3 ms·

> Miners will likely omit transactions that offer a fee that is lower than their cost of mining (at least eventually). The marginal cost of each transaction in

> Miners will likely omit transactions that offer a fee that is lower than their cost of mining (at least eventually). The marginal cost of each transaction in the block is approximately zero. The only effort is from propagation speed, however thanks to the relay network that effect is almost nothing. http://bitcoinrelaynetwork.org/ http://bitcoinrelaynetwork.org/

maxerickson 11y ago
The cost of mining a single transaction is approximately the electricity cost to mine a block divided by the number of transactions in the block. Say it is $0.15. A miner can make extra revenue at ~0 cost by filling a block with $0.10 offered fee transactions, but if there are many of them, they may choose not to, from the belief that enough of them will turn into $0.16 offered fees in the future (the cost is clearly ~0 in the short term, it's harder to say what it costs them in the long term to propagate the impression that low fee offers will still eventually clear).
- pstrateman 11y ago
  > they may choose not to, from the belief that enough of them will turn into $0.16 offered fees in the future Another miner will pickup those transactions and mine them. Blocks are either full and there are fees or blocks are not full and fees are approximately zero. Unfortunately the block size cannot be limited by individual miners.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    This is only true while there is a glorious block reward subsidizing everything. (Which I realize is for a long time in terms of there being a block reward, but if bitcoin falls by 50%, so does the reward...)
    - pstrateman 11y ago
      The marginal cost of mining is actually relatively small for large scale operations compared to the fixed costs. (In general you cannot get 10+ MW of power without agreeing to pay for installed capacity and energy separately)

3 ms·

> Miners will likely omit transactions that offer a fee that is lower than their cost of mining (at least eventually). The marginal cost of each transaction in

by pstrateman 11y ago

maxerickson 11y ago
The cost of mining a single transaction is approximately the electricity cost to mine a block divided by the number of transactions in the block. Say it is $0.15. A miner can make extra revenue at ~0 cost by filling a block with $0.10 offered fee transactions, but if there are many of them, they may choose not to, from the belief that enough of them will turn into $0.16 offered fees in the future (the cost is clearly ~0 in the short term, it's harder to say what it costs them in the long term to propagate the impression that low fee offers will still eventually clear).
- pstrateman 11y ago
  > they may choose not to, from the belief that enough of them will turn into $0.16 offered fees in the future Another miner will pickup those transactions and mine them. Blocks are either full and there are fees or blocks are not full and fees are approximately zero. Unfortunately the block size cannot be limited by individual miners.
  - maxerickson 11y ago
    This is only true while there is a glorious block reward subsidizing everything. (Which I realize is for a long time in terms of there being a block reward, but if bitcoin falls by 50%, so does the reward...)
    - pstrateman 11y ago
      The marginal cost of mining is actually relatively small for large scale operations compared to the fixed costs. (In general you cannot get 10+ MW of power without agreeing to pay for installed capacity and energy separately)