Re:Bitcoin is eating itself
by wcoenen on Monday May 01, 2017 @07:29PM
(#14242716)
Each input of the transaction requires a signature, which makes the transaction larger and therefore increases the required fee. Here is a random example from a recent block of such a transaction with many inputs, it pays about $52 in fees:
So it is more accurate to think of the cost as a fee per byte instead of a fee per transaction. And there's a minimum amount of bytes that's needed to consume any hitherto unspent transaction output.
Interestingly, if bitcoins were to support Schnorr signatures, then the signatures could be combined and then your idea would work. Though this would not be able to salvage the existing unspent transaction outputs that are already secured with ECDSA signatures.
https://blockchain.info/tx/ef29f862f3ceee10ed3e1f04585e18cc2...
So it is more accurate to think of the cost as a fee per byte instead of a fee per transaction. And there's a minimum amount of bytes that's needed to consume any hitherto unspent transaction output.
Interestingly, if bitcoins were to support Schnorr signatures, then the signatures could be combined and then your idea would work. Though this would not be able to salvage the existing unspent transaction outputs that are already secured with ECDSA signatures.