What would happen to the transaction fee if bitcoin SKYROCKETED

[gtraah]

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

[pedrog]

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

Who cares, we would be billionaires!!!

And more decimal places can be added...

[cbeast]

There are many solutions. It's just an engineering problem. Each solution will depend on how bitcoin is used.

[bigasic]

That will be a great problem to have...that would mean that 1 bitcoin would be worth 1 million dollars. I think we are a long way off from those numbers. But Im sure if it becomes an issue well have a solution.

[Kluge]

If BTC becomes much more valuable, then Tx fees can be lowered with max block sizes increased given the increased price allows for tx fees to be lower in nominal value while still paying a similar real value when compared to fiat (or goats, or cheeseburgers, or whatever). Cost of "normal network functions" doesn't necessarily increase with price, so it's reasonable to bring down the "minimum" fee while increasing the amount of transactions able to be stuffed into it (within reason, and I think we're allowing too many transactions to be potentially stuffed into blocks right now), and of course to reduce the minimum Tx BTC amount to be considered dust.

[Ron~Popeil]

It really is just a question of moving decimal points a few spots as needed. AS long as everyone is getting value for their btc or hashing power things should be fine. 

[contantisaluti]

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

In this so successful scenario and with BTC having a so high value in $, it's right and correct the fee is $1-$2. For your daily needs just convert a fraction of your BTC in another cryptocurrency (e.g. LTC) with a lower value; surely in this case BTC should not the only cryptocurrency accepted, especially for cheap purchases as the one you mentioned.

[Beliathon]

Thread would be made 900% more accurate to near-future reality by replacing "if" with "when" in every instance.

[keithers]

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

Who cares, we would be billionaires!!!

And more decimal places can be added...

If BTC skyrockets...there will be no more $10 meals allowed .   Maybe $10 bottles of water...jk

[namecoin]

If bitcoin value increases a lot, more decimal place can be introduced.  Transaction fee can be changed as well.

[bryant.coleman]

If bitcoin value increases a lot, more decimal place can be introduced.  Transaction fee can be changed as well.

I don't think that the miners are going to be happy with that suggestion. Already they are complaining that the mining is very unprofitable. Any further attempted reduction in the transaction fee will face a lot of opposition.

[QuantumQrack]

As long as you can specify your own transaction fee, the problem will take care of itself naturally.  i.e. I will keep my transaction fees in line with what they are currently... a few pennies per transaction.

[zimmah]

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

they would move the decimal places so that you can have fractions of a satoshi. They can easily add another 8 decimals.

That will be a great problem to have...that would mean that 1 bitcoin would be worth 1 million dollars. I think we are a long way off from those numbers. But Im sure if it becomes an issue well have a solution.

in fact 1 bitoin would be 100 million dollars in that case. And that would make most of us multi-millionaires or even billionares.

Not completely impossible either. Could happen within the next 10 years.

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

In this so successful scenario and with BTC having a so high value in $, it's right and correct the fee is $1-$2. For your daily needs just convert a fraction of your BTC in another cryptocurrency (e.g. LTC) with a lower value; surely in this case BTC should not the only cryptocurrency accepted, especially for cheap purchases as the one you mentioned.

bitcoin is meant for both large and micro transactions, and as long as the protocol is maintained in the right way, there's no need for altcoins at all.

If bitcoin value increases a lot, more decimal place can be introduced.  Transaction fee can be changed as well.

I don't think that the miners are going to be happy with that suggestion. Already they are complaining that the mining is very unprofitable. Any further attempted reduction in the transaction fee will face a lot of opposition.

Mining fees have been lowered before and they will lower again. Some miners can join a pool which still charges higher fees, but they will be beaten by the pools with lower fees and more miners. Eventually they will never find any blocks and they will give up and join bigger pools (with lower fees) or stop mining. If miners become too greedy they will not last.

Miners always must make a decision between a lot of transactions with a low fee, or a few transactions with a high fee. But since more transactions means more fees in total, as well as a higher and more stable bitcoin value, most smart miners will accept the lowest fee possible, while still being profitable. For example it's better to have 10000 transactions per second for a 0.00000050 fee than 100 transactions per second for a  0.00000100 fee

[shadowphoenix]

not much would happen imho..business as usual.

