already had this discussion many times whenever the network fee surged to unexpected level but increasing the blockspace will interfere with the authenticity of bitcoin nor incentivise the miners in the way they deserved.

Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted? I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

Websites like https://mempool.space/ and https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,2h,weight will help you with the historical transaction prices of Bitcoin.But you can't predict what will happen in the future but assuming bitcoin network will not be spammed like brc20 again it will be economical as it used to be.

My understanding is at the current moment while it is still becoming adopted, the value of the Bitcoin held should scale with the transaction costs. I am more wondering about long term viability of personal cold wallets, and how the different layer 2+ scaling projects (lightning, Fedimint, etc.) as well as custodial services may play into the long-run transaction costs. Anyone with knowledge or resources they could point me to would be greatly appreciated!

Cold wallet is supposed to be where your funds stored for long term so that you may not make more transactions from from that wallet like hot wallets. L2 layer is providing the opportunity to move funds as less as possible with bitcoin but not yet widely adopted. Custodial services are working for profits so they will take advantage of making money whenever it is possible so better not trust custodial wallets even if the offers you to move bitcoin at cheaper cost.

[HideYourKeys]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices. As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted? I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

My understanding is at the current moment while it is still becoming adopted, the value of the Bitcoin held should scale with the transaction costs. I am more wondering about long term viability of personal cold wallets, and how the different layer 2+ scaling projects (lightning, Fedimint, etc.) as well as custodial services may play into the long-run transaction costs. Anyone with knowledge or resources they could point me to would be greatly appreciated!

It is quite difficult to estimate a number, considering the fact that many transactions would be made on 2nd and 3rd layers by then (hopefully). In any case, my bet is that maybe in a few years a transaction on bitcoin could be within the range of hundreds (or maybe a thousand) dollars. In such case, it might be worth it to consolidate your coins on the main chain only once a year or so, for example.

[Dunamisx]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage

Good decision because with this, you can be able to know the amount of fee rate you're going to be charged before making your transaction, but not only that, you could be able to customize that fee to your taste.

but I had a question regarding transaction prices.

There is nothing like transaction prices, what we have is transaction fee.

As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted?

Its simple to know and understand, if the network gets busy, then there is more transactions ongoing and the mempool will be more congested causing increase in the transaction fee, in such a way that, anyone who can pay higher will get his transaction confirmed faster, which is normal on many settings as per competition, if there are no more clogging and pending transactions as before, then the network get less busy and no much congestion and we pay lesser fee, as regarding the block space, that is what we have for now, we cant predict the future if there could be addition or subtraction on that.

[Wind_FURY]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices. As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted?

None. I believe during the very early days of Bitcoin, no one wanted to talk that this might be a problem.

I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

I believe that it will be the same as the current situation. You worry about constant demand, but economically, how could that be if fees are very high? The users who can't afford it won't make an on-chain transaction, the users who can would slowly lose coins until they can't.

If the price of a good or a service is too high, then naturally the demand for that good or service will go down.

[Seabiscuit342]

I believe that it will be the same as the current situation. You worry about constant demand, but economically, how could that be if fees are very high? The users who can't afford it won't make an on-chain transaction, the users who can would slowly lose coins until they can't.

If the price of a good or a service is too high, then naturally the demand for that good or service will down.

This is my concern about a cold wallet. What is the end goal of Bitcoin? Global reserve currency (digital gold), or peer to peer cash? I am not sure both can be attainable in its current design ( am also a noob and just trying to understand more). If it is a cash system like it has existed in the early days, cold wallets for personal use makes sense. But if Bitcoin continues to grow it and is adopted by more, it may become a global reserve currency due to its finite supply. Under this global reserve currency assumption, bitcoin would be backing every bank, who would be throwing around huge transactions and willing to pay large transaction fees. This would crowd out individuals who want to use cold wallets other than those who hold a large sum of bitcoin, as they would have to pay bank level fees to move around Bitcoin which for most would not be economically feasible. In this scenario, the blockchain would become the source of truth of transactions, lightning would be used by banks for settlements, and you would need a secondary currency backed by bitcoin (US dollar, mint, other crypto, third layer solution, etc.) and make personal cold storage options (for Bitcoin specifically) unfeasible for most.

 Am I missing a key component of this train of thought? In this scenario, custodians become almost necessary due to the amount of transactions needed if everyone used their own personal cold wallet. Is this the natural progression of Bitcoin, or are there developmental efforts to make cold wallets feasible for all in the future as the adoption of Bitcoin continues?

[buwaytress]

Or, more "adoption" simply refers to more off-chain Bitcoin or derivatives? I mean, even in 2017 I met people who told me they finally bought Bitcoin. It was in 2021 when my kid's friends said the same thing. Former was suit and tie, latter was Gen Z -- neither actually held any coin. Just an app or broker that told them they had Bitcoin. So did any of these guys interact with blockchain? Nope.

