What's the smallest amount of Bitcoin that can be sent with no fee?

dserrano5

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Quote from: hulk on October 16, 2013, 10:37:24 AM

Quote from: Andreas Schildbach on October 14, 2013, 04:34:57 PM

I guess everyone here is wrong. Wink

You can send any amount with no fee, if you mine your own block.

Really? why?

Because if you mine your block, you completely decide what transactions to include in it, so you could include your no-fee transaction as long as it was standard.

Edit: sorry didn't see DH's reply above because it started a new page and I missed that.

DannyHamilton

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Quote from: hulk on October 16, 2013, 10:37:24 AM

Quote from: Andreas Schildbach on October 14, 2013, 04:34:57 PM

I guess everyone here is wrong. Wink

You can send any amount with no fee, if you mine your own block.

Really? why?

Because the rules regarding fees are rules that affect peers relaying an unconfirmed transaction and rules implemented by various miners affecting which unconfirmed transactions they will include in the blocks that they mine.

If you mine your own block, then you don't need peers to relay your transaction to miners, and you don't need other miners to include the transaction in their blocks. You can just include it in your own block.

hulk

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Quote from: Andreas Schildbach on October 14, 2013, 04:34:57 PM

I guess everyone here is wrong. Wink

You can send any amount with no fee, if you mine your own block.

Really? why?

DannyHamilton

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Quote from: Andreas Schildbach on October 14, 2013, 04:34:57 PM

I guess everyone here is wrong. Wink

You can send any amount with no fee, if you mine your own block.

Or if you can get a mining pool to mine it for you.

Andreas Schildbach

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I guess everyone here is wrong. Wink

You can send any amount with no fee, if you mine your own block.

Leehoya

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Quote from: forbun on October 14, 2013, 04:54:23 AM

Well, I tried to send $5 worth of bitcoin (0.037591 btc) and I was charged a 0.0005 fee (1.3%). Not great =\

I tried to send 0.001 in bitcoins and i was charged 0.0005 btc( 50%). Isnt, nice. Is it optional or needed, i was sending from coinbase

forbun

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Well, I tried to send $5 worth of bitcoin (0.037591 btc) and I was charged a 0.0005 fee (1.3%). Not great =\

Abdussamad

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Quote from: TheButterZone on October 14, 2013, 01:55:46 AM

Quote from: Abdussamad on October 14, 2013, 12:58:07 AM

I made a spreadsheet that tells you what fee you have to pay if any:

http://bitcoinspakistan.com/files/2013/08/Bitcoin-Transaction-Fee-Calculation.ods_.zip

Can you put it on Google Docs? I get an endless series of archives nested in that zip.

ods files are opened using libreoffice calc which you need to install. They are basically zip files so that is why you are seeing what you are seeing.

If someone wants to put it on google docs they are free to do so.

TheButterZone

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RIP Mommy

Quote from: dserrano5 on October 14, 2013, 02:02:51 AM

Quote from: TheButterZone on October 13, 2013, 04:59:02 PM

I'm still pissed off that Electrum can't tell me BEFORE I attempt to enter my extremely complex password (multiple times if I typo) that my TX won't broadcast without a fee.

This is because the final size (and thus, priority) of the transaction is only known after signing. You could estimate the priority before signing but you have to keep in mind that the signature takes some space and makes the transaction bigger, so you could later find that a fee is actually required when you previously thought it wasn't. Of course, if the priority of a transaction before signing is like 1000M then this probably won't be an issue for that specific transaction.

Edit: I could swear I haven't posted three times in a row in this thread (or elsewhere for that matter). Have some posts been removed? Huh

So then the question is, does the signature get bigger and smaller so bloody randomly that two signatures of the same exact transaction inputs, single destination address and change address, made within minutes of each other vary so widely as to ruin the priority calculation estimation?

I deleted some of mine.

dserrano5

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Quote from: TheButterZone on October 13, 2013, 04:59:02 PM

I'm still pissed off that Electrum can't tell me BEFORE I attempt to enter my extremely complex password (multiple times if I typo) that my TX won't broadcast without a fee.

This is because the final size (and thus, priority) of the transaction is only known after signing. You could estimate the priority before signing but you have to keep in mind that the signature takes some space and makes the transaction bigger, so you could later find that a fee is actually required when you previously thought it wasn't. Of course, if the priority of a transaction before signing is like 1000M then this probably won't be an issue for that specific transaction.

Edit: I could swear I haven't posted three times in a row in this thread (or elsewhere for that matter). Have some posts been removed? Huh

TheButterZone

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Quote from: Abdussamad on October 14, 2013, 12:58:07 AM

I made a spreadsheet that tells you what fee you have to pay if any:

http://bitcoinspakistan.com/files/2013/08/Bitcoin-Transaction-Fee-Calculation.ods_.zip

Can you put it on Google Docs? I get an endless series of archives nested in that zip.

