9 ms·

Due to Bitcoin network fees, customer loses $10 trying to buy $25 game on Steam

115 points by mbgaxyz 9y ago

makomk 9y ago
Editorialized title that omits the key role BitPay's policies played and blames this on Bitcoin's network fees. BitPay's policy of failing transactions if they don't confirm within 15 minutes has always been broken, because even if the transaction gets into the next block there's a reasonable chance (about 25%, I think) that no block will be mined within the next 15 minutes.
- sillysaurus3 9y ago
  The customer doesn't care whose fault it is. All they know is they lost $10 when trying to use BTC as cash.
  - Trundle 9y ago
    "Due to Bitcoin network fees"
  - makomk 9y ago
    Maybe not to the customer, but it matters in general because Bitpay and others are pushing Bitcoin Cash as a solution to this on the basis that it has lower fees because of its bigger block size (also because no-one is using it, so the blocks are almost always far below the Bitcoin block size). They likely stiffed him on the transaction fees for the return transaction too; the Bitcoin client's recommended fees are already on the conservative side, and they charged more.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    > The customer doesn't care whose fault it is. That's usually used as justification for the customer blaming the company they were doing business with. (Which makes a lot of sense; it's that company's job to insulate the customer.) Weird to see you using it the opposite way.
- Lazare 9y ago
  Actually the main reason they lost $10 would seem to be the fact they transferred the wrong amount of BTC.
mrb 9y ago
A trivial solution would be to increase the block size, but unfortunately Bitcoin Core developers refuse to do it, under the pretext that it will "increase centralization". In reality, a reasonable (2-4×) increase wouldn't. The amortized cost of running a full node able to support 2-4 times larger blocks is only $5 per month (http://blog.zorinaq.com/full-node-on-5-dollars/ http://blog.zorinaq.com/full-node-on-5-dollars/). The block propagation delay has also largely been solved with Compact Blocks which transmit a nominal 1MB block in ~20kB. Also, at least 2 on-chain scaling technologies are being developed that would easily let us increase block sizes: UTXO commitment sets can reduce long-term blockchain storage by 50×, and Graphene reduces the size of a 1MB broadcasted block by another order of magnitude, down to ~2kB.
- nadaviv 9y ago
  We've already got a 2x block-size/capacity increase in the form of SegWit. > increase the block size, but unfortunately Bitcoin Core developers refuse to do it This is simply untrue.
  - alanfalcon 9y ago
    That’s not true at all in practice. If it were then we’d be seeing 2x as many transactions confirming after SegWit went live (we’re not).
    - warbiscuit 9y ago
      Segwit was a soft-fork upgrade. It only takes effect if you move to a Segwit compatible wallet and send from there. Which tells me people don't actually care enough, or they'd be doing that. Which makes me wonder about the validity of the majority of the complaints.
      - Daishiman 9y ago
        Maybe because nobody's using Bitcoin as a currency and it's all speculation. Currencies actually get used for transactions...
Lazare 9y ago
From the second screenshot, the transaction value was 0.003857 BTC. From the guy's post, he transferred 0.003853 BTC. From the first screenshot, BitPay is saying he underpaid by 0.000004 BTC which would seem to be...100% correct? I mean, obviously Bitcoin is a pretty silly way to buy a game on Steam, but this seems to be 100% user error. ...well, probably. There's some key info missing here, but this seems highly suggestive: "BitPay emailed me saying I underpaid by 3 cents at the time, and said to refund me. I checked the price of bitcoin 0.003853 btc in usd is around $31 which was a lie on their part." No, they said he underpaid by 0.000004 BTC. And the number he was googling is, coincidentally, 0.000004 BTC lower than the transaction value in his screenshot, so...
- makomk 9y ago
  Unless BitPay have changed their policies, the exchange rate is only locked in for 15 minutes. If the transaction doesn't get its first confirmation before then, it expires and if the exchange rate goes up even slightly they consider the transaction underpaid. That's almost certainly what happened here. They used to be more sensible and only require the transaction to be broadcast to them within the 15 minute window, but they quietly changed it a few years back.
  - nadaviv 9y ago
    > If the transaction doesn't get its first confirmation before then, it expires I don't think that's true. To the best of my knowledge, they lock-in the rate if the transaction appears on the network within the 15 minutes window, regardless of when its confirmed.
    - makomk 9y ago
      It's certainly possible they fixed this at some point, I gave up on using them after a bad experience with this a few years back. It just wasn't worth the hassle of trying to use Bitcoin for payments, especially after the Humble Bundle stopped accepting it for most things because they wanted to track purchasers' IDs.
  - 9y ago
petercooper 9y ago
I'm admittedly green when it comes to the day-to-day workings of Bitcoin but put some money into it on Coinbase a few weeks ago. I decided to see how easy it was to use for transactions, so I bought $2 of credit with an online service. But the payment service this other company used charged a $6 fee of some kind, and there was also a $8 'transaction fee' for the Bitcoin itself, meaning it cost around $16 to get my $2 of credit :-D I decided I'd probably stick with it as an investment instead of a currency..
- Amezarak 9y ago
  I really don't see the value of using Bitcoin as a currency either. The transaction fees are absolutely ridiculous and confirmations take hours, sometimes days. I bought some a long time ago and was trying to move them around a couple weeks ago and it was an absolute nightmare.
  - wolco 9y ago
    If you want a transaction that makes it possible to be untrackable back to yourself then bitcoin is the new cash. 16 dollars is a crazy amount in some cases and peanuts in others.
    - Amezarak 9y ago
      Bitcoin is the opposite of untraceable. Every transaction is recorded in a public ledger for all time.
- canoebuilder 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, with your less than stellar experience actually using it, what makes you view it as an attractive investment?
  - petercooper 9y ago
    Ponzi scheme / not everyone is "on the boat" yet. If Bitcoin does hit a million dollars one day, I'd be kicking myself, so have a small "I'm OK with losing this" amount invested now.
notyourday 9y ago
That's because the current state of the crypto currencies is CryptoScam designed to fleece the consumers.
idibidiart 9y ago
Also like I said removal of net neutrality regulations means ISPs esp big ones can kill Bitcoin by blocking the default port used by the Bitcoin client and ISPs can more than just blocking a certain port. ISPs can identify and block all P2P traffic (anything that is not being sent or received to/from an approved central service) and do it in the name of protecting MPAA member revenue or whatever blanket execuse like killing off encrypted p2p communication like Signal et al)
- swarnie_ 9y ago
  Is Net neutrality going to be the next "Russian hackers" which gets shoe horned in to and blamed for everything?
  - idibidiart 9y ago
    Get informed. Don't talk out of your ass\: https://www.coindesk.com/eroding-net-neutrality-hurt-bitcoin/ https://www.coindesk.com/eroding-net-neutrality-hurt-bitcoin...
lossolo 9y ago
I have paid ~180$ dollars of fee couple of days ago while sending around 600 dollars. Tx was around 6 KB though. I was using wrong client for transaction (I had newest bitcoind-qt with fee set manually and older client with automatic fees) and fee was automatically set to that amount.
tek-cyb-org 9y ago
and so the BCH propaganda has started...
- mohamedmansour 9y ago
  BitPay loves BCH, maybe they are doing this just to screw with peoples mind?

