Request | Change Fee System

[kontell]

I know this has been discussed but it's making bitcoin wallet inefficient and causing some transactions to never be confirmed.

Right now the economic fee is far below what's needed for confirmation (I had a transaction in the mempool for three weeks) and the normal/ priority fees are far higher than needed for the next block.

The fee priority definitions from mempool.space seem like a sensible alternative but please consider doing something about the economic fee at least.

[schildbach]

Priority fees are high at the moment because every couple of days, the fee spikes that high. The idea of priority fee is that your txn still gets in the next block in such situations, so spikes need to be anticipated. If you don't want that, use Normal fee (and expect delays of a couple of hours from time to time).

Economic fees is designed for situations where time is not important. If you care about confirmation time, don't use economic fee.

The fees on mempool.space seem way too low at the moment. If you had been using that fee, your tx would have been stuck for a week.

[spartanz51]

Have some tx stuck for over 2 months using economical fees
What about using an API to dynamically retrieve the current fee levels?

[schildbach]

Imho the ecosystem needs a way to estimate fees in a decentralized way.

But even the best fee estimation can only see the past and can't predict sudden changes in demand, which will always lead to txns with economic fee not being confirmed for a long time. At the moment, if you care about confirmation time, don't use economic fee. It's mainly only meant to send to a savings wallet of yourself, or similar.

[spartanz51]

Yes, but tx stuck for 2 months suggest that fees should be adjusted, even for slow transactions or wallets focused on savings.

There's no need to predict or estimate fees in real-time, but a minor adjustment should suffice to address this type of situation.
I agree with the decentralized approach to fee estimation, but it could be implemented in two steps: initially using a centralized API as a quick fix, then transitioning to a decentralized approach when a solution is proposed by the community.

[schildbach]

I don't get how does it help your 2 months old transaction if the fee is adjusted now? And yes, we adjust fees all the time, but it will only affect future transactions.

[spartanz51]

Of course our aim is to prevent future transactions from being stuck for months, not to fix what has already happened

[schildbach]

Future txns have their own estimated fee.

[jonjonez]

Wouldn't it be better to add an extra custom fee option so that more experienced users can set their own fee rates?

Perhaps include a warning to all users to only use this feature if you really know what you are doing, otherwise the transaction may be held up longer than necessary or you will pay a larger amount than necessary.

Give more control to the user, after all, that's what Bitcoin is about, the power is in the hands of individuals.

[MPMokoena]

I want to increase my fee.

[haarp]

I'm seeing similar problems right now.

I selected the Normal fee but 24h later the transaction is still not confirmed.

I have the option to raise the network fee, but only by a flat 0.25 mBTC. This is 3x of what the initial fee was! I don't want to waste the equivalent of a decent meal on this.

The initial fees need to be looked up on-the-fly, and more importantly, the Raise-fee function needs to provide choices.

[schildbach]

The "raise fee" is currently very high, because fees are spiking at the moment. There is nothing we can do about spiking fees, as this flaw is designed into the Bitcoin system.

The app assumes you'd like your txn to confirm asap (aka "priority") and calculates the additional fee accordingly. What other choice would you suggest, @haarp ?

[haarp]

Thanks for your reply! I see, I thought the 0.25 mBTC were hardcoded and used whenever "Raise fee" is used.

At least some choice during fee upgrades would be sensible IMO. The ability to upgrade "Economy" to "Normal" and "Priority", and "Normal" to Priority". And maybe add another tier between Normal and Priority?

[schildbach]

Raising the fee from economic to normal would be doable, but does it really make sense? I think almost all users of this action have lost patience and want their txn to confirm asap (aka "priority"), regardless of the original intent.

Regarding the tier between normal and priority, what would be the typical usecase? Already normal is kind of hard to justify, it mainly exists as a compromise between "I do not care about confirmation time and want to save on fees" and "I'm in a hurry".

[haarp]

Thanks, I see your point. But wanting to increase the fee does not imply lost patience. In my case, I didn't like the prospect of potentially waiting weeks, but waiting half a day would've been ok. I had already used the "Normal" fee for the initial transaction, but felt like the "Priority" fee was too much.

Hence the idea of having another tier inbetween, and the ability to fine-tune the "Increase fee" function.

Economy: Confirm whenever
Normal: Confirm when convenient, like a bank transfer
Higher: Confirm soon-ish
Priority: I want it confirmed now!

Another factor/usecase is if the network becomes more congested after submitting a transaction.