Abdussamad

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I made a spreadsheet that tells you what fee you have to pay if any:

http://bitcoinspakistan.com/files/2013/08/Bitcoin-Transaction-Fee-Calculation.ods_.zip

deepceleron

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You can send 0.01 or more without a fee, however the priority has to be quite big. As an example, if the input of the 0.01 BTC transaction has 10 BTC and 9.99 BTC of it will be change back to the wallet, it won't require a fee after only 15 blocks of age. However, Bitcoin doesn't pick the oldest coins or the coins that make a free transaction out of your wallet, it chooses coins that create the minimum change, so expect sending 0.01 BTC fee-free only to become likely if you haven't used your wallet for 100+ days.

The code that mandates a fee for transactions below 0.01 (a CENT is a constant for 0.01 BTC):

main.cpp

Code:

612 // To limit dust spam, require base fee if any output is less than 0.01
613 if (nMinFee < nBaseFee)
614 {
615 BOOST_FOREACH(const CTxOut& txout, vout)
616 if (txout.nValue < CENT)
617 nMinFee = nBaseFee;
618 }

TheButterZone

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Quote from: dserrano5 on October 13, 2013, 03:52:23 PM

You could try to calculate the priority of the transactions, just for fun

.

Just did, too far under 57.6m, crap that was painstaking to do by hand. I retract some of my previous statements. I'm still pissed off that Electrum can't tell me BEFORE I attempt to enter my extremely complex password (multiple times if I typo) that my TX won't broadcast without a fee. Maybe if clients had a "minimum spendable amount from your wallet without fee required" display as the result of priority calculations done in the background at daily intervals...

dserrano5

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You could try to calculate the priority of the transactions, just for fun

.

dserrano5

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Quote from: ?? on ??

Outright refuses to send to network fee-free under <1 BTC/>0.01 BTC after sufficient aging, AFAICT.

But that's a different issue IMO. You initially said that you "can't seem to get fucking any inputs less than 1 BTC (and more than 0.01) to be sent for free for WEEKS" (sic) so I assumed that those transactions actually hit the network and they just aren't being confirmed. However now you're saying that electrum refuses to broadcast that transaction, so the weeks bit doesn't apply. Am I mistaken somewhere?

dserrano5

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Quote from: TheButterZone on October 13, 2013, 12:27:55 AM

In my experience with Electrum, I can't seem to get fucking any inputs less than 1 BTC (and more than 0.01) to be sent for free for WEEKS, at which point I just give up and send with fee or send from multiple addresses with more than 1 BTC back to the same address.

Well the network seems to be accepting those transactions fine, e.g. this one of 0.58 BTC total inputs.

TheButterZone

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Quote from: michagogo on October 12, 2013, 05:04:44 PM

The wiki's article on transaction fees explains the topic quite well: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

Quote

A transaction may be safely sent without fees if these conditions are met:
It is smaller than 10,000 bytes.
All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.
Its priority is large enough (see the Technical Info section below)
Otherwise, the reference implementation will round up the transaction size to the nearest thousand bytes and then add a fee of 0.0001 BTC per thousand bytes[1]. Users may increase the default 0.0001 BTC/kB fee setting, but cannot control transaction fees for each transaction. Bitcoin-Qt does prompt the user to accept the fee before the transaction is sent (they may cancel the transaction if they are not willing to pay the fee).

Could have sworn I saw one of the devs saying that's no longer the rule.

I wish they'd either set a fee per nearest thousand bytes as the only variable, for all clients, or make the fee calculation based on multiple variables standard enough that all clients can do it on their own and ask you "use the minimum fee calculated to be n, or save this transaction as a draft, so you can wait to send it in n days when there is no fee required?" or something to that effect.

cowandtea

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Quote from: didjaydisteele on October 12, 2013, 03:25:31 PM

The answer to your question is 0.001

No, its 0.01 Bitcoin.

michagogo

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The wiki's article on transaction fees explains the topic quite well: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

Quote

A transaction may be safely sent without fees if these conditions are met:
It is smaller than 10,000 bytes.
All outputs are 0.01 BTC or larger.
Its priority is large enough (see the Technical Info section below)
Otherwise, the reference implementation will round up the transaction size to the nearest thousand bytes and then add a fee of 0.0001 BTC per thousand bytes[1]. Users may increase the default 0.0001 BTC/kB fee setting, but cannot control transaction fees for each transaction. Bitcoin-Qt does prompt the user to accept the fee before the transaction is sent (they may cancel the transaction if they are not willing to pay the fee).

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