The transaction fee is just ridiculous.

[teukon]

My preferred behaviour for a wallet, would be that it asks me every single time what fee I want to pay. Thus if I'm just doing a "wallet maintenance" shuffle and don't care how long it takes, no tx fee, then if I want "same day" service pay regular fee, if I think my TX is super important and want preferential treatment I should find it easy to add fees as I see fit.


One thing that would be good though, is if wallet could report the average fees and number of TX for the last block. Then if you saw fees were high and TX were high, you'd know that network was "busy" and you'd have the option of matching high fees to get priority or being content with waiting it out.

I expect you'll be interested to read:

The wallet code in the next major release of Bitcoin Core (version 0.10) will be much smarter about transaction fees.

Instead of using hard-coded rules for what fees to pay, the code observes how long transactions are taking to confirm and then uses that data to estimate the right fee to pay so the transaction confirms quickly– or decides that the transaction has a high enough priority to be sent for free but still confirm quickly.

There is a new option that lets you control how quickly you’d like your transactions to confirm: txconfirmtarget. The default value is 1, meaning “I’d like my transactions to be sent with enough fee or priority so they are very likely to be included in the next block.” Set it to 6 and it will take on average six blocks for your transactions to get their first confirmation.

Read more here.

[picolo]

My preferred behaviour for a wallet, would be that it asks me every single time what fee I want to pay. Thus if I'm just doing a "wallet maintenance" shuffle and don't care how long it takes, no tx fee, then if I want "same day" service pay regular fee, if I think my TX is super important and want preferential treatment I should find it easy to add fees as I see fit.


One thing that would be good though, is if wallet could report the average fees and number of TX for the last block. Then if you saw fees were high and TX were high, you'd know that network was "busy" and you'd have the option of matching high fees to get priority or being content with waiting it out.


I believe that tx fees should maybe be "marketed"/explained to the user in terms of a familiar thing like postal service, with notional standards of service like "surface letter", "airmail letter", "international express" and "same day" and proportionate TX pricing. Well I'm not saying a no-fee TX should take a "far corner of the world" 3 months like surface letter, just that the scaling of time/cost should be similar.

Having a fee is a great way to avoid having to many unnecessary transactions but the miners don't need the fees to profit right now, the block reward is enough so even lower fees in average could be possible.

[teukon]

Having a fee is a great way to avoid having to many unnecessary transactions but the miners don't need the fees to profit right now, the block reward is enough so even lower fees in average could be possible.

It's true that miners don't need the fees to profit, but then they also don't need the transactions to profit.  Indeed, it seems that the block reward presently works against "even lower fees" because a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned.

[Dabs]

Just a couple days ago I did this:

Sent $1056.98
Sent $1762.95
Sent $705.93

Total Output $3,525.86

Fees $0.04

Received Time 2014-11-20 02:31:41
Included In Blocks 330788 (2014-11-20 02:40:45 +9 minutes)

I could have sent it without paying a fee though. Might have took an hour to be included in a block. However, I was impatient, and 4 cents to send 3500 USD seemed ridiculously cheap to me.

Oddly enough, I also did this one:

Total Output $ 2,581.56
Fees $ 0.00

Received Time 2014-11-12 05:52:26
Included In Blocks 329646 (2014-11-12 05:56:53 +4 minutes)

And I didn't even pay the fee, it was faster. So to me, that's also ridiculous.

Total Output $ 1,988.86
Fees $ 0.004 (yes, less than half a cent.)

Received Time 2014-11-13 03:41:14
Included In Blocks 329770 (2014-11-13 03:56:02 +15 minutes)

Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

[JLynn171]

We are FORCED to pay a tax upon every transaction, and they say Bitcoin doesn't have any taxes? That's just pure crap. Taxation is unconstitutional theft via armed extortion. In Bitcoin's case, it's unavoidable, and is without the armed extortion (YOU ARE FORCED TO PAY).

You are not FORCED to pay anything.

You are not even FORCED to use bitcoin.

You are welcome to use bitcoin if you like, and you are welcome to pay any fee (or no fee at all if you like).

Equally, the peers on the network are not FORCED to relay your transaction if they don't want to.

They are welcome to relay your transaction if they like, and they are welcome to ignore your transaction if they like.

Equally, the miners are not FORCED to include your transaction in their blocks.

They are welcome to include your transaction if they like, and they are welcome to leave your transaction for some other miner to include in their block if they like.

Isn't it great how NOBODY is FORCED to do any of these things with bitcoin.

well said its a luxery fee of getting ur transfer made in timely manner

[picolo]

Having a fee is a great way to avoid having to many unnecessary transactions but the miners don't need the fees to profit right now, the block reward is enough so even lower fees in average could be possible.

It's true that miners don't need the fees to profit, but then they also don't need the transactions to profit.  Indeed, it seems that the block reward presently works against "even lower fees" because a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned.

Could you explain why a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned?

[kingscrown]

miners need extra rewards

[bryant.coleman]

miners need extra rewards

Miners already receive reward for their work. It is called "mined blocks". They don't need to leach off the Bitcoin users to survive. Else, what will be the difference between fiat and BTC?

[teukon]

Having a fee is a great way to avoid having to many unnecessary transactions but the miners don't need the fees to profit right now, the block reward is enough so even lower fees in average could be possible.

It's true that miners don't need the fees to profit, but then they also don't need the transactions to profit.  Indeed, it seems that the block reward presently works against "even lower fees" because a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned.

Could you explain why a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned?

Sure.

Currently, when a new block is found, the entire block is sent to adjacent nodes which then, in turn, pass the block to their neighbours.  Meanwhile, other miners continue to build on the previous block, likely unaware that a new block has been found.  This delay between finding a block and getting a copy to every miner is what gives rise to orphans.