That's a shitty simplification but it makes sense to me to explain why in spite of breakneck "adoption" it still takes shitmemetokens called BRC20s to flood the Bitcoin network.

[Reatim]

As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted? I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

As far as I know there’s no research or data that has been analyzed to come up with an accurate estimation of transaction prices. With bitcoin’s price being volatile, the same goes for transaction prices. We can’t determine just how huge can the mass acceptance be and how much it can impact transaction fees. I am hoping that by then it could have been resolved by a much more efficient technology.

[OcTradism]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices.

Transaction fee, not transaction price. Bitcoin is not Ethereum, no gas price with Bitcoin transactions.

As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace.

Real demands are different than waves of spams because people don't understand Bitcoin mempools, transaction fee setup and ignore all risk to chase with projects that potentially can help them get rich quick or lose money quick. It's also different than attacks from people who dislike Bitcoin or just do massive mint NFT BRC20 tokens and cause mempool congestions.

Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted?

Watch mempools or use this Telegram bot.

[Telegram Bot] Bitcoin Fees - fees and tx tracker
@BitcoinFeesAlert_bot

[pooya87]

Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted?

There are many discussions about it but I don't think it is a predictable thing and everyone is analyzing it from their own point of view and we have not been able to agree on certain fundamental things yet.
For example the on-chain scaling versus second-layer scaling is still a hot topic and as long as we can't agree on these things and start moving forward, we will be stuck.

I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

It is a bit more complicated that that.
I believe higher fees would slow down adoption which means less people would use bitcoin which means both price and fees won't go up after a certain level and bitcoin will start struggling to get adopted more. Unless we come up with some scaling solution and fix exploits such as the one used by the Ordinals Attack these days.
So I don't think we ever get to the point where bitcoin is too expensive to use.

[LoyceV]

I believe higher fees would slow down adoption which means less people would use bitcoin which means both price and fees won't go up after a certain level and bitcoin will start struggling to get adopted more.

I believe we've passed that point a long time ago. When I started with Bitcoin (9 years ago), I could make cheap transactions to get a feel of how it works. Now, I can't recommend anyone to store a small amount of Bitcoin in their wallet.

@OP: nobody can predict transaction fees in the far future, but you can consolidate your inputs so you don't have many small inputs in the future. Having less inputs, and thus a smaller transaction (in bytes), will sharply reduce transaction fees if fees get much higher.

[Upgrade00]

This scenario we're discussing will only possibly play out many years, decades possibly, down the road, so I'll rule out the option of leaving your bitcoins in a custodian exchange. It's much better to have some coins and then the problem of how to move them around than to not have any coins cause a certain exchange was hacked and have filed for bankruptcy.

If you've ruled out the option of exchanges then storing on cold storage seems like the most obvious choice. It prioritizes security and if you consolidate while moving there it reduces the fees you'll need to pay when you eventually need to move it around.

No one can exactly determine how transaction fees will evolve, we have educated guesses but they are still speculations.

[Plaguedeath]

Depends on the size of the transactions, the mempool and Bitcoin price.

Let's say you use native segwit address, the mempool is really congested and Bitcoin price already around $100K.

The size of a transaction with 1 input and 2 outputs is 130-140.5 vbytes, you paid for 1,600 sat/vbytes, so it would be 208,000-224,800 satoshis. If Bitcoin price is $100K, it means you need to pay $208-$224.8 just for the fees.

[sunsilk]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices. As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted? I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

My understanding is at the current moment while it is still becoming adopted, the value of the Bitcoin held should scale with the transaction costs. I am more wondering about long term viability of personal cold wallets, and how the different layer 2+ scaling projects (lightning, Fedimint, etc.) as well as custodial services may play into the long-run transaction costs. Anyone with knowledge or resources they could point me to would be greatly appreciated!

Per transactions will get paid in satoshis per byte/vByte and that means that the conversion will really depend on how much is the price of Bitcoin by the time you'll transact in the future.

Oh, I miss the time when most of the transactions were certainly cheap and nearly free or it was free for some instance at all.

But that was a long time and I wonder how it is really going to like in the future when price of Bitcoin surges more than what we're expecting. So, it's going to make everyone just hold it rather than spend it.

[peter0425]

Bitcoin’s transaction fees depend on its price and mempool. The more people trying to make a transaction, the more congested the mempool is. So in a future where we are assuming that bitcoin has become more popular than it is now, we can expect that its price will also spike.

In relation to its price, more people would be hoping to make a transaction. But for sure due to the congested mempool that was caused by the mass adoption of bitcoin, the transaction fees are set to be high. If you don’t want to pay higher amounts, then there’s no way your transaction will go through.

Seems pretty disappointing right? Well more people will think the same and start looking for other alternatives besides bitcoin. This may be the cause of bitcoin’s decline. If not solved now , this scalability issue might pose a serious threat to bitcoin’s demand.

