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Nice little project! The issue is, at this moment Bitcoin does not really support micro-transactions. There is a proposal in progress which will fix this thoug

by exo762 11y ago

Nice little project! The issue is, at this moment Bitcoin does not really support micro-transactions. There is a proposal in progress which will fix this though. Its called "Lightning Network" and it will act as aggregator of transactions which will prevent dust from hitting blockchain while correctly and safely counting every penny. This is not yet ready - they are working on safe and private payment routing in network consisting of open set of nodes, which is (IMHO) crazy hard.

ksowocki 11y ago
> The issue is, at this moment Bitcoin does not really support micro-transactions. Whats your source on this? I'd thought that the block size was large enough that even transactions around the size of $0.05 would go through regularly.
- exo762 11y ago
  I personally use it for amounts starting from 30c. But two questions should be answered. How micro is micro-payment? Popular fee right now is at 0.0001 BTC which corresponds to ~0.04USD, which could be considered not very "micro-fee". And other question. Single transaction real cost right now is around 10USD. Payment fees are low, only because they are hugely subsidised by block reward (25BTC every 10 minutes). What will happen when block reward will go down 2, 4, 8 times? And finally, quote from LN whitepaper: > If all transactions using Bitcoin were on the blockchain, to enable 7 billion people to make two transactions per day, it would require 24GB blocks every ten minutes at best
  - Nutomic 11y ago
    If the block size is increased, a lot more transactions will fit in a block, so transactions would get much cheaper. And while it's a great goal to have all monetary transactions use Bitcoin, that is very very far from reality for now.
    - exo762 11y ago
      I agree. Increasing block size to 4-8 Mb is probably safe. And it would encourage more adoption. At this moment, unfortunately, confirmation times are close to unreliable.
  - ksowocki 11y ago
    > If all transactions using Bitcoin were on the blockchain Seems like this premise is flawed. That said, I see your point. Will keep this in mind when testing different transaction sizes.

by exo762 11y ago

ksowocki 11y ago

> The issue is, at this moment Bitcoin does not really support micro-transactions. Whats your source on this? I'd thought that the block size was large enough that even transactions around the size of $0.05 would go through regularly.

exo762 11y ago
I personally use it for amounts starting from 30c. But two questions should be answered. How micro is micro-payment? Popular fee right now is at 0.0001 BTC which corresponds to ~0.04USD, which could be considered not very "micro-fee". And other question. Single transaction real cost right now is around 10USD. Payment fees are low, only because they are hugely subsidised by block reward (25BTC every 10 minutes). What will happen when block reward will go down 2, 4, 8 times? And finally, quote from LN whitepaper: > If all transactions using Bitcoin were on the blockchain, to enable 7 billion people to make two transactions per day, it would require 24GB blocks every ten minutes at best
- Nutomic 11y ago
  If the block size is increased, a lot more transactions will fit in a block, so transactions would get much cheaper. And while it's a great goal to have all monetary transactions use Bitcoin, that is very very far from reality for now.
  - exo762 11y ago
    I agree. Increasing block size to 4-8 Mb is probably safe. And it would encourage more adoption. At this moment, unfortunately, confirmation times are close to unreliable.
- ksowocki 11y ago
  > If all transactions using Bitcoin were on the blockchain Seems like this premise is flawed. That said, I see your point. Will keep this in mind when testing different transaction sizes.