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The fiat price is near all time highs. There is tremendous interest in bitcoin right now. Mt. Gox is releasing its bitcoin onto the market. Still, transaction fees are as low as I think I have ever seen. Why?

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Is there a source to check total LN transaction activity and volume over time?

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Nope ... and that is a good thing - nobody will know exactly how much is transferred in real time over LN.

Keep in mind that we have public and private nodes.

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I see your point. Private nodes, private channels,etc, but there are heuristics that can give rough approximations at least on a comparative basis, right? Like this: https://bitcoinvisuals.com/lightning

I guess what I'm asking is are you confident that LN growth fully explains low transaction costs now?

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These stats are showing / guessing only the public nodes capacity but not also the number of txs done through those channels, not counting also the private channels that cannot be counted.

A simple question: how many users of private nodes like Zeus, Phoenix, Blixt, Mutiny, Breez, Electrum you can estimate and let's say each one could have at least 2 channels.

Most of the txs are done from these private nodes, not from public nodes. Public nodes are mostly routing these private txs, but they will never know how many.

Is not LN a beauty because nobody could really measure it / trace it ?

are you confident that LN growth fully explains low transaction costs now?

This is not 100% the cause. Take in consideration also these aspects (and you can see it with mempool glasses):

  • NFTs/ordinals are done, they are empty pockets and can no longer sustain that useless traffic. This was more than 50-60% of the traffic.
  • coinjoiners are no longer doing endless mixing (IMHO no longer necessary)
  • big exchanges were already consolidate their garbage and no longer doing massive traffic with huge fees. Many of them are using bad code not using efficiently the fees and types of BTC addresses
  • exchanges now are offering LN withdrawals that help a lot
  • batching txs and batching opening channels are now more efficient and we have tools

That's why I am saying that LN helped a lot in reducing the onchain traffic. But don't worry, the high fees will come back.

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Great answer! Thanks. I was thinking about the NFT crap disappearing. I forgot about the likely end of mixing/conjoins.

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conjoins Haha, was that intentional 😆
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Great answer!

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Not directly, but you can use channel closures as a heuristic.

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Do you have an opinion on the reason for the low on chain fees?

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Simply supply and demand.

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Sure, but wouldn't you expect demand to be pretty high right now considering everything that is going on?

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The shitcoiner's blockspace budget is currently being spent on boothspace @ $46/ft^2

IMO cheap blockspace is the normality.

How low? I haven't looked at these since I'm holding sats in multiple lightening wallets.

Also, just before a few days, I've listened that fees are too high on the mainnet?

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I'm holding sats in multiple lightening wallets.

Keep in mind that LN is not for holding, but for spending. LN is THE payment network, not the holding network. Onchain is for holding.

  1. is good that you spread your stash on different wallets
  2. is lightning not lightening

https://m.stacker.news/42098

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My God! It's for me! My keyboard suggests me the spelling as Lightening. Don't know why? Sorry for the mistake! Will make it sure not say it again that way. Thanks!

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Haha! That happened with me as well. At least he didn't call you a shitcoiner!

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It's because 99% of shitcoiners write lightening instead of lightning. And most of them intentionally. 1st time can be interpreted as a misspelled /autocorrect word, but when is repeated over and over is already intentional or in total ignorance and like joke of LN.

If newbies are afraid to not make this mistake, simply could say LN and is perfectly fine.

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I'd love to see the ledger where you keep track of the mistakes we've made, as well as your formula for deciding which insult to apply.

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After more than 12 years in Bitcoinlandia and a blocksize war (literally shitcoiners war), you will see how is it to fight every single day with fucking shitcoiners... https://i.postimg.cc/FsbPb6w7/argue-darth.jpg

Many people ridicule me. for being such bitcoin toxic maxi... Many people laugh of me being such a crazy bitcoin maxi... Many people are trying to reduce my voice with useless arguments... I DO NOT FUCKING CARE! I ALWAYS STAND MY GROUND WHEN I KNOW I AM RIGHT!

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hahaha This is funny, comment is gold. I always just assume its a spelling mistake.

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Alright! Please don't start this vocabulary class again! I've had enough of it! I told you before and telling you again that I respect you for your guides but despise you for your overreactions on simple vocabulary mistakes.

I actually don't agree that 99% data on this matter. In fact you need to learn a thing or two about India's English legacy. We all actually feel pride in speaking English but we never take care of pronouncing and spelling words correctly. We are so much into this that we have already started to call it 'Hinglish' (a short for Hindi+English) instead of English.

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lightning not lightening

Ha! That's good.

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Thanks! 🙏 I will remember the next time! 😀

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You have a picture for everything!

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I'm following you. Thanks!

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I just can't get it that's why I asked. Please tell me, What would be be the cost if I send one million sats to my wallet?

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Given a tx with 1 input and 1 output, onchain size would be 192 vbytes.

192 vbytes x 5 sats/vbyte = 960 sats = 65 cents at $68k/btc

https://bitcoinops.org/en/tools/calc-size/

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So, this means that if I transfer 1 BTC to my Cold Wallet, it would cost me only 960 Sats?

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Depends on the number of inputs/outputs and script type. But yea, it's independent of amount. Use the calculator.

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deleted by author

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Ligma says otherwise.

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I can't tell you exactly what it would cost, but it would be as cheap as I can remember it in the past few years. Of course part of it could be fiat price, but if I recall correctly when prices were at or near this level in 2021-2022 fees were far higher.

