[Sep 2025]Mempool empty, Consolidate your small inputs @0.15 sat/vbyte

[stompix]

They are different things!
The network is secure due to the decentralization of the hash, not its quantity.

Yeah no...
You, Loycev, Pmalek with your gpu cards and me with my broken s19 that lies in the corner, could all mine Bitcoin and keep mining decentralized, while Philip would be able to revert blocks after we mined for 100 years with his asic farm.  Would you feel secure if you knew anyone with a million dollars could buy enough gear to attack the network? I can already see the next MrBeast episode!

So, it is up to users, how much Proof of Work they will want to spend in the future, to protect their own coins.

The average Joe will not spend a dime for this, he will always ask others to pay for it, and from there you force the big bag holders to subsidize the security, which means the security depends on those with huge interests in the price and I have a feeling I've already seen this system in place 

Also, when I'm talking about an attack, I'm not talking about reverting a transaction from ages ago, but making the chain a pain in the ass to use, tumbling the price of BTC, making more miners leave, and lowering the hashrate making the attacks more successful. You don't even need 51% to cause havoc, you just need timing, from block 914604 to 914609 ViaBTC with 10% of the hashrate mined 5 blocks but we're fine since it's mega farms behind this that have no incentive to do so, now, if this could be achieved with a guy from Australia with 100 S21 in his basement that is pissed at the original non-SV vision, how would you feel?

It's not me it's CK:

Now that solo ckpool has mined a block with sub 1sat/vB transactions I have data on the reward mined as the result of a low transaction fee period. Of the ~4900 transactions mined in this block, ~3300 were sub 1sat/vB transactions. It took some time to sift through the data of these transactions to determine what the mined fees were. They amounted to ~.0018 BTC more in fees, or ~$220. This is ~.06% of the current 3.125 BTC block reward.

Whole block in question fees were ~‎0.012 BTC $1,455, so ~ 13% of total fees.

CK compared the transaction fees earned from the sub 1 sat/vByte transactions in their block with the block subsidy of 3.125 BTC. It would be better to compare transaction fees earned from sub 1 sat/vByte transactions with transactions paying +1 sat/vByte. That's a better way because it shows how much you earn from those two individual groups. Based on the numbers CK posted, their block was filled to nearly 70% with transactions paying below 1 sat/vByte. Probably that's where most of the fees came from as well.

I told you, the block in question was 910440
https://mempool.space/block/00000000000000000000d22167aa0c9d1a49e7878631d6c93ea1b1c87b98ba24

Total fees   ‎0.012 BTC $1,454
Subsidy + fees   ‎3.137 BTC $371,495

Ck calculated that fees under 1sat/vb were just ~220.
15% (my bad, not 13%) from total fees, and 0.059% of the total reward

Well, in other good news, or is it bad news? Fees of 0.29 are still getting confirmed with 30 blocks of jpgs waiting in the line 
I wonder if I should inscribe a block of my own, for as low as $500 per block, to be remembered for ages in the chain.... sounds tempting,

[LoyceV]

And then, it is all about incentives. Users can send their coins to addresses like that, and then, miners could claim them, by grinding signatures.

I get why it's interesting for miners, but what's the incentive for the user to send his coins so miners can take them?

By the way: you got 40 sats, where you wanted, good luck sweeping them: https://mempool.space/address/bc1qzeflmklr2l4kdjkx4ak027jcg8jcs3hfne4fqy

For the reader who doesn't know what this is about: How to send 0.0000004 BTC?
Sweeping them isn't difficult: this transaction includes another (dust) input, sends 38 out of 40 sats as a miner fee, and is waiting for 0.21 sat/vbyte transactions to be mined.
I get the 40 sats, but why also send 6418 sats to bc1qt039dyk3u6x9x3t52nv0dw7evwg2ja7w05gx3v?

You don't even need 51% to cause havoc, you just need timing, from block 914604 to 914609 ViaBTC with 10% of the hashrate mined 5 blocks but we're fine since it's mega farms behind this that have no incentive to do so

ViaBTC couldn't predict at block 914604 that they'd mine 4 blocks in a row. So if they would have wanted to double spend coins, it would take them months or even years of trying before they can mine enough blocks in a row to replace a few other blocks. During those months or years, they'd miss out on block rewards which means the total cost of doing this would be very high.

