[Terretta]

> nobody is ever going to use a currency that costs you $50 to process every transaction regardless of whether it’s for $50k or 50 cents

That's pretty much how USD wires work. It's markedly worse if going outside the border.

Even at these fees, on friction, fees, and settlement time, Bitcoin still compares favorably.

[perl4ever]

I haven't successfully used Bitcoin yet, but it was my impression that the $20 or $50 fee was for a reasonably fast transaction, and you could get slower performance for less. If I'm transferring a large amount of money between financial institutions then I expect to wait anywhere from 24 hours to 3 or more days for it to complete. So I'm wondering if a Bitcoin transaction would be significantly cheaper if you were perfectly happy to wait a day.

[gizmo686]

Space on the blockchain is essentially auctioned off. If you are willing to wait a day, the best you can do is wait until there is a block with little enough competition for you to run your transaction at your desired price. This is no cheaper then sending your transaction immidietly if you happen to do so when the price is cheep.

Bitcoin used to have a concept of "priority" transactions that would allow transactions to process regardless of fees if there inputs are old enough; however this is effectivly disabled in modern Bitcoin.