Feature Request for Bitcoin Core: Replace by Fee

[BitcoinGirl325]

Hi there,

I have a feature request for Bitcoin Core. (I'm not a programmer, so I am unable to contribute technical skills to getting this implemented. I can just type up my feature request here. )

I recently lost $1 worth of BTC, because one of my transactions got permanently stuck in an "unconfirmed" state. This is because my iOS wallet app (BitWallet) didn't require me to include the required .0001 fee with it. As a result, my transaction never confirmed. To make matters worse, my app doesn't have the ability for me to cancel unconfirmed transactions so I can rebroadcast the transaction with a fee attached. Full details in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=722880.0 

So my transaction seems to be lost permanently.

It was pointed out to me on a Reddit thread (located at http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2ci5mb/bitcoin_is_not_the_answer_for_micro_transactions/) that the answer could be as simple as the Bitcoin Core app implementing Peter Todd's "Replace By Fee" tools, which he has uploaded onto GitHub here: https://github.com/petertodd/replace-by-fee-tools

I would like to express my support of seeing these "Replace By Fee" tools implemented into the Bitcoin Core app. This would help prevent users like myself from having their transactions lost permanently if they forget to attach a fee!

Thanks!

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[Yoghurt114]

Nothing is permanent in bitcoin, and a transaction that's not accepted or propagated by miners and 'lost in limbo' is, with increasing probability, headed toward the opposite of permanent.

Getting the move of funds to go through should be as simple as backing up the wallet, importing it into another (more proper) wallet app and sending a new transaction with a fee attached. Or maybe deleting the cache of the iOS wallet app could work, but I have no idea how iOS or any of their apps work, so be sure to have a backup anyway.

[BitcoinGirl325]

Nothing is permanent in bitcoin, and a transaction that's not accepted or propagated by miners and 'lost in limbo' is, with increasing probability, headed toward the opposite of permanent.

Getting the move of funds to go through should be as simple as backing up the wallet, importing it into another (more proper) wallet app and sending a new transaction with a fee attached. Or maybe deleting the cache of the iOS wallet app could work, but I have no idea how iOS or any of their apps work, so be sure to have a backup anyway.

Thanks so much. I tried importing the private keys into another wallet app (MultiBit), but it wouldn't let me create a new transaction because it saw the "unconfirmed" transaction as a valid transaction. So, my "available to spend" BTC balance had already reflected the lower balance, as if the transaction had already gone through.

[btchris]

Hi there,

I have a feature request for Bitcoin Core. (I'm not a programmer, so I am unable to contribute technical skills to getting this implemented. I can just type up my feature request here. )

I recently lost $1 worth of BTC, because one of my transactions got permanently stuck in an "unconfirmed" state. This is because my iOS wallet app (BitWallet) didn't require me to include the required .0001 fee with it. As a result, my transaction never confirmed. To make matters worse, my app doesn't have the ability for me to cancel unconfirmed transactions so I can rebroadcast the transaction with a fee attached. Full details in this thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=722880.0 
    <snip>
I would like to express my support of seeing these "Replace By Fee" tools implemented into the Bitcoin Core app. This would help prevent users like myself from having their transactions lost permanently if they forget to attach a fee!

Thanks!

I'd guess that if your wallet software were smart enough to implement Replace By Fee (and if it was standard on the network), it would probably also be smart to not have caused this situation in the first place. In other words, I think the better option would be to get your wallet's developers to implement warnings when the transaction fee is too low, and also methods to remove stuck transactions, first (not to knock the devs, all things take time to work the bugs out).

If Replace By Fee were standard, no transaction would ever be instant, even very small ones. Some see this as an improvement in security at the expense of convenience and choice, others see the improvement in security to be so minuscule, especially with small transactions, that the cost in convenience makes it not worthwhile (although I'm probably summarizing all this incorrectly).

I tried importing the private keys into another wallet app (MultiBit), but it wouldn't let me create a new transaction because it saw the "unconfirmed" transaction as a valid transaction. So, my "available to spend" BTC balance had already reflected the lower balance, as if the transaction had already gone through.

Have you tried the advice over on this support page of theirs?

If that doesn't help, here's what I'd eventually consider.

• Transfer the remaining balance (via the Bitcoin network) from your old wallet to one of the new MultiBit addresses. This is just to ensure that you don't lose anything on the off-chance MultiBit didn't like the keys you imported (I really don't think that's the case, I'm just being safe).
• Once that transaction has confirmed, uninstall the old wallet so that it stops trying to broadcast the stuck transaction, wait a day or so, and try the advice on the linked page once again.

[Mike Hearn]

Eventually that transaction will confirm as its inputs age. You just have to wait.

[amaclin]

Eventually that transaction will confirm as its inputs age. You just have to wait.

wait for centuries?
we can not disallow nodes to keep and rebroadcast valid transactions.
and some of them really do it.

I have a feature request for Bitcoin Core [...] This is because my iOS wallet app [...]