I wonder if I should inscribe a block of my own, for as low as $500 per block, to be remembered for ages in the chain.... sounds tempting,

I wouldn't call storing data inside a large amount of other data "being remembered"

[joker_josue]

But, if you want, I can give you my BTC address, and transfer all the fees to me, for transactions below 1sat/vb.

How much power do you have? Enough to get 53k sats?

I don't think you noticed my irony.

I always find it very funny when a mining pool says they would rather mine an empty block than include transactions with a fee below 1sat/vb, because is "only" $200.
That's literally wanting to lose $200! Because you think you should get $2,000 for the same type of transactions.

Miners forget one simple thing: they process all the transactions they want with zero fees! I wonder how many mining pools broadcast their transactions to the network and let other pools mine. None do! And I think it's good! Now, just as they want to pay as little as possible in fees, other people have that right too.

Bitcoin needs miners, but miners also need people to use and move Bitcoin. Because if there isn't this interest and movement, bitcoin won't appreciate as it has now. But it is valued, because people are not always holding, they are transacting funds, and it is this dynamic that makes the network grow.

Yes, hashing is expensive, and mining is expensive. But history has proven that the block reward has been more than sufficient to sustain mining and generate high profits. I've known these mining "giants" for over 10 years. I'm well aware of their goals and their interest in promoting these theories that rewards are falling and fees must rise. It's just nonsense designed to line their pockets and make it difficult for others to enter their mining business.

[stwenhao]

If it's greed then they have a weird way to display it.

The smaller the blocks are, the bigger the fees will be. If hashrate majority will decide to switch not from 1 sat/vB to 0.1 sat/vB, but to 10 sat/vB instead, then that could became de-facto standard. The same, if they would decide to shrink blocks from 4 MB to 1 MB witness, like it was done in Signet.

The best they can do now is take what they can, be it an $1000 or $200 worth of BTC.

You think only about short-term profits. Many miners are not like that. To make sure, that their blocks are valid, mining pools often are running full archival nodes, especially if they are handling a lot of coins. And then, the bigger the block size is, the worse for them, because it takes more space, and it gives less fees. So, mining pools have an incentive, to keep blocks small, because then, it is easier to run nodes, and it is more expensive to transact, so they can get more fees out of it.

Would you feel secure if you knew anyone with a million dollars could buy enough gear to attack the network?

It is true in many altcoins, and it was true in case of Bitcoin in the past.

The average Joe will not spend a dime for this, he will always ask others to pay for it

Of course he can. And of course a lot of users can contribute to the network's security, if each of them will pay a little. You can pay for security in two ways: one is transaction fees, another is Proof of Work. If you have more coins, then you can pay in satoshis. If you have more mining equipment, then you can pay in Proof of Work, and make even free transactions, as long as you can mine them.

if this could be achieved with a guy from Australia

But it can be. It is just a matter of doing yet another soft-fork, similar to Segwit, and increasing the size of the block from 4 MB to 4 GB, 4 TB, or making it unlimited. And then, the decision to reject a future upgrade is in node's hands.

how would you feel?

Not that much different than today, because I know, that it is very likely, that the mainchain will be heavily spammed in the future, when next limits will be lifted, one-by-one, and when developers will be responsible for nothing.

Also, regulations like MICA will keep destroying Bitcoin anyway, so it is good to use it, while you can do so legally. But if Bitcoin will be illegal, just like gold was, or if you would need to pass through KYC to use it, then it won't surprise me, because it is already happening.

I wonder if I should inscribe a block of my own, for as low as $500 per block, to be remembered for ages in the chain

You won't "be remembered for ages in the chain", because when less and less users will run nodes, and they will be more and more pruned, some nodes may decide to stop serving you historical transactions. There are already much more pruned nodes, than there should be. And there will be only more, and they will be more pruned. If the chain will be still spammed, then future nodes will just store the subset of the mainchain traffic. And then, you will have a choice: wait years to fully synchronize the full chain, by connecting to full, archival nodes, or trust some pruned ones, and accept their proofs, that the chain is valid, without downloading everything.

