Are High Fees Actually good for Bitcoin? My take after paying $24 to move $100

[Sammye3]

Last week I had to pay 42 sat/vB - about $24 to consolidate some small UTXOs. I was angry.Then I thought about it differently.

Is this a true story or you're trying to raise controversies? Because I can't seem to understand how you would pay $24 transaction fee to consolidate some "small" UTXO like you mentioned, was it on an exchange or a wallet?

When feesSo my question is If we want Bitcoin to be above what it is currently, and used by a billion people, shouldn't we STOP complaining about $5 fees and start admitting high fees are a sign of success?💪

In some sense, higher transaction fee shows that many people are competing for block space, and that in it's way shows that bitcoin adoption is growing but would that be fair to everyone? High transaction fees would discourage smaller transactions, because it would be unfair to pay a $5 transaction fee for a $20 transaction.

[Call_Me_Guru]

You are mostly wrong. Ordinals didn't exist in 2020–2021, but January 2023. Bitcoin fees weren't consistently at $0.10 during that bull market. They averaged over $60 at their peak in April 2021. Also know that high fees don't clean up dust UTXOs, they make them harder to spend. If a UTXO is worth $100 but costs $200 to move, it's effectively stranded. Consolidation happens when fees are low, not high.

Yes, Satoshi intended fees to replace the block subsidy as miners' main incentive, but that doesn't mean high fees are are good. There's a difference between a healthy fee market that secures Bitcoin and one that prices ordinary people out. Stop confusing expensive block space with successful adoption. We've seen how chaotic they could be in the past.

[Patrol69]

I think you have made a Bitcoin transaction without checking the mempool, which is why you have incurred such a large transaction fee due to making a transaction when there is a high mempool. There is no need to be in such a hurry when making a transaction, always observe the mempool and when you see that the mempool is normal, that is, if you make a transaction now, you will incur a very small transaction fee, then make a transaction. Even if I make a large transaction, I will never give $ 20 or $ 24 for each of my transactions, if necessary, I will temporarily suspend my transactions. Still, I know why I feel that there may be something wrong with your calculation because such a high transaction fee should not be normal.

[Majestic-milf]

You won’t find a lot of users who joined in forum from 2015 in our local board so don’t limit your audience to the OGs. That being said, I find it hard to believe you spent $24 on fees, especially after reading your other topic.

Baba fit dey find attention bad or e don turn adviser after e enter the shit but me sef no believe that cock and bull story. This user don dey trend for negative reasons and I no go surprise to see say soon enough e matter go cast.

[LoyceV]

Last week I had to pay 42 sat/vB - about $24 to consolidate some small UTXOs.

That's BS. Required fees for a fast confirmation were at most a few sats/vbyte in the past weeks.
Feel free to show your transaction to prove me wrong.

For anyone who's serious about consolidating small inputs, read Consolidate your small inputs @0.11 sat/vbyte. I paid 0.12 sat/vbyte 2 days ago.

[Hardyrobust]

It is not ideal to be moving a smaller amount of bitcoin because of the  transaction fees. You may not see it as a problem but if this transaction is done on daily or weekly basis then you will notice that you are losing a huge amount of money. The high fee may affect transactions with bitcoin and this will negatively affect the market because some investors may not want to be using bitcoin for transactions. Paying high fees for bitcoin transactions doesn't mean that it a sign of success as this may also apply to other crypto currency that is still struggling to gain adoption.

[BluebloodCXVI]

Since the OP created this topic, they haven’t responded or interacted with any of the replies on here yet, and this makes me think that he just made up a BS scenario to chase clout or for some other messed up reason because i can’t understand why they would pay 42 sat/vB to consolidate UTXO’s worth just 100$ when the prevailing fee rates were reportedly much lower; perhaps they should provide proof of the transaction so that others can make confirmation, but until then i think i’ll be taking this story with a pinch of salt

[Fivestar4everMVP]

Satoshi designed fees to rise as block reward falls. Isn't this exactly what should happen? Low fees forever would mean Bitcoin failed to get adoption.

So my question is If we want Bitcoin to be above what it is currently, and used by a billion people, shouldn't we STOP complaining about $5 fees and start admitting high fees are a sign of success?💪

Or am I just coping because I paid $24 yesterday?

Curious what OGs who were here in 2015 think?  you paid high fees before, was Bitcoin better when fees were low and blocks were empty?

Permit me to say this but you must be crazy to think the way you think about high fees on the bitcoin network. before coming up with this opinion of yours, did you think about the primary reason why Bitcoin was invented in the first place?
Bitcoin was created to act as a faster and cheaper alternative to fiat when it comes to moving money around the globe, if users will have to start paying high fees for every simple bitcoin transaction on the network, what makes it better than fiat?
And we all clamor for adoption, how will Bitcoin gain full scale adoption when or if the average and middle class in our contemporary society cant use it due to high tx fees?

And i don't even know how you ended up paying $24 for a tx on the bitcoin network, because to the best of my knowledge, transaction fees here in recent years have remained relatively low, usually under a dollar or two.