Are transaction fees expected to rise over time?

[DeathAndTaxes]

In terms of USD value are transaction fees going to get more expensive over time? At ~13 cents USD they're pretty high for transactions under $10.

Where do you get $0.13 from?  The average tx is <1KB and the min fee to relay for v0.8+ is 0.1 mBTC which is ~$0.06.  That is falling to 0.01 mBTC in v0.9+ which is more like $0.006.

Now this doesn't affect me personally. But we see a lot of talk about bitcoin helping out the unbanked, and bringing bitcoin to Africa and such, and higher transaction fees are really going to limit bitcoin's potential in certain markets.

Fees are even higher for the unbanked.  mPesa which is probably the most successful private payment network is Africa is about 5x the cost of Bitcoin to transaction $10l.

[bitbaby]

I think it will rise more, it is already pretty high, electrum and other clients are charging 20k satoshis for every transaction, no matter how much you're sending.

[jambola2]

Fees are useful to prevent spam on the blockchain. Without fees, or with very low fees, blockchain would be too big for most people. 

I think a fraction of a cent is probably enough to deter spammers from sending too much dust.

As far as the blockchain goes, it's already quite big and at this point most people are going to be better served using Electrum for a number of reasons. Of course the community should still try to have as many full nodes as they can going, but the average user is not going to be running a full node.

Not really.
Multitransactions still allow spammers , but they usually need a database of addresses , I'd guess they find them on the forums 

[jambola2]

I think it will rise more, it is already pretty high, electrum and other clients are charging 20k satoshis for every transaction, no matter how much you're sending.

10k satoshis too is sufficient for "high priority" status on blockchain.info

It is just that 20k satoshi is the default fee and not many people change it.

[jonald_fyookball]

In the long run, when block rewards approach ( and eventually reach) 0, fees will have to be sufficient to support mining energy costs.  However that should not be an issue because at that point bitcoin will be either huge or extinct.  Even with 1 billion $ in daily transactions, that would mean 1 million in fees with a 0.1% fee.

[tvbcof]

...
At the current rate , Bitcoin may exceed Paypal in transaction fees for microtransactions. That would go directly against what Bitcoin is for.
...

Please be a bit careful about who you speak for.  I've 'always' felt that Bitcoin should be 'free' to those who strengthen the system.  Alas, the designer (or post design maintainers) didn't see fit to reward transfer and/or verification nodes so that idea is out the window.

Under Bitcoin's current design I'm happy to pay $10/transaction and that is what I set my local bitcoind to do.  It's a screaming deal compared to doing international wires, and it has proven both vastly more reliable and vastly more quick.

Hopefully sidechains (or better yet, treechains) will come along to take the penny-ante bullshit load of the main system and allow it to remain lightweight (and thus semi-distributed and reliable) while simultaneously the actual multibit-class users will be able to pay fair support fees (pennies) rather than groveling for subsidies on the main chain and whining when they don't get them.

[digit]

Let your bitcoins age/use older inputs and you will pay 0 tx fees

A transaction may be safely sent without fees if these conditions are met:
It is smaller than 1,000 bytes.
All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.
Its priority is large enough (see the Technical Info section below)

Transaction priority is calculated as a value-weighted sum of input age, divided by transaction size in bytes:
priority = sum(input_value_in_base_units * input_age)/size_in_bytes

[DeathAndTaxes]

At the current rate , Bitcoin may exceed Paypal in transaction fees for microtransactions. That would go directly against what Bitcoin is for.

I think you are confused at what PayPal fees are.  Bitcoin tx fees (average of $0.06 per tx) is nowhere near what PayPal charges ($0.40 plus 2.99%).

[jonald_fyookball]

PayPal can even be closer to 4% when sending to foreign countries depending on the situation.

[Ron~Popeil]

PayPal can even be closer to 4% when sending to foreign countries depending on the situation.

That and they often freeze your funds and raid your bank account.

[Este Nuno]

In terms of USD value are transaction fees going to get more expensive over time? At ~13 cents USD they're pretty high for transactions under $10.

