Hey for the love of Satoshi can I PLEASE pay a tx fee?

[Technomage]

Even though this issue has become a priority at this time only because of SatoshiDice, it is what it is. This is quite important now, we need better fee detection algorithm's and better fee settings.

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[Spekulatius]

Satoshi's Client has a set fee of 0.0005 BTC, although it enables you to "choose the fee". If you choose a lower one, youll get an error message once you actually try to send a tx. Sometimes you also have to pay more, like 5 times as much as the minimum fee (0.0005), dont know if that is somehow part of change?

[kangasbros]

Just FYI, easywallet.org includes always fee of 0.0005 BTC in the outgoing transactions. Maybe at later point I will add feature which allows to choose without fees.

[Foxpup]

Satoshi's Client has a set fee of 0.0005 BTC, although it enables you to "choose the fee". If you choose a lower one, youll get an error message once you actually try to send a tx. Sometimes you also have to pay more, like 5 times as much as the minimum fee (0.0005), dont know if that is somehow part of change?

As I understand, the Satoshi client selects a fee based on transaction data size, priority, and dust outputs. Only the data size fee is user-selectable; the client will enforce a minimum fee on low-priority transactions and transactions with dust outputs, but high-priority transactions with no dust outputs can be sent with no fee if the data size fee is set to zero (at least, I think that's how it works).

[deepceleron]

Satoshi's Client has a set fee of 0.0005 BTC, although it enables you to "choose the fee". If you choose a lower one, youll get an error message once you actually try to send a tx. Sometimes you also have to pay more, like 5 times as much as the minimum fee (0.0005), dont know if that is somehow part of change?

As I understand, the Satoshi client selects a fee based on transaction data size, priority, and dust outputs. Only the data size fee is user-selectable; the client will enforce a minimum fee on low-priority transactions and transactions with dust outputs, but high-priority transactions with no dust outputs can be sent with no fee if the data size fee is set to zero (at least, I think that's how it works).

Not quite right, I just had to look through my posting history for the appropriate informative post...

An answer I posted in a noob thread, what I gathered from the Wiki, how many confirmations required before resending coins is TX-fee-free:

Transactions need to have a priority above 57,600,000 to avoid the enforced fee in the official client. 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 * confirmations)/size_in_bytes

For sending 0.05 BTC (5,000,000 base units) from one address, in 225 bytes (a minimal size, a one input, one output transaction with no remainder)

free when confirmations > 57,600,000 * 225 / 5,000,000 -- 2,592 confirmations

Having Bitcoins from multiple payments fund the transaction is where the "sum" in the formula above comes into play.

The above is for determining when a fee will be required by the client and miners that use standard Bitcoin rules. In addition, amounts below 0.01 always require the minimum fee (0.3.21).


There are also some odd rules mentioned in the Wiki that increase fees when the queue of transactions gets too deep. I haven't reviewed the Bitcoin code to comment further how these are enforced by miners and when sending in the client:
"If the blocksize (size of all transactions currently waiting to be included in a block) is less than 27 kB, transactions are free.
If the blocksize is more than 250 kB, transactions get increasingly more expensive as the blocksize approaches the limit of 500 kB."

The size of the queue of unconfirmed transactions waiting for inclusion is known by your client but can't be viewed. It can be seen here: http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/txlist/. At this immediate moment, there are 2763 unconfirmed transactions (1454847 bytes). That would seem to me to be larger than the maximum blocksize indicated above, so the above rule about higher transaction fees may be kicking in on the miner's side for inclusion of transactions (but the client isn't prompting).

The amount of the per-KB minimum fee for low-priority transactions was reduced from .01 BTC to .0005 BTC in Bitcoin 0.3.22 (for relay and inclusion in blockchain) and Bitcoin 0.3.23 (when sending). The reduction decision was made when Bitcoin was $30 and increasing exponentially.

The problem clogging up Bitcoin is that xx dice is sending and resending and resending coins with no confirmations. It becomes a house of cards where hundreds of transactions are funded by earlier transactions still waiting for inclusion in the blockchain with some confirmations.

Pool withdraw fees can go into this list of "who's not paying fees" too. There are many "where's my deepbit withdrawl" threads, caused by deepbit not sending with fee, and sometimes even sending immature coins.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Adding clarification on satoshi default dust & low priority rules.
Good idea on pool's adding a section for them.

[Sukrim]

sendmany would be probably something useful for deepbit + satoshi's dice...

There needs to be a bitcoind tailored for pool operators, so they can automaticallly include their payouts for free in their own blocks, set cutom fee inclusion rules etc.

[DeathAndTaxes]

sendmany would be probably something useful for deepbit + satoshi's dice...