Because the ability to always fetch any transaction, from any block explorer, is temporary. When BSV became too big, then block explorers stopped handling it. And the same can happen with BTC, if the size of the chain will be bigger, than nodes will be willing to handle.

what's the incentive for the user to send his coins so miners can take them?

Because this is how you teleport coins between mainchain and sidechain. If you send one mainchain coin, then you receive one sidechain coin, and your mainchain coins can be moved anywhere. It is the same case, as if you open a Lightning Network channel: if you use one UTXO, and decide to leave the network, then your old UTXO can be handled by someone else, and you can get coins from a completely different channel.

Also, sidechain miners are not working for free. If you use a given sidechain, then you pay mainchain fees, and sidechain fees. It is exactly the same as in LN, where you pay mainchain fees, if you want to join or leave some channel, but you also pay LN fees, when you move coins inside this network.

Sweeping them isn't difficult

I thought for a while, that sweeping dust is non-standard. But it seems only sending is, and sweeping can be done normally.

I get the 40 sats, but why also send 6418 sats to bc1qt039dyk3u6x9x3t52nv0dw7evwg2ja7w05gx3v?

Because it was in your example, as a change address. And I decided to send a small donation.

[LoyceV]

Yes, hashing is expensive, and mining is expensive.

It's important to note that all this is because mining is valuable. Just one PC would be enough to process all Bitcoin transactions (at very low difficulty). It's the competition for blocks that increased the hashrate, and it's only limited by how profitable each block is.

You think only about short-term profits. Many miners are not like that. To make sure, that their blocks are valid, mining pools often are running full archival nodes, especially if they are handling a lot of coins. And then, the bigger the block size is, the worse for them, because it takes more space, and it gives less fees. So, mining pools have an incentive, to keep blocks small, because then, it is easier to run nodes, and it is more expensive to transact, so they can get more fees out of it.

Miners turn over $50 million per day, while $100 is enough to store the full blockchain on a fast SSD. I can think of many reasons to limit blockchain growth, but mining pools' storage requirement isn't on that list.

I thought for a while, that sweeping dust is non-standard. But it seems only sending is, and sweeping can be done normally.

From a spam-perspective that makes sense: cleaning up UXTOs shouldn't be restricted.

I decided to send a small donation.

Thanks

[stwenhao]

That's literally wanting to lose $200! Because you think you should get $2,000 for the same type of transactions.

Exactly. Because you have a choice between losing $200, and trying to get $2,000, or taking $200, and moving to the future, where you have exactly the same choice, but between $20 and $200. And later between $2 and $20. And so on, and so forth.

Lowering fees is easy: you can convince users, because they pay less, you can convince miners, because they earn more (in the short-term), but all of that will be paid by future miners. Good luck convincing the community, that the fees should rise, if they will be too low in the future, and if miners will produce empty blocks with 1192 satoshis, like it is in testnet3.

I wonder how many mining pools broadcast their transactions to the network and let other pools mine. None do! And I think it's good!

Then you may be surprised: https://b10c.me/observations/12-template-similarity/

Bitcoin needs miners, but miners also need people to use and move Bitcoin.

Use and move? Sure. Fill blocks with non-consensus data? Not really. And who benefits from lower fees? Mainly spammers, because they can just attack the network cheaper. Regular users have small transactions, around 1 kB per transaction or so, and then, it means something like 1k sats as minimal fees (which is now lowered to just 100 sats for all of that).

It's just nonsense designed to line their pockets and make it difficult for others to enter their mining business.

Historically, fees were always lowered, if you count them in satoshis. Do you think, that they will also keep falling, when the block reward will drop to zero?

[joker_josue]

That's literally wanting to lose $200! Because you think you should get $2,000 for the same type of transactions.

Exactly. Because you have a choice between losing $200, and trying to get $2,000, or taking $200, and moving to the future, where you have exactly the same choice, but between $20 and $200. And later between $2 and $20. And so on, and so forth.