115 points by mbgaxyz 9y ago

Editorialized title that omits the key role BitPay's policies played and blames this on Bitcoin's network fees. BitPay's policy of failing transactions if they don't confirm within 15 minutes has always been broken, because even if the transaction gets into the next block there's a reasonable chance (about 25%, I think) that no block will be mined within the next 15 minutes.

sillysaurus3 9y ago
The customer doesn't care whose fault it is. All they know is they lost $10 when trying to use BTC as cash.
- Trundle 9y ago
  "Due to Bitcoin network fees"
- makomk 9y ago
  Maybe not to the customer, but it matters in general because Bitpay and others are pushing Bitcoin Cash as a solution to this on the basis that it has lower fees because of its bigger block size (also because no-one is using it, so the blocks are almost always far below the Bitcoin block size). They likely stiffed him on the transaction fees for the return transaction too; the Bitcoin client's recommended fees are already on the conservative side, and they charged more.
- Dylan16807 9y ago
  > The customer doesn't care whose fault it is. That's usually used as justification for the customer blaming the company they were doing business with. (Which makes a lot of sense; it's that company's job to insulate the customer.) Weird to see you using it the opposite way.
Lazare 9y ago
Actually the main reason they lost $10 would seem to be the fact they transferred the wrong amount of BTC.

mrb 9y ago

A trivial solution would be to increase the block size, but unfortunately Bitcoin Core developers refuse to do it, under the pretext that it will "increase centralization". In reality, a reasonable (2-4×) increase wouldn't. The amortized cost of running a full node able to support 2-4 times larger blocks is only $5 per month (http://blog.zorinaq.com/full-node-on-5-dollars/ http://blog.zorinaq.com/full-node-on-5-dollars/). The block propagation delay has also largely been solved with Compact Blocks which transmit a nominal 1MB block in ~20kB. Also, at least 2 on-chain scaling technologies are being developed that would easily let us increase block sizes: UTXO commitment sets can reduce long-term blockchain storage by 50×, and Graphene reduces the size of a 1MB broadcasted block by another order of magnitude, down to ~2kB.

nadaviv 9y ago
We've already got a 2x block-size/capacity increase in the form of SegWit. > increase the block size, but unfortunately Bitcoin Core developers refuse to do it This is simply untrue.
- alanfalcon 9y ago
  That’s not true at all in practice. If it were then we’d be seeing 2x as many transactions confirming after SegWit went live (we’re not).
  - warbiscuit 9y ago
    Segwit was a soft-fork upgrade. It only takes effect if you move to a Segwit compatible wallet and send from there. Which tells me people don't actually care enough, or they'd be doing that. Which makes me wonder about the validity of the majority of the complaints.
    - Daishiman 9y ago
      Maybe because nobody's using Bitcoin as a currency and it's all speculation. Currencies actually get used for transactions...