There needs to be a bitcoind tailored for pool operators, so they can automaticallly include their payouts for free in their own blocks, set cutom fee inclusion rules etc.

Optimally I would say a bitcoind tailored to all merchants & service providers.  Something designed to communicate only via API and using an enterprise DBMS as its datastore and log output. 

While we are writing a wish list incorporate some method for strongly signing inter-node messages (Possibly using public/private keys).   That would allow my node to identify other nodes it trusts.  If Gox, BlockChain.info, and DeepBit all ways I received a 1-confirm tx I have a higher confidence I am not being subject to an isolation attack then is 6 random unknown and untrusted nodes (which may be the same attacker) say so.

[Gladamas]

There are also some odd rules mentioned in the Wiki that increase fees when the queue of transactions gets too deep. I haven't reviewed the Bitcoin code to comment further how these are enforced by miners and when sending in the client:
"If the blocksize (size of all transactions currently waiting to be included in a block) is less than 27 kB, transactions are free.
If the blocksize is more than 250 kB, transactions get increasingly more expensive as the blocksize approaches the limit of 500 kB."

The size of the queue of unconfirmed transactions waiting for inclusion is known by your client but can't be viewed. It can be seen here: http://bitcoincharts.com/bitcoin/txlist/. At this immediate moment, there are 2763 unconfirmed transactions (1454847 bytes). That would seem to me to be larger than the maximum blocksize indicated above, so the above rule about higher transaction fees may be kicking in on the miner's side for inclusion of transactions (but the client isn't prompting).

Why is the maximum size for a block 500kB? Doesn't that pose a scalability problem?

[Sukrim]

The block size limit is arbitrary, can be increased and has been chosen to prevent DoS.

[eleuthria]

BTC Guild uses the standard fees imposed by bitcoind.  Large payouts generally have no fee, while small ones usually require a 0.0005 fee.  The fee is paid by the pool, not by the miner.

[DeathAndTaxes]

BTC Guild uses the standard fees imposed by bitcoind.  Large payouts generally have no fee, while small ones usually require a 0.0005 fee.  The fee is paid by the pool, not by the miner.

Thank You. 

[nedbert9]

+1

[Spekulatius]

Nice information (although I still dont get al of what was explained )
Can somebody please explain:
- What is "dust" and
- What makes a "priority transaction" a priority one?

[nimda]

Nice information (although I still dont get al of what was explained )
Can somebody please explain:
- What is "dust" and
- What makes a "priority transaction" a priority one?

Dust is a transaction worth very little, less than 0.001 generally.
Priority transactions are:
1. Old inputs - many confirmations, i.e. spending coins from "way back" in the blockchain
2. Lots of BTC being transacted.
- in fact, the priority is the product of the input's age and value.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Nice information (although I still dont get al of what was explained )
Can somebody please explain:
- What is "dust" and
- What makes a "priority transaction" a priority one?

I will try to provide a better & more detailed explanation but this might help:

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

Most tx are "free" as in no REQUIRED fee.  This thread is about the ability to add an OPTIONAL fee in order to gain priority access.

Seperate from that in order to protect the network some tx have a REQUIRE fee.  Those are
a) "dust"  tx with an output less than 0.01 BTC
b) "low priority tx".  The formula is kinda complex so it easiest to remember it as 1 Coin Day.  If sum of the inputs for your tx is less than 1 day * 1 BTC per KB it is low priority and must include a fee.

The exact formula is:
priority = sum(input_value_in_base_units * input_age)/size_in_bytes
priority >= 57,600,000 is required to avoid mandatory minimum fees (0.0005 BTC per tx)

[Gladamas]

The exact formula is:
priority = sum(input_value_in_base_units * input_age)/size_in_bytes
priority >= 57,600,000 is required to avoid mandatory minimum fees (0.0005 BTC per tx)

Sorry but how can you have the sum of a product?

[TangibleCryptography]

Sorry but how can you have the sum of a product?

Your take the product of each input and then the sum of the products.  Remember Bitcoin transactions can have any number of inputs and any number of outputs. 

[Gladamas]

Sorry but how can you have the sum of a product?

Your take the product of each input and then the sum of the products.  Remember Bitcoin transactions can have any number of inputs and any number of outputs. 

Ah, OK, thanks.

[Jan]

Not sure how you'd want to classify BitcoinSpinner (an Android app.) It charges a set fee of 0.0005 BTC per transaction, all of which goes to the miners.

I would call that "fixed fee 0.0005 BTC".  Updated.

Clarification. BitcoinSpinner has a fee of 0.0005 BTC pr 1000 bytes of tx size, 0.0005 minimum. Everything goes to the miner. An earlier version allowed the user to specify the fee, however it was confusing for the end user.