You’d think everyone wants their Bitcoin transaction confirmed as fast as possible, right? But in practice, there’s a growing range of users who are totally fine waiting hours, days—or even indefinitely. And that’s a key reason why we now have a fee-diverse mempool.
Here’s why someone might intentionally send a low-fee tx and just… wait:
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It’s not urgent. Batched withdrawals, UTXO consolidations, or low-priority internal txs don’t need fast settlement. Confirmation “eventually” is good enough.
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They’re broke. In some places, even 5 sats/vB is a lot. People time txs for low-fee windows or hope for a mempool clear-out.
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It’s a test. Some folks send dust amounts just to observe behavior, track fee dynamics, or educate others. Confirmation is optional.
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RBF safety net. They start low and replace later if needed. No harm in trying the cheap route first.
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Automation or protocol-driven behavior. Some setups broadcast low-fee txs as part of scheduled tasks or automated flows—confirmation just isn’t time-sensitive.
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Adversarial tactics. Sometimes it’s meant to stay stuck (e.g. mempool pinning).
When enough of these transactions float around, we get a mempool that includes both 1 sat/vB txs and 100 sat/vB ones. That fee diversity affects relay behavior, compact block reconstruction, miner incentives, and more.
So yeah some people are willing to wait forever. And that changes the dynamics for all of us.