Lowering fees is easy: you can convince users, because they pay less, you can convince miners, because they earn more (in the short-term), but all of that will be paid by future miners. Good luck convincing the community, that the fees should rise, if they will be too low in the future, and if miners will produce empty blocks with 1192 satoshis, like it is in testnet3.

What do you mean, go to the future? I can't mine today thinking about tomorrow.

A miner can't assume that just because they reject a transaction today, it will be worth more tomorrow. It might not be worth more, because they don't even know if they'll mine a block tomorrow.

Maybe one day, I'll tell you my mining story, and you'll realize how wrong it can be to act today, thinking about what mining might be like tomorrow. In mining, one should act as a basis for how things are currently working. Of course, this doesn't mean there's no future planning, but planning must be based on what's happening today, not on speculation about what might happen tomorrow.

Furthermore, processing one transaction or 10,000 transactions in a block doesn't change the network's operation in any way, nor does it increase the likelihood of losing the next block. The time difference should be no more than 1-2 seconds. The Bitcoin network is prepared to handle this, so as not to affect the network, regardless of the transactions processed per block.

Note, I'm only talking about Bitcoin here, I don't know how other networks work and if Bitcoin miners are mining other coins, that's their problem and not the Bitcoin network's.

[Pmalek]

Historically, fees were always lowered, if you count them in satoshis. Do you think, that they will also keep falling, when the block reward will drop to zero?

If we still have Bitcoin by then, nodes that belong to big mining farms can again change the minimum transaction fee they are willing to accept in the blocks they mine. They lowered it to 0.1 sat/vByte just recently. In the future they might collude to increase it to 10 sat/vByte or another number they believe will satisfy them. Or competition for block space will result in a natural rise in fees. Currently, we don't have a lot of competition and that was also true before the acceptable minimum network fees by miners was dropped.   

[stwenhao]

I can't mine today thinking about tomorrow.

Mining is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It is not like Proof of Stake, where you can just sell your coins instantly. If you have real hardware, it takes time to deliver it, it takes time to sell it to someone else, and miners are not planning things in a one-day window, but many of them are thinking about tomorrow.

just because they reject a transaction today, it will be worth more tomorrow

But it is the case. What happens, when some transaction has too low fee, and is not picked for months? Nodes start dropping it, and then, it can be broadcasted again with the same fees (if some user has a lot of patience), or fees can be bumped.

Of course, miners have to confirm some transactions, and if they would mine only empty blocks, then they would harm themselves in the long-term. But skipping transactions with too low fees simply means, that they will be picked by other miners, or they will wait days, weeks, or months, and then, users will decide to eventually bump them. A single miner may have a short-term incentive to include everything here and now, but in a long-term, the hashrate majority have an incentive, to skip low-fee transactions, and wait for users to bump them.

It might not be worth more, because they don't even know if they'll mine a block tomorrow.

People are paid for shares, not for blocks. A pool would be very unlucky, if people would mine enough shares, to drain all funds out of it, but find absolutely no blocks at the same time. And many payment schemes are well-protected from that scenario.

Of course, some pools can be attacked, if miners would start sending shares, but dropping every block, which would meet the mainchain difficulty. But again, first, it is going to hurt them in the long-term, and second, dropping blocks will also drop the difficulty, so that one pool will be harmed, but other pools will benefit from such attack (and if all pools will be attacked in that way, then solo miners will get everything).

In general, the hashrate majority can always drop the difficulty to the minimum. But then, the remaining minority will bump it again.

[joker_josue]

I can't mine today thinking about tomorrow.

Mining is not a sprint, it is a marathon. It is not like Proof of Stake, where you can just sell your coins instantly. If you have real hardware, it takes time to deliver it, it takes time to sell it to someone else, and miners are not planning things in a one-day window, but many of them are thinking about tomorrow.

just because they reject a transaction today, it will be worth more tomorrow

But it is the case. What happens, when some transaction has too low fee, and is not picked for months? Nodes start dropping it, and then, it can be broadcasted again with the same fees (if some user has a lot of patience), or fees can be bumped.