Lazare 9y ago

From the second screenshot, the transaction value was 0.003857 BTC. From the guy's post, he transferred 0.003853 BTC. From the first screenshot, BitPay is saying he underpaid by 0.000004 BTC which would seem to be...100% correct? I mean, obviously Bitcoin is a pretty silly way to buy a game on Steam, but this seems to be 100% user error. ...well, probably. There's some key info missing here, but this seems highly suggestive: "BitPay emailed me saying I underpaid by 3 cents at the time, and said to refund me. I checked the price of bitcoin 0.003853 btc in usd is around $31 which was a lie on their part." No, they said he underpaid by 0.000004 BTC. And the number he was googling is, coincidentally, 0.000004 BTC lower than the transaction value in his screenshot, so...

makomk 9y ago
Unless BitPay have changed their policies, the exchange rate is only locked in for 15 minutes. If the transaction doesn't get its first confirmation before then, it expires and if the exchange rate goes up even slightly they consider the transaction underpaid. That's almost certainly what happened here. They used to be more sensible and only require the transaction to be broadcast to them within the 15 minute window, but they quietly changed it a few years back.
- nadaviv 9y ago
  > If the transaction doesn't get its first confirmation before then, it expires I don't think that's true. To the best of my knowledge, they lock-in the rate if the transaction appears on the network within the 15 minutes window, regardless of when its confirmed.
  - makomk 9y ago
    It's certainly possible they fixed this at some point, I gave up on using them after a bad experience with this a few years back. It just wasn't worth the hassle of trying to use Bitcoin for payments, especially after the Humble Bundle stopped accepting it for most things because they wanted to track purchasers' IDs.
- 9y ago

petercooper 9y ago

I'm admittedly green when it comes to the day-to-day workings of Bitcoin but put some money into it on Coinbase a few weeks ago. I decided to see how easy it was to use for transactions, so I bought $2 of credit with an online service. But the payment service this other company used charged a $6 fee of some kind, and there was also a $8 'transaction fee' for the Bitcoin itself, meaning it cost around $16 to get my $2 of credit :-D I decided I'd probably stick with it as an investment instead of a currency..

Amezarak 9y ago
I really don't see the value of using Bitcoin as a currency either. The transaction fees are absolutely ridiculous and confirmations take hours, sometimes days. I bought some a long time ago and was trying to move them around a couple weeks ago and it was an absolute nightmare.
- wolco 9y ago
  If you want a transaction that makes it possible to be untrackable back to yourself then bitcoin is the new cash. 16 dollars is a crazy amount in some cases and peanuts in others.
  - Amezarak 9y ago
    Bitcoin is the opposite of untraceable. Every transaction is recorded in a public ledger for all time.
canoebuilder 9y ago
Out of curiosity, with your less than stellar experience actually using it, what makes you view it as an attractive investment?
- petercooper 9y ago
  Ponzi scheme / not everyone is "on the boat" yet. If Bitcoin does hit a million dollars one day, I'd be kicking myself, so have a small "I'm OK with losing this" amount invested now.

notyourday 9y ago

That's because the current state of the crypto currencies is CryptoScam designed to fleece the consumers.

idibidiart 9y ago

Also like I said removal of net neutrality regulations means ISPs esp big ones can kill Bitcoin by blocking the default port used by the Bitcoin client and ISPs can more than just blocking a certain port. ISPs can identify and block all P2P traffic (anything that is not being sent or received to/from an approved central service) and do it in the name of protecting MPAA member revenue or whatever blanket execuse like killing off encrypted p2p communication like Signal et al)

swarnie_ 9y ago
Is Net neutrality going to be the next "Russian hackers" which gets shoe horned in to and blamed for everything?
- idibidiart 9y ago
  Get informed. Don't talk out of your ass\: https://www.coindesk.com/eroding-net-neutrality-hurt-bitcoin/ https://www.coindesk.com/eroding-net-neutrality-hurt-bitcoin...

lossolo 9y ago

I have paid ~180$ dollars of fee couple of days ago while sending around 600 dollars. Tx was around 6 KB though. I was using wrong client for transaction (I had newest bitcoind-qt with fee set manually and older client with automatic fees) and fee was automatically set to that amount.

tek-cyb-org 9y ago

and so the BCH propaganda has started...

mohamedmansour 9y ago
BitPay loves BCH, maybe they are doing this just to screw with peoples mind?