The faucet should be giving ~0.003 BTC per person.

[gigabytecoin]

There are close to 7 billion people in the world and only 21 million BTC that will ever exist. If we are going to distribute the bitcoin wealth equally amongst us, the faucet should be giving out 0.003 BTC per person.

This would probably discourage any current faucet thieves as well because the return would be about 15 times less than it is currently.

On a side note: I was just thinking the other night... Perhaps the Bitcoin client is creating an artificial ceiling of 1.00 USD parity because of it's default 0.01 minimum denominations..?

[FreeMoney]

I don't think the client will hold the price back, but I think changing it anytime now would be good. Maybe start by making the default client not require the fee for subcent transactions and put an option somewhere to show more precision, it isn't something everyone needs to see automatically just yet imo.

[gigabytecoin]

I don't think the client will hold the price back, but I think changing it anytime now would be good. Maybe start by making the default client not require the fee for subcent transactions and put an option somewhere to show more precision, it isn't something everyone needs to see automatically just yet imo.

Well it will sure hold something back.

Price or usefulness.

As soon as 1 BTC = $25 USD... it becomes difficult to send "micro" transactions. Which is one of our specialties apparently.

[Jaime Frontero]

On a side note: I was just thinking the other night... Perhaps the Bitcoin client is creating an artificial ceiling of 1.00 USD parity because of it's default 0.01 minimum denominations..?

that's an interesting thought.  perception is everything.

[stakhanov]

I think the default client should show at least one additional digit by default, and of course there should be the option to increase it arbitrarily.

[Gavin Andresen]

I think the default client should show at least one additional digit by default, and of course there should be the option to increase it arbitrarily.

The 0.3.21 release (I hope to have a release candidate available today) will support full-precision values-- you will be able to send 1.00123456 BTC, if you like.

Sending less than 0.01 BTC still requires a 0.01 BTC fee, though.  Changing that to "sending less than 0.01 BTC requires a 0.001 BTC fee" might be worth thinking about, but I think there are higher priorities on the core bitcoin TODO list.

[tomcollins]

I think the default client should show at least one additional digit by default, and of course there should be the option to increase it arbitrarily.

The 0.3.21 release (I hope to have a release candidate available today) will support full-precision values-- you will be able to send 1.00123456 BTC, if you like.

Sending less than 0.01 BTC still requires a 0.01 BTC fee, though.  Changing that to "sending less than 0.01 BTC requires a 0.001 BTC fee" might be worth thinking about, but I think there are higher priorities on the core bitcoin TODO list.

How frequent do you plan to make releases?  I'm assuming pretty quick.  .01 might be worth quite a bit by the time the next release comes along.  Is it you worry about too many worthless transactions causing the blocks to grow too big?  I'd lean towards a bit lower of a limit earlier rather than later, though.  We are seeing massive deflation already, so another few months and $10/BTC could be reality.

[stakhanov]

I think the default client should show at least one additional digit by default, and of course there should be the option to increase it arbitrarily.

The 0.3.21 release (I hope to have a release candidate available today) will support full-precision values-- you will be able to send 1.00123456 BTC, if you like.

Sending less than 0.01 BTC still requires a 0.01 BTC fee, though.  Changing that to "sending less than 0.01 BTC requires a 0.001 BTC fee" might be worth thinking about, but I think there are higher priorities on the core bitcoin TODO list.

Great job!

[stillfire]

If 0.001 BTC transaction fees were possible that would open up the ability to do 'true' micropayments. This would be a brand new frontier to expand in Bitcoin business - e.g. imagine a news site charging per article view but not as clumsily as what NYT has been doing.

Microstransactions could be Bitcoin's killer app and expand the legal market uses of Bitcoin tremendously.

It's true though that there could be a lot of transactions making the blocks larger.

[mewantsbitcoins]

I don't think the size of the blocks is the limiting factor, or at least I hope it is not, because IMO, higher number of transactions is exactly what we are aiming for. The way I understand it, fees are inbuilt into the system to supplement the amount awarded to the miners for the cpu/gpu cycles after difficulty increases to the point when it's no longer profitable.

If I understand it correctly and the fee is not necessary/the amount is too high at the moment, it should be lowered sooner rather than later.

