[seanalltogether]

> One of the hugely compelling benefits of cryptocurrencies is they entirely eliminate the necessity for such middlemen taking a cut and driving up costs for the parties actually partaking in the transaction.

Don't all bitcoin transactions require a transaction fee in order to get processed these days?

[vertex-four]

One of the big things in the next couple of years is the development of Lightning Network, which requires the upcoming SegWit patches.

The basic protocol allows you to move bitcoins between two entities without putting every single transaction on the chain - only 2 blockchain transactions are needed for unlimited Lightning Network transactions.

Then, on top of this, there's a framework for moving money through the network - I send money to someone I have a Lightning Network payment channel with, they send it to someone they have a channel with, etc, until it gets to you. The great thing about this is that I can prove everyone isn't cheating, and if they are, I can immediately reverse my transaction - I haven't lost any money.

So the result of this is the creation of a network of payment channels which have very very low costs to process payments, aren't embedded in an industry that's difficult to get into (you or I could process payments just by joining the network), and have no ability to try and take a larger cut under the guise of a "points" or "cashback" system as you can easily switch to a different channel which takes a smaller cut.

[basch]

is that the exact opposite of a ledger of every transaction? off ledger transactions? it seems like its giving up some of the idealistic poetic beauty, even if it is practical.

[vertex-four]

The ledger of every transaction has only ever been a means to an end, that end being a cryptocurrency... and it's still necessary in Lightning Network as a way to resolve fraud and as a monetary backing, it's just not used in every single transaction.

In practice, a ledger of every transaction that is copied to the hard drives of a sufficient amount of bitcoin users is a terrible idea. It doesn't scale, at all. We need better solutions. Lightning Network is one that's potentially viable in the short term - and we're seeing more people play with radically different cryptocurrency designs (e.g. Iota) in the long term.

[davnicwil]

Yes. There is no such thing as a free transaction, because payment methods and networks take work to administrate. I mean, take cash. It's expensive to make, to process, to transport, to safely store. These costs are, obviously, passed on to the users of cash in the aggregate.

Cryptocurrency transaction fees are just very direct, but it's the same deal. The difference is that clearly inefficient transaction costs, like centralised middlemen with limited competition skimming a cut from all transactions, can be eliminated. Remember that bitcoin transaction fees are a completely open market.

[horsawlarway]

But the price you pay for removing those middle men is forcing the network to perform a truly astounding amount of computational work to verify the same transactions.

There's an efficiency trade-off here, and I think for at least many of the older crypto currencies, the amount of work to process transactions is literally unsustainable without some additional tech or service layer.

Which often leads us right back to clearly inefficient transaction costs.

[resf]

Centralized payment networks will always be cheaper to administer than blockchains.

The only reason that Visa and Mastercard have such high fees is because it's a duopoly.

[vkou]

The only other reason they have such high fees is because those fees pay for dealing with fraud.

Bitcoin makes the user deal with fraud, with predictable results.

[QML]

Harder to get access to a centralized payment network though, right?

[lucaspiller]

I paid ~$0.60 to transfer ~$900 of Bitcoin the other day. For that amount it's not too bad, but you'd pay basically the same if you are paying for a $3 coffee.

The transaction fee is based on the byte size of the transaction, not the monetary amount, so in it's current form it doesn't make sense to use Bitcoin for low-value transactions.

[Marazan]

I paid £0 to transfer £10000 the other day. I had to split it into two transfers of £5000 but otherwise it was free to transfer between two completely separate financial institutions.

[Marazan]

Oooh, I forgot to mention the transfer time was approximately 3 seconds.

[protomyth]

Here in the US, we might get a visit from the IRS and our account frozen. https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2017/04/05/91-of-irs...

[mahyarm]

Now do that to a bank account in Canada and to exchange GBP to CAD.

[Marazan]

Hmm let's see, bank of Scotland to Royal Bank of Canada would be about 30 Canadian dollars of transfer fees.

[vertex-four]

On the other hand, they fund that ability off significant fees whenever you buy something with a debit/credit card. You rarely see those fees, but the shop does, meaning the shop has to increase prices of everything by a couple of percent to cover it - and usually don't provide a discount when you're paying by cash.

[drewmol]

I don't have the time for sources at the moment, but I'm pretty sure there are regulations to make it illegal to offer cash discounts in most states, as it helps both credit card processors and tax collection enforcement, it was very easy to lobby for

Edit: I'm wrong, it's complicated.

[resf]

At least in the UK, merchants pay very low fees to process debit card payments, to the extent that some merchants (e.g. budget airlines) do not accept or charge a penalty for using credit cards.

[vertex-four]

Merchants pay up to 1.75% (Square) to process in-person payments. Whether this cost is embedded into the prices of what you buy or whether it's made clear to you is irrelevant to that point - that you're paying this. And even when credit cards are more expensive to process - do you ever get a discount for using a debit card at the supermarket? Cash?

[QML]

How long did the transfer take? I have Bank of America, and a transfer to another. And would take 3 business days.

[sqeaky]

> fee is based on the byte size of the transaction

Aren'y all bitcoin transaction really close to the same size? The amount being transferred doesn't change the size an integer contain 1 and another container 1,000,000,000 take the same amount of space (32 or 64 bits) because the spec says so.

I thought transaction fees encouraged miners to include your block in a transaction.

[annabellish]

Yes, but also no. The trick here is that if you're paying for your £1,000,000 space rocket by transfering the bitcoins from one address, it's a small transaction.

If you're paying for your £3 coffee by transfering small amounts from many addresses, it's a big transaction.

Address fragmentation happens when your coins are distributed across many addresses, and can be caused by things like spending coins, because all transactions actually spend everything at an address and just route the "change" elsewhere. Buy two cups of coffee too close to each other and your next transaction is going to cost twice as much in fees, whoops!

[simias]

The size of the transactions is mostly a factor of how many addresses are included. So moving 1BTC split across hundreds of addresses ("dust" in the jargon) is a lot more expensive than moving 1000BTC from a single address for instance.

Unfortunately it's generally advised to use a new receiving address for every bitcoin transaction to make it harder to trace how much money you have and how you earn and spend it (most wallet craft a new address for every receive transaction) so it's very common to end up with your assets split up across dozens or even hundred of addresses.

[vel0city]

The size of the transaction can vary a lot, depending on how the source of the BTC is structured.

Imagine two wallets each with a total of 1 BTC. One wallet just received a single transaction with 1 BTC and the other is funded with 10 transactions of 0.1 BTC. The wallet with 1 BTC as an input only needs that single proof to send the whole BTC, while the wallet with 10 0.1 BTC inputs needs to submit all of those proofs to transfer the 1 BTC, effectively 10x the data.

[droidist2]

I think you're both saying the same thing