Of course, miners have to confirm some transactions, and if they would mine only empty blocks, then they would harm themselves in the long-term. But skipping transactions with too low fees simply means, that they will be picked by other miners, or they will wait days, weeks, or months, and then, users will decide to eventually bump them. A single miner may have a short-term incentive to include everything here and now, but in a long-term, the hashrate majority have an incentive, to skip low-fee transactions, and wait for users to bump them.

When I said not to think about "tomorrow," I didn't mean literally a 24-hour day. I'm talking about the future, about how the network will behave in 1 or 2 years.

For me, a pool creating rules beyond what the base network requires is a danger to Bitcoin. Because the day Bitcoin starts having members dictate what to process or not to process, it ceases to be a decentralized network.

A miner should never say "I only process transactions with x fees." A miner should process all possible transactions in each block they mine. The network itself has well-defined rules to prioritize transactions that pay more. It doesn't have to be the miner managing this; it has to be the network. Whoever pays the most takes precedence. If fees are low, it's because there are few transactions being requested. If there are many transactions, the fee will rise because people want them processed quickly.

Perhaps the problem with many miners is that they have never mined BTC at a loss... They would understand the importance of the network working freely for the growth of Bitcoin.

_{Anyway, we're already getting off topic. Sorry, LoyceV.
If you want, we can start another thread and discuss the matter further.}

[philipma1957]

well if pool a can say 0.1 is the lowest it will take.

and a second pool can say 1.0 is the lowest it will take

it seems that there is flexibility and it is decentralized in terms of allowing pools to pick a minimum fee.

if the top four pools act like opec used to do will oil price people could use ln.

just remember all these issues are fix by price jump to 230k or so.

long run fees have to increase but if a coin is a million fees are higher.

[LoyceV]

For me, a pool creating rules beyond what the base network requires is a danger to Bitcoin. Because the day Bitcoin starts having members dictate what to process or not to process, it ceases to be a decentralized network.

I'd say different miners with different limits is one of the things made possible by decentralization. It only becomes a problem when miners start colluding. But that doesn't even mean miners (or pools) can't advocate for their interests:

I implore other pool owners to do their own calculations and reconsider their decision to mine them at this stage.

A miner should never say "I only process transactions with x fees." A miner should process all possible transactions in each block they mine. The network itself has well-defined rules to prioritize transactions that pay more.

Mining pools have always prioritized certain transactions, for instance their own. ViaBTC has offered their free accelerator service for as long as I can remember. Transaction fees have never been the only determinant.

_{Anyway, we're already getting off topic. Sorry, LoyceV.
If you want, we can start another thread and discuss the matter further.}

I don't really mind in this topic, I mean, after 7 years and 73 pages there's not much left to discuss about consolidating inputs

[Pmalek]

The developer mononaut has released some data looking at 5000 blocks since mining pools started including below 1 sat/vByte transactions in the blocks they mined. Whether all of this is accurate or not, I don't know, but this is what he says:

- Until block 915000, pools have mined a total of 9,002,455 below 1 sat/vByte transactions in a total of 4743 blocks.
- They have earned an additional 7.49 BTC in transaction fees while doing it.
- They used 1951 MvB of extra block space.

One dilemma was if including these low-fee-paying transactions in blocks would increase the risk of stale blocks.
Apparently, MARA has reverted back to a fee relay of 1 sat/vByte for the blocks they mine out of fear of mining stale blocks because many other pools also lowered their minimum fee rates.

According to mononaut, there were only 3 stale blocks in the last 5000 mined blocks, and they weren't caused by below 1 sat/vByte transactions. mononaut concludes that it made sense to lower the minimum fee rates. The miners earned a bit more in fees without increasing the average number of stale blocks.

You can read his thoughts on this topic below:
https://x.com/mononautical/status/1968138301182972400

[LoyceV]

- They have earned an additional 7.49 BTC in transaction fees while doing it.

I don't think you can conclude this without comparing the blocks before lower fees were accepted. If, for instance, 6 million transactions paying 1 sat/vbyte were replaced by 9 million transactions paying 0.3 sat/vbyte, miners earned less.

[Pmalek]

I don't think you can conclude this without comparing the blocks before lower fees were accepted. If, for instance, 6 million transactions paying 1 sat/vbyte were replaced by 9 million transactions paying 0.3 sat/vbyte, miners earned less.

