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There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

blockchain.info

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Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#21

Post by rankam »

gomox wrote: post #19
rankam wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, and just so I understand correctly, these pending orders are waiting within the blockchain to be executed, similar(ish) to a task queue?

Yes. They are waiting to be picked up by a miner, based on the fee that the transaction has paid to be included in the blockchain. You can still make a quick (by BTC standards) transaction in these scenarios, it's just more expensive to do so. Right now, a regular simple transaction would have to pay USD 22 to be included in the next block (i.e. within 10 minutes). Here's the reference website for BTC blockchain back…

Awesome, makes sense - thanks for your help!

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#22

Post by blurbleblurble »

People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#23

Post by gomox »

45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #15

This is referring to the minimum cost in fees for a transaction to get copied from the mempool to a block. Only when a transaction is in a block is it a valid transfer of bitcoin. Its nothing to do with trading or exchange rates or energy costs or fiat. Bitcoin is working exactly the same as it has always, however now because of the backlog, transaction fees are very high. In the order of Western Union + Visa Fees +…

Most wallets allow you get out of this situation with a clever feature.

What you do is raise the insufficient fee after the fact by issuing a new transaction that is dependent on the first one, and adding a large enough fee to the second one. This is known as "child pays for parent" in BTC lingo.

That being said, the fee for a good transaction now is around $22 so it might not be worth doing for your $50 send.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#24

Post by aaron_m04 »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #22

People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?

Or even Bitcoin Cash...

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#25

Post by rhino369 »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #22

People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?

Because your drug dealer only accepts bitcoin? Does anyone else actually use it? Other than as a get rich quick scheme?

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#26

Post by justboxing »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #22

People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?

> much more usable and useful alt-coins

I agree. I researched Ripple a lot and am sold on it, since it's not just a crytocurrency (XRP Ticker) but is also a protocol that Gates Foundation, AMEX and other banks are using to perform cross-border payments almost instantly and with a lot lower fees and overheads.

Are any of the others you mentioned, ex : stellar, dash, monero etc similar to Ripple? If not, what are their use cases? Any links you can point me to would be helpful thank you. (I know I can google this, but google is full of SEO-ed promotional and pump-and-dump posts, so can't really rely on that info).

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#27

Post by x3n0ph3n3 »

gomox wrote: post #23
45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #15

This is referring to the minimum cost in fees for a transaction to get copied from the mempool to a block. Only when a transaction is in a block is it a valid transfer of bitcoin. Its nothing to do with trading or exchange rates or energy costs or fiat. Bitcoin is working exactly the same as it has always, however now because of the backlog, transaction fees are very high. In the order of Western Union + Visa Fees +…

Most wallets allow you get out of this situation with a clever feature. What you do is raise the insufficient fee after the fact by issuing a new transaction that is dependent on the first one, and adding a large enough fee to the second one. This is known as "child pays for parent" in BTC lingo. That being said, the fee for a good transaction now is around $22 so it might not be worth doing for your $50 send.

You're still paying a huge fee, though.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#28

Post by hanbura »

blurbleblurble wrote: post #22

People who actually use bitcoin must be ignorant of all the much more usable and useful alt-coins. Can anyone think of a good reason to actually use bitcoin vs. ripple/stellar/dash/zcash/monero/nem/...? Maybe it's just cause so many platforms have been built around bitcoin?

Alt-Coins don't have astronomic price increases, are far less accepted by merchants and have far less backing from the finance industry.

In short, most altcoins are neither useful for investment nor payment. Which is a shame, because there are some coins that have substantial technical improvements over bitcoin, and nearly all of them can handle more transactions/second than bitcoin

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#29

Post by aaron_m04 »

gomox wrote: post #23
45h34jh53k4j wrote: post #15

This is referring to the minimum cost in fees for a transaction to get copied from the mempool to a block. Only when a transaction is in a block is it a valid transfer of bitcoin. Its nothing to do with trading or exchange rates or energy costs or fiat. Bitcoin is working exactly the same as it has always, however now because of the backlog, transaction fees are very high. In the order of Western Union + Visa Fees +…

Most wallets allow you get out of this situation with a clever feature. What you do is raise the insufficient fee after the fact by issuing a new transaction that is dependent on the first one, and adding a large enough fee to the second one. This is known as "child pays for parent" in BTC lingo. That being said, the fee for a good transaction now is around $22 so it might not be worth doing for your $50 send.

Wouldn't it be simpler to send another transaction with identical inputs, but with a higher fee? I haven't tested this, but I'd expect it to replace the old (conflicting) transaction in the mempool.

Re: There are now more than 200k pending Bitcoin transactions

#30

Post by root_axis »

kindfellow92 wrote: post #7
vorotato wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think something that consistently deflates is already an absurdly flawed currency. It's not exactly an exchange medium if it's better to hold on to it than do something meaningful with it.

It’s not a currency. It’s digital gold. Gold isn’t easy to exchange and it’s deflationary but it’s a good place to store your money for the long term, especially if you live in an unstable country. What makes bitcoin valuable is that it’s gold without any of the downsides of gold. Hop in an airplane with the equivalent of millions of dollars in your pocket without having to trust or ask permission from anyone.

>the equivalent of millions of dollars in your pocket

Not really. Bitcoin is totally useless in most places especially outside of the developed world, you depend on the ability to find someone to trade you spendable money if you hope to make practical use of those "millions".

> What makes bitcoin valuable is that it’s gold without any of the downsides of gold.

Bitcoin has pretty much all the downsides that gold has, the main one being that despite its value its generally not accepted as a form of payment for goods and services, but even if you intend to barter, gold is much more practical because the transaction can be executed in real-time, offline, and isn't hindered by network congestion or limited access to computers/electricity/internet/technical-literacy etc etc. If are living in Puerto Rico the day before Irma hits, are you better off with 1kg of gold coins or 2 bitcoins?

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