[PrivacyG]

I believe that Layers on top of the Blockchain will still probably be the solution.  A solution will be necessary anyway, because otherwise the more people are using Bitcoin, the higher the chances the Mempool gets clogged up particularly with spam from B S like Ordinals.

There are already a few methods you can help too.  Spend in as fewer Transactions as possible, use SegWit, use Lightning when ever possible.  Lightning already provides an instant solution to the problem.  I suppose the more the Mempool will be congested, the more a solution will be pushed out as necessary.  As long as the issues are only temporary however like always, I doubt a big change will be made.

[Faisal2202]

My understanding is at the current moment while it is still becoming adopted, the value of the Bitcoin held should scale with the transaction costs. I am more wondering about long term viability of personal cold wallets, and how the different layer 2+ scaling projects (lightning, Fedimint, etc.) as well as custodial services may play into the long-run transaction costs. Anyone with knowledge or resources they could point me to would be greatly appreciated!

This is my first time hearing about Fedimint, I searched about it and came to know that it should not be called a layer 2 solution as it is not built on the main layer of BTC. It doesn't work like other L2 solutions work but we might use it along the lightning network for security and privacy and if used with LN then we might make a cheaper transaction as well. Overall, it's also a good thing, Recently I came to know about L-BTC and now this Fedimint. I am learning day by day haha.

Speaking of the tx fee, I would say defimint is not going to help us in fee thing as it can't solve the scalability issues, only L2 networks could but to setup LN for the first time we have to pay the normal fee, besides not so many cexs supports L2, so if you are dealing directly with CEXs you first have to confirm either the exchange allowed L2 networks. Prices will increase due to high volume or transactions, but it not only depends on this factor but to understand them you first have to know How Bitcoin Fees Work

[Maus0728]

If you're that worried about transaction fees, you'd probably be better off storing your bitcoins in a wallet that's following the transaction fees in the mempool, don't give in to the allure of putting your bitcoin in wallets like Trust Wallet, you don't have any benefits in storing your bitcoins there. We can't really do much as hodlers when it comes to the increases in transaction fees but you've got to understand that it's natural and it's not in favor of miners that they're not getting a lot in transaction fees, they're a part of the bitcoin ecosystem too and with bitcoin getting more scarce, it's probably for the best that the fees are increasing seasonally to make bitcoin mining still worthy investment.

[btc_angela]

I am working to get my bitcoin off of exchanges and into cold storage but I had a question regarding transaction prices. As more adopt Bitcoin, transaction prices are going to increase as there is more demand for blockspace. Is there any documentation or research into what transaction fees may look like in a world where Bitcoin is more widely accepted? I am worried that from an individual level the blockspace may become so valuable that moving Bitcoin on and off a personal cold wallet may be unfeasibly costly for the average user.

No, there's no documentation about it because that variable is dynamic. There are days that the transaction fees are so low, or at least during the bear market, we can transaction with 1 sat/vB. Until such time that there are grows of people who clogged the mempool, thus pushing the fees very high and there are people who says that Bitcoin is no good for p2p transactions.

My understanding is at the current moment while it is still becoming adopted, the value of the Bitcoin held should scale with the transaction costs. I am more wondering about long term viability of personal cold wallets, and how the different layer 2+ scaling projects (lightning, Fedimint, etc.) as well as custodial services may play into the long-run transaction costs. Anyone with knowledge or resources they could point me to would be greatly appreciated!

it could be, or it may not, even if adoption grows, maybe we can see the transaction fees not going up. Cold wallet and layer 2 are two different things. Cold wallet refers to the wallet itself, while layer 2 is LN. You may want to read it here, [General] Bitcoin Wallets - Which, what, why?

[barbara44]

Honestly we do need to figure out to make it cheaper for sure, it doesn't feel like that at all times but that doesn't mean that we are going to end up with a good result that easily. We should probably do something about the block, we did move to segwit just because the legacy one wasn't all that great which is understandable and nothing wrong with that, but also we need to remember that we are not going to get anything profitable out of this if we are not careful.

If we end up doing something quick without checking it first, then we are going to have a cheap and fast blockchain that could get hacked into. This is why things are slow in the crypto world, security takes time, and you double check everything constantly even a line of code.

All the above, I like to speculate from the price point view; I mean how higher bitcoin prices would be impacting the transactions fees. Yes, when bitcoin will be valuing very higher like one million or ten million per bitcoin then we can say 1 satoshi or 100 satoshi will be enough for one transaction as a fee because 1 satoshi may value $10 or $100. In another perspective, when bitcoin will be valuing too higher then people may not spend much or like people will not spend bitcoin for daily needs which means bitcoin will turn as "pure asset". So, lesser transactions and blocks will not be 100% which will lead to lower transaction fees.