What a nonsense! Why do you ask to change one app because of bad behavior of another app?
As you mentioned above the "replace-by-fee" tools already exist as separate package.

[Newar]

Couldn't it be fixed by manually crafting the new tx with a higher fee and then https://btc.blockr.io/tx/push or http://coinb.in/send-raw-transaction.html ?

[byt411]

Couldn't it be fixed by manually crafting the new tx with a higher fee and then https://blockchain.info/pushtx or http://coinb.in/send-raw-transaction.html ?

No, you'd have to try and broadcast it via another node, since BlockChain seems to reject 2nd transactions that use the same inputs. I'm not sure about coinb.in.
Nodes might treat it as a double spend anyway.

[Newar]

No, you'd have to try and broadcast it via another node, since BlockChain seems to reject 2nd transactions that use the same inputs. I'm not sure about coinb.in.
Nodes might treat it as a double spend anyway.

There's another one https://btc.blockr.io/tx/push

(Edited my post above)

[TwinWinNerD]

Just broadcast it with a higher fee. Also if you don't rebroadcast the original transaction, the memory pools will drop the transaction within a week.

[amaclin]

Couldn't it be fixed by manually crafting the new tx with a higher fee and then https://blockchain.info/pushtx or http://coinb.in/send-raw-transaction.html ?

Usually, no.
Because both these services reject new transaction with double-spending inputs. You have to check them frequently to find when they remove old stuck transaction from memory-pool to send new one with higher fee.

Better service is http://webbtc.com/relay_tx
But I am not sure that it has enough connected peers to successful rebroadcasting.

And do not forget about http://eligius.st/~wizkid057/newstats/pushtxn.php

[byt411]

Just broadcast it with a higher fee. Also if you don't rebroadcast the original transaction, the memory pools will drop the transaction within a week.

Some nodes and clients automatically rebroadcast transactions...
So yeah.

[BitcoinGirl325]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

[byt411]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

Hmm... Not really. Can't you just remove the private key from bitWallet? Then it can't rebroadcast the transaction at all.

[amaclin]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

You can. But let us start from the early beginning.
1) Can you show stuck transaction on the blockchain?
2) Do you have another utxo (sorry - this means some other funds on unspent tx output )?

[BitcoinGirl325]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

Hmm... Not really. Can't you just remove the private key from bitWallet? Then it can't rebroadcast the transaction at all.

Unfortunately, BitWallet is not the app that is rebroadcasting the transaction. BitWallet only broadcasts the transaction once (according to the BitWallet developers). It is other nodes on the Bitcoin network that are continually rebroadcasting the transaction.

[BitcoinGirl325]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

You can. But let us start from the early beginning.
1) Can you show stuck transaction on the blockchain?
2) Do you have another utxo (sorry - this means some other funds on unspent tx output )?

1. The stuck transaction on the blockchain can be seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

2. Sorry, I'm new to this. I don't know if I have other funds on the unspent output. How can I tell?

Thanks,
Scott

[byt411]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

You can. But let us start from the early beginning.
1) Can you show stuck transaction on the blockchain?
2) Do you have another utxo (sorry - this means some other funds on unspent tx output )?

1. The stuck transaction on the blockchain can be seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

2. Sorry, I'm new to this. I don't know if I have other funds on the unspent output. How can I tell?

Thanks,
Scott

I'm not sure what you're asking, but the input has additional funds, so the remainder is being delivered as change back to him.
The outputs are unspent, and also unconfirmed.

[BitCoinDream]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

You can. But let us start from the early beginning.
1) Can you show stuck transaction on the blockchain?
2) Do you have another utxo (sorry - this means some other funds on unspent tx output )?

1. The stuck transaction on the blockchain can be seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

2. Sorry, I'm new to this. I don't know if I have other funds on the unspent output. How can I tell?

Thanks,
Scott

I have encountered some strange result regarding your Tx. Except blockchain.info none is showing it !!!

https://btc.blockr.io/tx/info/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

https://www.biteasy.com/blockchain/transactions/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

[byt411]

It seems like there is nothing I can do to rebroadcast this transaction with a fee, and that I have lost this $1 forever. At least it was only $1, though.

You can. But let us start from the early beginning.
1) Can you show stuck transaction on the blockchain?
2) Do you have another utxo (sorry - this means some other funds on unspent tx output )?

1. The stuck transaction on the blockchain can be seen here: https://blockchain.info/tx/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

2. Sorry, I'm new to this. I don't know if I have other funds on the unspent output. How can I tell?

Thanks,
Scott

I have encountered some strange result regarding your Tx. Except blockchain.info none is showing it !!!

https://btc.blockr.io/tx/info/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

https://www.biteasy.com/blockchain/transactions/c238d939b330b682abe1c729300636600254c23c67e1eea4e8daa9abc26dd2c5

Weird. Can he just build a raw transaction using Brainwallet.github.io, and then rebroadcast it? (with a fee, of course).