[bryant.coleman]

Mining fees have been lowered before and they will lower again. Some miners can join a pool which still charges higher fees, but they will be beaten by the pools with lower fees and more miners. Eventually they will never find any blocks and they will give up and join bigger pools (with lower fees) or stop mining. If miners become too greedy they will not last.

Yes... that was what I was talking about. Even during the last time, there was a lot of opposition from some of the major mining pools. The next time, the opposition is going to be much more vocal.

[jambola2]

Here is what I mean,

Imagine if 1 satoshi = $1 ..... WHat would happen to the fee, I mean 1 satoshi is smallest fraction of a bitcoin. It would be stupid to buy a $10 meal and the fee being $1-$2

In today's economy , there are around 5 trillion dollars , if you consider all economies.

Let's say 15 million BTC are mined , that will mean that even if the entire economy is only Bitcoin , each Bitcoin will be worth 5,000,000,000,000/15,000,000 = 333,333$ in today's money.

Bitcoin will never be worth a million $ of today's money. Sure , it may happen one day when USD has inflated so much that it is worth a cent of today's money. But in comparison to the money of now , Bitcoin can not cross a million.

[DolanDuck]

The transaction fee can be lowered, in the last years we have seen that case before so it's not a real problem.
Also btc development isn't stopped therefore, if needed, some other decimal numbers can be added.

[jambola2]

In today's economy , there are around 5 trillion dollars , if you consider all economies.

Even more

Okay , take it as 6.3 trillion , assuming there are all 21m BTC mined.
That will still be 300k , which is much lesser than necessary to cause a problem resulting in need to further divide Bitcoin.

It is unlikely that Bitcoin will ever cross a million $ , but I expect it to definitely hit the 10k range.
People who expect it to reach 1m in a few years are extreme fanatics.

Comparing Bitcoins future growth to the 300x boost it saw ages ago is stupid.
If Satoshi told 2 people about BTC when he first envisioned it and tripled the Bitcoin enthusiasts in a minute , we should not expect that to happen again in a minute.

TLDR; Bitcoin will rise , but even if it becomes as big as USD is now , it will be under 40k$ per Bitcoin (of todays USD value)
We will not need to further divide BTC in a long long time and if we do , we will have far more capable devs waiting to do so.

[bryant.coleman]

Also btc development isn't stopped therefore, if needed, some other decimal numbers can be added.

1BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshi. We don't need anymore decimal places, unless Bitcoin crosses the $10 million mark. And I don't think that Bitcoin will ever reach that much in exchange rate, at least during this century.

[Kluge]

Just to throw this out there...

Fed M2 is >$11t right now and has been increasing at an insane rate in the past few years, ~9% annually. Assuming 11m spendable coins now, we get to - wait for it - $1m/btc on the nose if BTC matches USD (without factoring in displacement)! -- but what's interesting is that we're right around a 9% annual rate of inflation with BTC right now -- basically, any increase in nominal $price right now has to come from an increase in "real" investment money, but this will be changing. Before the next halving, the rate will dip well below the M2 inflation rate. Assuming M2 maintains its current course, BTC should be increasing 4-6% annually from USD inflation after the next halving, then ~7%/yr in the next halving. That's without factoring any kind of real growth in.

Anyway -- just looking at the effects of compounding inflation 10 years down the line, 11t @ 9% growth annually gets us to $26t M2. We'll have around 16-17M spendable coins at that point (I'll say 16.5M), I think, so we get ~$1.58M/BTC if it meets USD usage (and assuming that usage results in the same price effect).

What really underlines Bitcoin's awesomeness as a savings vehicle comes after that point, though, because inflation will be pretty much gone from BTC at that point. Assuming the USG keeps pumping M2 @ 9% for ANOTHER 10 years after, we get to ~$62t M2. Bitcoin, however, will only inflate to having maybe 18M spendable coins (and at this point, coin losses may actually match target inflation rate). 20 years down the road, then, the number we're referencing becomes ~$3.44M/BTC.

That brings us to 2034, yeah? (yeah.) Anyway, we have another 66 years in this century, so let's just figure the numbers out for the end product. 66 years of M2 inflation @ 9% gets us to 18.2Q (quadrillion, in case that's your first time seeing it! ). Assuming 19M spendable coins (after this point and probably somewhere in this range of time, BTC is deflating due to "coin loss leakage"), we get to ~$958M/BTC. I think, by the end of this century, either BTC goes over $1b/coin or it dies.