[tomcollins]

If 0.001 BTC transaction fees were possible that would open up the ability to do 'true' micropayments. This would be a brand new frontier to expand in Bitcoin business - e.g. imagine a news site charging per article view but not as clumsily as what NYT has been doing.

Microstransactions could be Bitcoin's killer app and expand the legal market uses of Bitcoin tremendously.

It's true though that there could be a lot of transactions making the blocks larger.

I could just see the NYT doing this.  Please wait 10-60 minutes while we confirm your transaction.

[stillfire]

For a 0.001 BTC transaction they wouldn't need to wait for 6 confirms. They can just see it start to propagate through the network and assume it'll be good. If it later turns out it's not good they can eat the losses of, in today's exchange rate, a 1/10th of a USD cent.

If people start to systematically try double spend, NYT can require the user to create a free account and deposit 0.05 BTC of minimum balance and wait for the 6 confirms. It's still a whole lot better for the end user than a monthly 'subscription fee' when all you want is to read a few pieces a year.

[tomcollins]

For a 0.001 BTC transaction they wouldn't need to wait for 6 confirms. They can just see it start to propagate through the network and assume it'll be good. If it later turns out it's not good they can eat the losses of, in today's exchange rate, a 1/10th of a USD cent.

If people start to systemically try double spending, NYT can require the user to create a free account and deposit 0.05 BTC of minimum balance and wait for the 6 confirms. It's still a whole lot better for the end user than a monthly 'subscription fee' when all you want is to read a few pieces a year.

It was mostly tongue in cheek, but that could certainly work, if you view ads, you get paid some credits too.  I'm not sure NYT wants microtransactions, but someone might, and this is a good model.

[gigabytecoin]

If 0.001 BTC transaction fees were possible that would open up the ability to do 'true' micropayments. This would be a brand new frontier to expand in Bitcoin business - e.g. imagine a news site charging per article view but not as clumsily as what NYT has been doing.

Microstransactions could be Bitcoin's killer app and expand the legal market uses of Bitcoin tremendously.

It's true though that there could be a lot of transactions making the blocks larger.

Agreed!!!

I do not understand why we FORCE a fee period?

And why do we FORCE a minimum fee?

Who are we to determine bitcoin's true economics?

I understand there is a possible DOS attack by removing the fee, but there must be another way around this. It is much too limiting to the regular customer/bitcoin network as a whole.

Don't spoil the bunch because of a few bad apples.

[Gavin Andresen]

I do not understand why we FORCE a fee period?

And why do we FORCE a minimum fee?

Because there is a real cost to the network for every transaction, and the code hasn't been fully optimized yet.

Allowing users and miners to set fee policy without recompiling will happen, but I think there are higher priority issues to tackle first.

[tomcollins]

I do not understand why we FORCE a fee period?

And why do we FORCE a minimum fee?

Because there is a real cost to the network for every transaction, and the code hasn't been fully optimized yet.

Allowing users and miners to set fee policy without recompiling will happen, but I think there are higher priority issues to tackle first.

If I understand correctly, someone could build their own mining app that DOES accept small payments without fees.  And you could write your own client app that DOES send small transfers without fees, but there's no guarantee anyone will accept it.  Is this accurate?

[barbarousrelic]

If 0.001 BTC transaction fees were possible that would open up the ability to do 'true' micropayments. This would be a brand new frontier to expand in Bitcoin business - e.g. imagine a news site charging per article view but not as clumsily as what NYT has been doing.

Microstransactions could be Bitcoin's killer app and expand the legal market uses of Bitcoin tremendously.

It's true though that there could be a lot of transactions making the blocks larger.

Agreed!!!

I do not understand why we FORCE a fee period?

And why do we FORCE a minimum fee?

Who are we to determine bitcoin's true economics?

I understand there is a possible DOS attack by removing the fee, but there must be another way around this. It is much too limiting to the regular customer/bitcoin network as a whole.

Don't spoil the bunch because of a few bad apples.

IIRC the minimum fees were put in to discourage people from spamming the network with millions of .00000001 BTC payments. Doing so can fill up blocks and cause legitimate transactions to be delayed.