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Yes, it is. Bitcoin transactions pay a transaction fee which the person creating the transaction can specify. It can be any amount INCLUDING ZERO. The theory is

by mcherm 10y ago

Yes, it is. Bitcoin transactions pay a transaction fee which the person creating the transaction can specify. It can be any amount INCLUDING ZERO. The theory is that paying higher transaction fees will get your payment processed faster. Recently, low fees have not even been being processed and many are paying around 3% for prompt processing

wallace_f 10y ago
So I pay someone in bitcoin, it doesn't get processed. I say ok, then I put another transaction through and this time pay a fee to get my transaction processed. Now, that one gets processed, but later on my initial transaction also was processed. It seems like these problems would make it more and more difficult to really use bitcoin.
- joosters 10y ago
  Yes, this happens regularly. It's very difficult to prevent, because unconfirmed transactions are not guaranteed to expire after a known time. Your first transaction has been broadcast across the whole network of nodes, all of which have different retention settings. Even if one node drops your transaction, it is possible that another node will re-broadcast it again.
  - curiousgal 10y ago
    Just to clarify, unconfirmed transactions get dropped from the mempool after 3 days (default setting).
    - joosters 10y ago
      There have been unconfirmed transactions that got into a block after a week. All it takes is for one node to keep it a little bit longer. Also, if the node re-broadcasts it, other nodes might put it back into their pool.
- TD-Linux 10y ago
  You can't have both transactions processed - they conflict with each other. So you won't accidentally send someone double.
  - wallace_f 10y ago
    Ok so one answer says it happens regularly and yours say it won't happen.
    - TD-Linux 10y ago
      jooster's comment says that if you broadcast a transaction to the network and it doesn't confirm, it might confirm any time in the future - which is true. You need to assume that any of the transactions you issue will confirm - e.g. if you issue two with differing fees, you don't know which one will confirm until it happens. But once one is confirmed, all other transactions that spend the same coins can no longer be mined. So I think both comments are right, we just interpreted your question differently.
      - wallace_f 10y ago
        That makes sense, thanks
- makomk 10y ago
  The developers are planning to add support for actually replacing transactions by a new version with a higher fee soon, along with allowing the recipient to pay a fee to make the transaction process faster (think that might already be in now, actually).

by mcherm 10y ago

wallace_f 10y ago

So I pay someone in bitcoin, it doesn't get processed. I say ok, then I put another transaction through and this time pay a fee to get my transaction processed. Now, that one gets processed, but later on my initial transaction also was processed. It seems like these problems would make it more and more difficult to really use bitcoin.

joosters 10y ago
Yes, this happens regularly. It's very difficult to prevent, because unconfirmed transactions are not guaranteed to expire after a known time. Your first transaction has been broadcast across the whole network of nodes, all of which have different retention settings. Even if one node drops your transaction, it is possible that another node will re-broadcast it again.
- curiousgal 10y ago
  Just to clarify, unconfirmed transactions get dropped from the mempool after 3 days (default setting).
  - joosters 10y ago
    There have been unconfirmed transactions that got into a block after a week. All it takes is for one node to keep it a little bit longer. Also, if the node re-broadcasts it, other nodes might put it back into their pool.
TD-Linux 10y ago
You can't have both transactions processed - they conflict with each other. So you won't accidentally send someone double.
- wallace_f 10y ago
  Ok so one answer says it happens regularly and yours say it won't happen.
  - TD-Linux 10y ago
    jooster's comment says that if you broadcast a transaction to the network and it doesn't confirm, it might confirm any time in the future - which is true. You need to assume that any of the transactions you issue will confirm - e.g. if you issue two with differing fees, you don't know which one will confirm until it happens. But once one is confirmed, all other transactions that spend the same coins can no longer be mined. So I think both comments are right, we just interpreted your question differently.
    - wallace_f 10y ago
      That makes sense, thanks
makomk 10y ago
The developers are planning to add support for actually replacing transactions by a new version with a higher fee soon, along with allowing the recipient to pay a fee to make the transaction process faster (think that might already be in now, actually).