So... #asknostr
How do we handle an environment of permanently high #bitcoin fees?
I feel like we're headed there pretty fast. Next bull market is going to involve a lot of BRC-20 and ordinals activity. It'll get nuts.
So what do we do when fees are too high to send bitcoin or manage lightning channels for weeks or months?
I guess get ready for the next wave of shitcoiners claiming blowlana is cheaper to transact with 😮💨
But aside from trying to just ride the wave I'm interested in more nuanced takes on this as well 😂🫂
Although now all I hear is nostr:npub1qny3tkh0acurzla8x3zy4nhrjz5zd8l9sy9jys09umwng00manysew95gx "memepool with never clear again Marty"
I don't think those things are going to on return in any type of meaningful force. They were a symptom of cheap fees and a bear market.
I believe if people can shitcoin they will shitcoin. But I would rather you be right.
Permanently high fees? I don’t think so. As more and more people adopt a technology prices for hardware fall. I don’t know how old you are, but do you remember when VHS or DVD players came out? What about flatscreen TVs over tubes? What about solar panels or lithium batteries? When technology is new, the price is very high but once mass adoption takes affect and mass manufacturing practices can take over the price drop significantly. I paid over $1000 for a DVD player in the 90s now I can find a high-quality Sony DVD player on Amazon for under $100 bucks.
I’m already seeing USB powered miners and miner/space heater units for sale in the range of the average individual. Now imagine a bitcoin miner the same size as the keypad at your local grocery store, which is run off the wasted energy from the conveyor belt. High fees are a temporary condition and will come down over time until they reach a sustainable bottom.
Now, on your question about how to manage a lightning channel. The more reliable, well balanced channels can demand a higher fee to ensure smooth transactions. The best channels will get the highest fees commensurate with bitcoin transaction fees to remain competitive.
Now, imagine that keypad at your local checkout stand running a bitcoin miner and a lightning node. The transactions run on the lightning network and batch to a single bitcoin network transaction daily. Instead of paying approximately 3% in a credit card transaction fee the retailer is now making a profit off of each transaction.
Once there are billions of miners around the world, transaction fees will naturally fall. It’s all part of Satoshi’s grand design and things are going pretty much according to plan.
I appreciate this great response, thank you!
The big picture looks good. I agree - and I shouldn't have used "permanently" as apparently I'm using a shorter time horizon than you in my statement. I believe that fees will get much worse for much longer before they get better.
this is how bitcoin self regulates
but the question is flawed
high fees are not permanent.
Most wallets let you set your fees and you dont have to spend more on fees if you are ok with waiting a little longer in the mean time.
for the important transactions, pay a little extra in fees to avoid the wait time.
before you know it, fees will be back down to what they were.
I'm talking about when there is a higher premium for block space, such as during a bull market, paired with the heightened appetite for building on top of Bitcoin.
Ultimately we want there to be higher transaction fees in order for miners to continue to be incentived to secure the network when the block rewards aren't enough. But we did have a scenario with BRC-20s and ordinals made the network near unusable. Are we really just crossing our fingers that it doesn't happen again? Or are we preparing?
actually it looks like fees didnt increase at all over the last few weeks
rather the value of those fees increased
Didn't take long to get a taste of what I was worried about here.
The fees we've been seeing this week are just the beginning.
Good call here. This could strengthen the fedimint type value prop.
We are back to considering a child txn to rescue the parent txn
We arrived a little faster than expected but we arrived nonetheless. I hope were not all thinking this is going to stop.
#bitcoin
You get cash flow positive in fiat, stay humble as fk, buy sats p2p, and consolidate ur utxos when fee market dips. Bitcoin is about to store a ton of new energy on the network, so if using it for transactions better use lightning. There will always be relatively better fee marlets for on chain.
