WOW!

Bitcoin broke through 10k.

Maybe I should finally go and buy that boat?

_{"Great... now look at me!"
^{[image source]}}

But as the title of this post starts with "PSA", you can already guess it's not going to be a cheery jerk-off post. Nope, in fact this is me venting a bit of frustration with myself and giving you a chance to learn from my mistakes!

Sending Bitcoin from a cold wallet to your favourite fiat exchange isn't as easy as it used to be! The Network is completely congested and the regular transaction fees will certainly result in a test for patience these days.

I knew Bitcoin was suffering from scaling issues, I don't live under a rock, but I didn't know how serious the situation really is!

Staying unconfirmed despite paying proper fees.

Here's why you can't trust those automatically set fees.

It was yesterday afternoon when I decided to move some coin to my trusted fiat exchange. I was in no particular hurry to make the transaction, Bitcoin hadn't even cracked the 10k yet and I just wanted to have some funds ready on the exchange soon-ish.

My transaction was sent with 44 sat/B in fees, what was at the time to be considered a normal fee and expected to be confirmed within an hour.

Things are getting worse!

You'll have a hard time moving any BTC for less than 200 sat/B now!

There were roughly 40k unconfirmed transactions waiting to be included in the blockchain yesterday, that number has grown to over 95k at the time of writing this post!

I should have really paid attention to the state of the network before making my transaction. Looking at the MemPool now, I can guesstimate with some accuracy that my transaction will be in limbo indefinitely!

How-To Read the MemPool Graph

Avoid my mistakes, pay attention to the MemPool!

Blockchain.info offers this handy graph HERE

The MemPool is the backlog of all unconfirmed transactions that have been seen on the network, but have not yet been included in a mined block. Miners will manage this pool and will try to select the best paying transactions first to be included in their next newly mined block (transaction fees are paid to the miner writing them to a block).

As the blocksize remains limited to 1MB, there's only so many transactions that can fit into the next block. The graph represents this by the yellow segment - the "Top 1 MB".

The green segment is showing the transactions queued for the second block, cyan contains the following 4 blocks and dull purple basically means you've been put on hold indefinitely!

I'm stuck in traffic!

And it doesn't look like the roads are going to clear up any time soon.

I've already missed the 10k+ selling opportunity and while I don't mind HODLing, that transaction stuck in limbo has me worried.

Apart from waiting it out until the MemPool clears up (that might be never) or until nodes eventually give up relaying my valid transaction due to it's age, there are two more options:

1 - Do a CPFP transaction (Child Pays For Parent)
2 - Attempt a manual Double-Spend transaction with higher fees.

I'll see how the MemPool develops until tomorrow and I'll describe the solutions in another post then.

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Obligatory Steemit-FanBoy-Circle-Jerk

All hail 3-second blocks and zero fees! Woo-Hee!

But seriously, looking at the state of Bitcoin and it's scaling debate, you do get some appreciation for a blockchain that comes with an ease of use like we have it here on steem!

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_{P.S.:
No, I have no intentions of actually buying a boat... that's just a meme.
I live a modest life and I count my coin in decimals ;)}

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follow @fraenk

... it's free!

_{steem-on and prosper}