Including a transaction in a block increases the size of the block.  A block full of transactions can be a thousand times larger than an empty block.  Larger blocks take longer to propagate throughout the network and so allow more time for rival blocks to inadvertently appear.

You might be interested in some rough calculations concerning this effect Gavin did a little while ago.

You might also be interested in this proposal to improve the efficiency of relaying blocks.

[awesome31312]

miners need extra rewards

I think we oughta scrap the current system and have an experience bar on blockchain.info, that keeps track of your mining level. Once it hits 99, you can order a cape for 0.01 BTC.


That would be the greatest incentive.

[odolvlobo]

Just a couple days ago I did this:
...
Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

You don't understand how it works. In every case, your transaction was in the next block, and the time it took had nothing to do with your fee.

[Flashman]

I think we oughta scrap the current system and have an experience bar on blockchain.info, that keeps track of your mining level. Once it hits 99, you can order a cape for 0.01 BTC.

Then when you hit 150 XP, have "Staff of -v n00bs" that costs say 3 mana to use and lasts 24 hours.

[Pierre11]

Just a couple days ago I did this:
...
Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

You don't understand how it works. In every case, your transaction was in the next block.

Sometimes it skips a block or 2 (from experience with my TXs)

[Flashman]

Also highly dependent who mines it, individual pool or soloers can elect not to include free tx I think, or allocate minimal space in the block for free ones.

[picolo]

Having a fee is a great way to avoid having to many unnecessary transactions but the miners don't need the fees to profit right now, the block reward is enough so even lower fees in average could be possible.

It's true that miners don't need the fees to profit, but then they also don't need the transactions to profit.  Indeed, it seems that the block reward presently works against "even lower fees" because a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned.

Could you explain why a transaction included in a block increases the probability that the block will be orphaned?

Sure.

Currently, when a new block is found, the entire block is sent to adjacent nodes which then, in turn, pass the block to their neighbours.  Meanwhile, other miners continue to build on the previous block, likely unaware that a new block has been found.  This delay between finding a block and getting a copy to every miner is what gives rise to orphans.

Including a transaction in a block increases the size of the block.  A block full of transactions can be a thousand times larger than an empty block.  Larger blocks take longer to propagate throughout the network and so allow more time for rival blocks to inadvertently appear.

You might be interested in some rough calculations concerning this effect Gavin did a little while ago.

You might also be interested in this proposal to improve the efficiency of relaying blocks.

"(The) delay between finding a block and getting a copy to every miner is what gives rise to orphans. (...) Larger blocks take longer to propagate throughout the network and so allow more time for rival blocks to inadvertently appear."

Ok thanks for the explication!

[Dabs]

Just a couple days ago I did this:
...
Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

You don't understand how it works. In every case, your transaction was in the next block, and the time it took had nothing to do with your fee.

I do understand exactly how it works. I was trying to be funny. Sorry.

I was attempting to show how ridiculous the fee transaction fee is. You can currently pay 0.00001 as your tx fee. In the three cases above, I paid zero, 0.00001 and 0.0001.

The only reason Western Union is faster, is because, they use an internal messaging system, so you can think of it as off-chain, if that makes sense.

[scarsbergholden]

Just a couple days ago I did this:
...
Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

You don't understand how it works. In every case, your transaction was in the next block, and the time it took had nothing to do with your fee.

This is not true. The time it took (measured in blocks) has to do with the inventory of unconfirmed transactions in the nodes' memory pool. If the pool of unconfirmed transactions is large then a lower fee TX will take longer to confirm. If the memory pool size is small then it will likely not matter what size TX fee is included (up to a point)

[pitham1]

miners need extra rewards

In comparison to the block reward, the transaction fees pale at this point of time.
Going forward, as the block reward reduces, transaction fees will increase in importance.

[Argwai96]

Just a couple days ago I did this:
...
Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

You don't understand how it works. In every case, your transaction was in the next block, and the time it took had nothing to do with your fee.

I do understand exactly how it works. I was trying to be funny. Sorry.

I was attempting to show how ridiculous the fee transaction fee is. You can currently pay 0.00001 as your tx fee. In the three cases above, I paid zero, 0.00001 and 0.0001.

The only reason Western Union is faster, is because, they use an internal messaging system, so you can think of it as off-chain, if that makes sense.

Sending money via Western Union is actually not faster. It will generally take ~10 minutes from the time you hand the western union agent cash and the properly filled out form for the money to be available for the receiver (eg. "sign and transmit" the transaction). This does not even count the time it takes to drive to walmart (or other wu location), wait in line and fill out the paperwork

[picolo]

Just a couple days ago I did this:
...
Man, this is annoying, when I pay small, it takes longer than paying the "standard" and when I don't pay, it gets confirmed the fastest.

You don't understand how it works. In every case, your transaction was in the next block, and the time it took had nothing to do with your fee.

I do understand exactly how it works. I was trying to be funny. Sorry.

I was attempting to show how ridiculous the fee transaction fee is. You can currently pay 0.00001 as your tx fee. In the three cases above, I paid zero, 0.00001 and 0.0001.

The only reason Western Union is faster, is because, they use an internal messaging system, so you can think of it as off-chain, if that makes sense.

Sending money via Western Union is actually not faster. It will generally take ~10 minutes from the time you hand the western union agent cash and the properly filled out form for the money to be available for the receiver (eg. "sign and transmit" the transaction). This does not even count the time it takes to drive to walmart (or other wu location), wait in line and fill out the paperwork

The sender and the receiver have to lose time to wait in line and fill the sheet. Also you can only send money during the opening hours and opening days of the WU location.
The fees are huge and you have to add a 3% fee on currency exchange.