Smoothing out the Mempool \ stacker news ~bitcoin

2263 sats \ 14 comments \ @l0k18 12 May 2023 bitcoin

One of the things you can see at mempool.space view of future blocks and blocks in general is there seems to be a kinda "dynamic range" limit imposed somehow. Like, everything under a price is just no chance.

Something that would help stop this backlog of small transaction fees is if standard selection algorithms used a gaussian distribution instead of a band pass filter. The flow would slow but it wouldn't stop, I think this is a small thing to do that will cost virtually no difference but let the network progress more smoothly.

In this recent events I have seen trees of transactions get stopped up by one neglected fee rate being too low, and the sender abandoning it even after doing CFPP on it twice.

It briefly came within a day of the fee rate distribution today, but sadly it lingers in the distance, unable to complete until the rate drops under 20 long enough for it to get caught in a block.

I am a tail emission and very big denomination bits kinda guy also, but this case is a simple, cheap change that yields a better overall UX in congestion that doesn't shut the tx's that got dropped in by bad estimators at laggy rates. WDYT?

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24 sats \ 7 replies \ @Murch 12 May 2023

It’s not clear to me what you suggest should be changed. Are you suggesting an update of the

transaction selection algorithm
the feerate estimation
wallet’s coin selection practices
or the blockweight limit?

0 sats \ 6 replies \ @l0k18 OP 12 May 2023

The limit. Currently if it was a picture it would be one of those solviet style shadow newspaper print flyers. I'm just talking about changing from this all-or-nothing to a noise distribution. The sum will still be the same but instead of a hard cutoff it culls the small ones randomly.

0 sats \ 5 replies \ @Murch 12 May 2023

The first two words make me think you’re talking about the blockweight limit, but then the rest makes it sound like you want to change how transactions are selected into a block.

0 sats \ 4 replies \ @l0k18 OP 12 May 2023

No, not a block weight limit, just a probabalistic selection that doesn't create an absolute zero chance of processing below a threshold that was not so long ago not dust.

1 sat \ 3 replies \ @Murch 12 May 2023

That doesn’t make sense. There is no way for you to know what other nodes have in their mempools, so there is also no way of forcing them to not optimize for the highest total fees when they select transactions into their block templates.

0 sats \ 2 replies \ @l0k18 OP 12 May 2023

Well, I just think that sequence should matter. Transactions below the dust threshold should be selected if they get too old. It would slightly reduce the total fees collected, but it could be way under 0.1% and still prevent the worst case of someone paying a little under median fee and then that fee staying over double for a sustained period.

Just to let old stale transactions get processed, it's common decency I think. How would you deal with it if it was a physical queue of humans? Eventually you have to come bring them water and stuff, right?

23 sats \ 1 reply \ @Murch 12 May 2023

I don’t think a queue is a good metaphor for the mempool. Transactions are bidding on a scarce resource, blockspace. Naturally, miners are selling to the highest bidder. While miners can certainly decide to occasionally give away the scarce resource they produce, it’s neither practical to rely on that, nor incentive compatible.

BTW, “Dust” is a term to refer to low-value transaction outputs.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @l0k18 OP 13 May 2023

You are right. I'm bitching about this because someone made a transaction on my behalf, even you check it has several layers of CFPP but then they just abandoned it. I can't do anything whatsoever to persuade a miner to include the transaction except a transaction accelerator which costs more than the whole transaction is worth by several factors.

This is why I'm never using phoenix or acinq stuff for anything valuable ever again. They have left me in limbo by not finishing the job and getting that transaction through before it has aged a week, which is today. No matter what. Phoenix wallet has confiscated nearly 10% of my income over a piddling few dollars of fees that nobody at acinq can be bothered to manually check and clear.

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23 sats \ 0 replies \ @q 12 May 2023

Flattening the Fee Curve

23 sats \ 0 replies \ @022fbc9cef 12 May 2023

ELI5, please

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @l0k18 OP 12 May 2023

I think that some effort needs to be given towards making sure that transactions don't get to days and weeks of age. It's a rounding error of generosity that could make these in between times where infrastructure still is largely on chain, into a reasonable effort service delivery instead of an indefinite wait until some morons quit posting jpegs in the money ledger.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @033daf6a55 12 May 2023

Create the fattest pool) and you will have 99% of miners) it's simple) they are all about income!) and what the other pool does will become unimportant. of course it's a slow process but you can do it yourself!) but don't take advantage of the pool...

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures 12 May 2023

https://river.com/learn/how-bitcoin-fees-work/#how-are-transaction-fees-determined

https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/transaction-fee

https://learnmeabitcoin.com/technical/transaction-weight

The way it works is you basically use the fee as a "bid" hoping to get in. You don't know which miner will succeed. The free market (who is willing to pay) decides. Obvious free-market inspiration.

There are some other considerations with weight but I'm still learning. Something about giving more probability to certain fee ranges seems like a bad idea both for manipulation but also free market reasons.

Check out rationale behind Replace-by-fee

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_replacement#Replace_by_fee_.28RBF.29

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @nkmg1c_ventures 12 May 2023

This was my first time since I became a bitcoiner that I just had mempool page open and was watching the blocks out of curiosity. The average fee for non-ordinal stuff seems to have more than halved since last night.