How could micropayments work?

[RBMagillicutty]

I was surprised to learn Bitcoin is not really for micro payments. The fee right now is .0005 which is 6 cents.
That would be ~ 50 cents if the price got to $1000

Are there any ideas how to 1) add another layer to bitcoin , to allow for micropayments (perhaps a 2nd network)
or 2) an altoghter different coin, that is only used for penny-sized transactions?

[1714950176]

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[hoewer4what]

I was surprised to learn Bitcoin is not really for micro payments. The fee right now is .0005 which is 6 cents.
That would be ~ 50 cents if the price got to $1000

Are there any ideas how to 1) add another layer to bitcoin , to allow for micropayments (perhaps a 2nd network)
or 2) an altoghter different coin, that is only used for penny-sized transactions?

If 2nd network is used, then you get lower protection because computation resources for hash are split.

The fee amounts and rules changes from time to time, so if bitcoin stabilizes over 1000USD, there will be consensus for new fee rules imho

[ShakerRaiders87]

I was surprised to learn Bitcoin is not really for micro payments. The fee right now is .0005 which is 6 cents.
That would be ~ 50 cents if the price got to $1000

Are there any ideas how to 1) add another layer to bitcoin , to allow for micropayments (perhaps a 2nd network)
or 2) an altoghter different coin, that is only used for penny-sized transactions?

I never thought of that but it's a good point.  I always wished there was something that could be processed quickly and would be good for micropayments.  Maybe Ripple will make this succeed although to doubt it considering everyone else has failed.

[Foxpup]

Micropayments can't work. Ever. No matter what system you use, there is going to be some fixed cost to process each transaction. A 10 cent transaction will always cost just as much as 10 million dollar transaction. There's always going to be a point at which the transaction is sufficiently worthless that it costs more to process it than it's worth. Bitcoin is far cheaper than any other electronic payment system on the planet, and as such has a lower limit on what constitutes a micropayment than other systems (eg, Visa defines a micropayment as anything under $20; for Bitcoin, it's currently anything under BTC0.01, or about $1.20). Maybe an even cheaper system can be devised which can handle even smaller transactions, but there'll always be a limit as to how small.

Note also that Bitcoin's transaction fees can be (and have been) changed to reflect changing market prices, so rising prices will not lead to exorbitant fees.

[3Dfilament]

I was surprised to learn Bitcoin is not really for micro payments. The fee right now is .0005 which is 6 cents.
That would be ~ 50 cents if the price got to $1000

Are there any ideas how to 1) add another layer to bitcoin , to allow for micropayments (perhaps a 2nd network)
or 2) an altoghter different coin, that is only used for penny-sized transactions?

Isn't this where litecoin comes into play?

[justabitoftime]

I was surprised to learn Bitcoin is not really for micro payments. The fee right now is .0005 which is 6 cents.
That would be ~ 50 cents if the price got to $1000

Are there any ideas how to 1) add another layer to bitcoin , to allow for micropayments (perhaps a 2nd network)
or 2) an altoghter different coin, that is only used for penny-sized transactions?

Isn't this where litecoin comes into play?

This is EXACTLY where Litecoin should come into play.

[lakeluke]

Totally agree; for sites wishing to use micropayments they should use an alternate cryptocurrency, and the second most successful one so far is litecoin, with faster confirmations.

[NoProb1ems]

I thought litecoin has a forced 0.1 fee which is already 26 cents a pop

[katie1348]

I think I would like to know WHO exactly gets the transaction fee?

I mean, If A sends 1 BTC from her wallet to B and it arrives into his wallet, then who gets a transaction fee.

Isn't this the point of a P2P system?

I understand if you use some 3rd party to do the transfers, as they want to make money, in fact it will be their main way of making money.

In my scenario, is there a fee and who gets it?

K

[robkaandorp]

I think I would like to know WHO exactly gets the transaction fee?

The fee goes to the miner or mining pool which finds the block your transaction is in. In the end, when block reward is void the transaction fee will be what keeps miners mining.

[katie1348]

I think I would like to know WHO exactly gets the transaction fee?

The fee goes to the miner or mining pool which finds the block your transaction is in. In the end, when block reward is void the transaction fee will be what keeps miners mining.

Does that mean a miner (or pool) who discovers a block will get a % every time that some of that block is transacted, or is this a 1 time transaction as it leaves the pool or miner?

Thanks for the reply.

[DannyHamilton]

I think I would like to know WHO exactly gets the transaction fee?

I mean, If A sends 1 BTC from her wallet to B and it arrives into his wallet, then who gets a transaction fee.

Isn't this the point of a P2P system?

I understand if you use some 3rd party to do the transfers, as they want to make money, in fact it will be their main way of making money.

In my scenario, is there a fee and who gets it?

K

As to the question of "is there a fee?", that is entirely up to the sender of the transaction.  Fees are mostly voluntary in bitcoin.  There are a few conditions where most (though not all) of the wallets in widespread use enforce a fee on the sender of the transaction, but as long as the transaction is less than 10 kilobytes in size and all outputs are greater than 0.01 BTC the sender can choose to use a wallet that does not force them to include a transaction fee if they wish.

As for who gets the transaction fees, they go to those who are doing the work of maintaining the transaction ledger (the blockchain) that everyone uses to validate the history of the transactions that they are sending and receiving.  These would be the peers that are commonly called "miners".  They supply the proof-of-work that makes it nearly impossible to double-spend bitcoins.  Without their work, bitcoin couldn't exist as a viable currency or payment network.  So while bitcoin is "peer-to-peer", it requires more than just a "sending" peer and a "receiving" peer.  There are peers that are relaying the transaction, and there are peers that are "confirming" transactions into the blockchain.

[DannyHamilton]

I think I would like to know WHO exactly gets the transaction fee?

The fee goes to the miner or mining pool which finds the block your transaction is in. In the end, when block reward is void the transaction fee will be what keeps miners mining.

Does that mean a miner (or pool) who discovers a block will get a % every time that some of that block is transacted, or is this a 1 time transaction as it leaves the pool or miner?

Thanks for the reply.

The sender can voluntarily include a fee in addition to the total being sent.  This fee acts as an incentive to the mining community to include the transaction in the blockchain.  When a miner (or pool) chooses to include transactions in a block that they're working on, and they successfully solve that block, that miner (or pool) gets all the transaction fees from all the included transactions.  Once a transaction is successfully included in a block in the blockchain, it cannot be included in any future blocks.

[katie1348]

Thank you.

That helped clear that situation up.

It is most appreciated.

K