Where do you get $0.13 from?  The average tx is <1KB and the min fee to relay for v0.8+ is 0.1 mBTC which is ~$0.06.  That is falling to 0.01 mBTC in v0.9+ which is more like $0.006.

Now this doesn't affect me personally. But we see a lot of talk about bitcoin helping out the unbanked, and bringing bitcoin to Africa and such, and higher transaction fees are really going to limit bitcoin's potential in certain markets.

Fees are even higher for the unbanked.  mPesa which is probably the most successful private payment network is Africa is about 5x the cost of Bitcoin to transaction $10l.

I'm getting the fee from Electrum which is currently 0.0002. Electrum is the best option for most use cases in my opinion. Although, the higher mandated fee does make it less attractive.

[bryant.coleman]

PayPal can even be closer to 4% when sending to foreign countries depending on the situation.

It can be much higher. Once I received a payment from the UK, in Pound Sterling. Immediately they deducted close to 3% on fees and another 2% on currency conversion (UKP to USD). When I withdrew the money to my bank account, they deducted another 2% (USD to local currency).

[DeathAndTaxes]

I'm getting the fee from Electrum which is currently 0.0002. Electrum is the best option for most use cases in my opinion. Although, the higher mandated fee does make it less attractive.

Electrum shouldn't be charging a higher fee than other clients.  Bitcoin fees are per KB so if you have a tx which is 2x as large (size not value) then it is going to be 2x the fee of one under a 1KB.

[stevegee58]

That's funny, I've been doing BTC transactions for years now and haven't paid a single satoshi in fees.

[Cryptopher]

That's funny, I've been doing BTC transactions for years now and haven't paid a single satoshi in fees.

I guess you must be using bitcoins that haven't moved around a lot prior to you sending them. I'm not entirely sure how it works but I think something along those lines applies, something to do with the number of inputs impacting on the size of the block.

PS. Loving the avatar - brings back memories!

[jonald_fyookball]

I'm getting the fee from Electrum which is currently 0.0002. Electrum is the best option for most use cases in my opinion. Although, the higher mandated fee does make it less attractive.

Electrum shouldn't be charging a higher fee than other clients.  Bitcoin fees are per KB so if you have a tx which is 2x as large (size not value) then it is going to be 2x the fee of one under a 1KB.

You can override electrum suggested fee both on the transaction level and the default settings.
I usually send with 0 fees with electrum unless amount is tiny.

[Este Nuno]

I'm getting the fee from Electrum which is currently 0.0002. Electrum is the best option for most use cases in my opinion. Although, the higher mandated fee does make it less attractive.

Electrum shouldn't be charging a higher fee than other clients.  Bitcoin fees are per KB so if you have a tx which is 2x as large (size not value) then it is going to be 2x the fee of one under a 1KB.

You can override electrum suggested fee both on the transaction level and the default settings.
I usually send with 0 fees with electrum unless amount is tiny.

I was curious how this is done so I started a new topic regarding this in the Electrum subforum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=644533.msg7199730#msg7199730

Feel free to explain if you have the time. Thanks.

[CryptoKilla]

I can almost guarantee the tx fees are going to rise. As bitcoin grows it will only be natural for the fees to rise. It also depends on how you look at it.. Technically the fees are changing every day with the value of bitcoin fluctuating, however in terms of will the tx fee ever rise above .0001? The simple answer is yes.

[Ron~Popeil]

I can almost guarantee the tx fees are going to rise. As bitcoin grows it will only be natural for the fees to rise. It also depends on how you look at it.. Technically the fees are changing every day with the value of bitcoin fluctuating, however in terms of will the tx fee ever rise above .0001? The simple answer is yes.

Yeah the value of the fees goes up as the value of the currency rises. The market will take care of the rest. You can all ready get a transaction through faster by sending with a higher fee.

I think there will actually be downward pressure in the price as the transaction volume increases due to economies of scale.

[bryant.coleman]

That's funny, I've been doing BTC transactions for years now and haven't paid a single satoshi in fees.

Recently I have heard reports about miners refusing to confirm those transactions where the fee is not paid. There were multiple threads here, in the Economics sub-section.