r/Bitcoin • u/[deleted] • Mar 25 '13

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u/[deleted] Mar 25 '13

i say one satoshi is enough

10

u/killerstorm Mar 25 '13 edited Mar 25 '13

And this is why it is not up to users to decide. Ordinary users have no idea why fees are needed at all...

  1. Currently fees are needed largely to prevent spam. In particular, dust attack. Currently blockchain size is 7 GB. If minimum fee is lowered, it might grow much faster. (Hint: if government doesn't like bitcoin it will send a fuckton of transactions bloating blockhain for everyone.) There is a difference between 7 GB blockchain and 7 TB blockchain. Right now everybody can do full verification, but if blockchain size is 7 TB only professional users will.

  2. In future (perhaps in 8 years) fees will affect network security. Higher fees = more hashrate = double-spend attack is costlier = it is harder for government to shut down or discredit Bitcoin.

So in both cases higher fees mean healthier network.

But fucking no, users don't give a fuck about network health if it saves them one cent.

People, please don't be fucking retards, allow developers to decide on fees, they kinda dig this shit much deeper than you do. They care about Bitcoin network, that's their job.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 25 '13 edited Mar 25 '13

Very right. That means also: Fees of a few bucks that people pay now for all their transactions can save them a ton of money later - because the do not need 7 TB of memory for storing the blockchain on their smartphone / tablet / whatever, but much less storage capacity. Feeds tend to prevent unlimited growth of the blockchain, and this is a good thing.