I don't think he did that. I understand what you are saying, though. I think he only considered the difference between what the miners earned, mining blocks with transactions paying sub 1 sat/vByte fees, compared to what would have been the case if they didn't. Let's not forget, mempools were quite empty for a time, which is also why miners lowered their standard relay fee. If there were enough +1 sat/vByte transactions to be mined to fill blocks, miners wouldn't have made any changes, and there wouldn't be space in blocks for sub 1 sat/vByte transactions.

[LoyceV]

I think he only considered the difference between what the miners earned

That kinda makes sense, it shows miners who don't mine <1 sat/vbyte what they're missing.

[joker_josue]

According to mononaut, there were only 3 stale blocks in the last 5000 mined blocks, and they weren't caused by below 1 sat/vByte transactions. mononaut concludes that it made sense to lower the minimum fee rates. The miners earned a bit more in fees without increasing the average number of stale blocks.

Since some changes that occurred in the network in 2017 or 2018 (I don't remember anymore), the probability of obsolete blocks is very low. Therefore, when it happens, it has little to do with transactions.

I think he only considered the difference between what the miners earned

That kinda makes sense, it shows miners who don't mine <1 sat/vbyte what they're missing.

Exact.

It reminds us of those people who don't bend down when they see coins of small value on the ground. But this ground is full of these coins, but as they don't want to go down, they will lose a lot of money.

[Medusah]

One way to think of the block size is as a market good, where buyers (bids) are users with transactions, and sellers (asks) are miners.  Every day, 144*4 = 576 MB-coins enter circulation, some of which are burned at coinbase.  The only difference with other goods is that every 10 minutes, only sellers can pick bids to sell their block size to, whereas buyers cannot buy their block size by taking miners' orders; only miners can take orders.  This creates an intense competition among sellers:  in order to "push the price upwards", they need to "burn" block size in the hopes that block size bidders will increase their bid orders.

Miners are heavily disadvantaged in this market.  Miners who burn their block size with the aim to increase the block size price must do so in coordination, as what one miner burns is potentially another miner's opportunity.  Furthermore, patient bidders can wait for as long as it takes to have their offer taken, whereas miners are seriously constrained by time and must take bids every 10 minutes, or have their supply burned. 

Imagine a group of greengrocers selling fruit in a village.  They know they have to sell their fruit within the week, or they will get rot.  They can coordinate to make them scarcer by burning some part of the supply.  But, eventually, another greengrocer will appear to fill this market gap.  And think that, in this analogy, fruit buyers can take ask orders, and they are constrained by time much more than ordinal spammers are.

[Cricktor]

...

It's on average 576 vMB of transaction space weight units. Excuse if I'm picky about details. The coinbase transaction is mandatory and usually not large. A miner (rather mining pools who assemble the coinbase transaction) hurts itself if they waste block space with a larger than necessary coinbase tx.


When currently the low volume of >= 1sat/vB transactions don't fill all available block space, it seems economical to me to add sub 1sat/vB transactions for an additional profit. I wonder why not all pools do it, from a profit perspective.

The opportunity to use lower transactions fees for low-priority transactions might hurt miners a little bit, but in my opinion it only works because we currently have a low volume of non-spam transactions. I remember the times when the incriptions blockchain spam was the hottest shit and apparently profitable enough to drive transaction fees into high altitude orbits.

We still have the spam but it doesn't seem to drive the fee market anymore that strongly anymore.

[Forsyth Jones]

For the first time I see Bitcoin Core suggesting a fee lower BTC/kVB 0.00001000 (or 1 Sat/vB)

In the 4 hours option (24 blocks) it suggests me 0.00000880 BTC/KVB (0.88 sat/vB)

Until these days, my bitcoin core wasn't allowing me to set the fee rate manually for values ​​less than 0.00001 BTC/kvB, now I define to 0.000005 BTC/KvB (0.5 Sat/vB).



I'm in the updated version 29.0

My bitcoin.conf:

Code:

mintxfee=0.000001
minrelaytxfee=0.000001
fallbackfee=0.000001
paytxfee=0.000001