Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact us for a refund

Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by zargon on Friday July 07, 2017 @02:20PM (#14720732)

Bitcoin fees are based on the amount of space that the transaction takes up in the block. A block contains on average 1,000 to 2,000 transactions. The average transaction only has a couple inputs and outputs. But you can make a transaction that has as many inputs and outputs as you want, which increases the size (in bytes) of the transaction. The person who spent the 80BTC on fees in this block used up about half of the space in the block, hence the high fee. It was also spread over several transactions, not a single one.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by dk8996 on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:16PM (#14721236)

I think cryptocurrency have a future but things like that will prevent it from mass adoption. Good luck explaining this to a non-CS, why a transaction cost .5$ one time and 5000$ another time.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by Zak on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:25PM (#14721295)

If your bank charges you $0.50 to make a wire transfer, and you make 10,000 wire transfers at once, they will charge you $5000. Making a large number of transfers at once with cryptocurrency is essentially the same thing. This is not difficult for most people to follow.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by Paul-ish on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:43PM (#14721450)

Except your coins can become fragmented (into dust) through no fault of your own. You might not even realize that many inputs are needed to complete your single transaction. I don't see how this would happen with traditional institutions.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by Zak on Friday July 07, 2017 @05:05PM (#14722097)

I hadn't really considered that; I was only vaguely aware it was possible. Yes, that's a problem.

I'm inclined to think of Bitcoin as the beta for widespread adoption of cryptocurrency. It has some issues, including this one that mean it will probably never be what most people use for everyday money. Whatever succeeds it and eventually assumes that role will avoid those problems.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by Paul-ish on Friday July 07, 2017 @08:06PM (#14723267)

> It has some issues, including this one that mean it will probably never be what most people use for everyday money. Whatever succeeds it and eventually assumes that role will avoid those problems.

I wouldn't go as far as to say this is a show stopper. Wallet developers should be (and probably are) aware of this and take it as a challenge optimize the way their wallets spend money to avoid this issue, even in the face of receiving btc in a way that may create dust.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by Zak on Saturday July 08, 2017 @03:01AM (#14724473)

I think the built-in deflation and transaction volume issues are bigger problems, but I only have a passing knowledge of the subject.

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by wcoenen on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:24PM (#14721288)

It's not a cryptocurrency issue in general. For example, Ethereum doesn't have this problem because it keeps track of balances (instead of unspent transaction outputs).

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by mbrock on Friday July 07, 2017 @03:26PM (#14721308)

Try explaining any technical feature of the incumbent monetary system to any normie...

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Re:Accidentally pay an 80BTC transaction fee? Please contact... by wmf on Friday July 07, 2017 @05:51PM (#14722436)

Because those features are generally safe and unsurprising, people don't need to understand them.

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