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Ohk! Thanks! Will make a transfer in one or two days and will know.

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Doesn't matter how much you send. It matters how many inputs/outputs. 1 input and 1 output costs around 4-500 sats at the moment.

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looking at joho 24hr by count, it looks like next block confirmation is around 4-5 sats per vbyte at the moment

https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC%20(default%20mempool),24h,count

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deleted by author

i see you are a man of culture aswell 👍

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I am confident they will pick up. We are possibly getting a partial glimpse into the future where everything that's happening is going to be happening on layers and with custodians and those will be the entities doing the on chain transactions and not enough of these entities exist yet to keep fees elevated. I think Bitcoiners who are sending to self custody are pretty shrewd about getting the best fee rate possible and I also think ETFs have taken away some of the demand for spot purchases and sending to self custody. Now that people can add bitcoin via etf to their retirement account some of them don't buy spot anymore. I know a friend of mine that was DCAing all through the bear market but lately he only transacts via etfs because it's tax advantaged here in Canada. If he is contributing to his retirement account he gets an offset to his income in terms of tax purposes. Quite the racket between the government and the big banks to keep money flowing into the big banks.

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Very good points. The times they are a changin'

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Why are you so surprised? Is low fees a thing to worry about?

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No. I'm not worried. It just strikes me as unusual.

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Okay, if it's just unusual, I think demand and supply eqution is also unusual at the moment.

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Check both @DarthCoin and @grayruby's replies. Together I think they explain the situation very well.

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Ok. Thanks

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It seems to me.... it was all the ordinals and nft hype that has considerably subsided. The halving (halvening?) saw the highest fees ever... now they're sub-5. I think a takeaway from this is it's important to give the free market time and space to sort out 'what's important'.

Although growing, the demand for monetary transactions (sending/receiving/paying) isn't there yet... with the exception of Nostr/SN. And that's a lightning thing and still relatively novel. Just imo

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For miners, yes.

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I remember 1 sat/vb but never at these market prices. I've been wondering the same thing.

The fees are just a market so my guess is that people are just not raising their fee fees and are being patient but that doesn't really explain it. I wonder if some wallet software has been changed to reduce fee estimation. I am very curious

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@DarthCoin's reply had some good possible explanations.

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Bitcoin is enjoying good times from all fronts. So, it's just decided to remain lower in fees for the time being! Bitcoin is controlling everything now!

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I don’t think fiat price is as correlated as you may think. Majority of people who care about the fiat price are most likely holding in an exchange or ETF, and not really using the Bitcoin network. Therefore, mining fees don’t affect them since on the exchanges it’s all pretend Bitcoin anyway. Only if they self custody would transaction fees come into play for them.

Aside from that, I think it’s just a supply and demand thing? I’m no economist, but my understanding is that transaction fees will go up if there are more pending transactions than can fit in a block. So if there aren’t many people trying to make on chain transactions, there’s no reason to pay high fees

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Has it been so low? I remember last month people were complaining it was high?

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It's been really low for a few weeks.

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Im sure it will pick up. Imagine all the trump supporters buying bitcoin lol

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Its a bit weird. Retail is not here yet. I guess the ETFs are driving the price up and maybe they don't settle onchain too often.

Maybe people are using lightning more for everyday spending and receiving. But the LN capacity hasn't really grown that much.

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Re lightning, I can only speak for my own node. It has been up for 2 1/2 years and it has been particularly quiet recently. I know this doesn't mean much, so I'm curious to know what experience others are having.

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54 sats \ 1 reply \ @OT 29 Jul 2024

Quiet as in for routing?

Running a LN node is quite some trouble from my experience. I still want to try again, but the mobile wallets work pretty well IMO. Particularly Phoenix, Zeus and Electrum. You have it on your phone which makes it easy to pay when you're out.

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Yes. I don't want to draw real conclusions from my node. My emphasis has evolved from a feeble attempt at routing to simply using it for my own purposes instead. Still, I have some old, large channels to prominent nodes that tend to often do a good deal of routing, without me necessarily trying. Those channels have been quiet. Again, I would prefer knowing what others are experiencing before drawing conclusions.

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Because L2s work and NFT scammers ran out of ideas.

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Oh, it's better not to touch on the topic of low commissions in discussions, otherwise someone will be found who will correct this unfortunate misunderstanding for the worse.😬

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maybe people playing with ordinals got bored and went to do something else There was a site to see ordinals data but I can't remember now. anyone knows? thanks

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This. In other words... my understanding is that the vast majority of txs the last few months were ordinals and runes transactions. Those have mostly lost their appeal (see the nft market which has considerably slowed). Now the 'real' demand for blockspace is showing, and frankly while blocks are full the fees are still extremely low.

Add to that greater lightning adoption... where transactions can be quick and semi-private without on-chain transactions (it's great)

The fiat price is near all time highs.

But not enough for people to make a spending decision. Also, LN probably makes a difference in unloading smaller TXNs from mempool.

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Keep in mind... lightning is still a relative enthusiast/hobbyist thing. Especially non-custodial lightning although it is easier than ever (even I managed to set it up)

They used to be free, and also more expensive than now.

People will always find a reason to complain.

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Has hash rate dropped a bit? Fees appear to have been getting lower since the halving. I wondered how many miners have quit since then and whether that has contributed to the lower fees?

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I don't if you know guz then comment me

apparently it is we cant do nothing