BitcoinTalk

What's with this odd generation?

27
Satoshi-only
BitcoinTalk
#1
From:
theymos
Subject:
What's with this odd generation?
Date:
I thought BitCoin only generated in 50 coin increments, but I got 50.44 here.

BitcoinTalk
#2
From:
SmokeTooMuch
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:


had the same a while ago with 50.26
BitcoinTalk
#3
From:
BitcoinFX
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
That is odd !?! I've currently only had 50.00 generations myself.  Huh
BitcoinTalk
#4
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
There's a small transaction fee for very large transactions.  The node that generates the block that contains the transaction gets the fee.

If the same money gets sent again, it won't incur the fee again.  If all you have is generated coins in your wallet, if you send them all in one huge transaction, it has to bundle hundreds of 50 bc coins together.  After that it's just one line to send the combined unit.
BitcoinTalk
#5
From:
theymos
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
Quote from: satoshi on February 12, 2010, 03:08:08 AM
There's a small transaction fee for very large transactions.  (usually over 10,000 bc)  The node that generates the block that contains the transaction gets the fee.

The fee is based on the KB size of the transaction and intended to compensate the network for the resources used to process it.

If the same money gets sent again, it won't incur the fee again because it'll be small.  The first time they're bundling hundreds of 50 bc coins together.  After that it's just one line to send the combined unit.

Does the sending client send more BitCoins to account for the fee (so the recipient gets what he's expecting)? Why couldn't someone just send 1000 small transactions to bypass fees?
BitcoinTalk
#6
From:
SmokeTooMuch
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
why do we even need fees ? i thougt the no-fees-feature was one of the advantages of bitcoin ?!
BitcoinTalk
#7
From:
riX
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
Quote from: theymos on February 12, 2010, 08:31:52 AM
Does the sending client send more BitCoins to account for the fee (so the recipient gets what he's expecting)? Why couldn't someone just send 1000 small transactions to bypass fees?

You could, but you'd have to wait for one block to be generated between each one of them.
BitcoinTalk
#8
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
Quote from: theymos on February 12, 2010, 08:31:52 AM
Does the sending client send more BitCoins to account for the fee (so the recipient gets what he's expecting)?
Yes.

Quote from: SmokeTooMuch on February 12, 2010, 01:11:09 PM
why do we even need fees ? i thougt the no-fees-feature was one of the advantages of bitcoin ?!
Almost all transactions are free.  A transaction is over the maximum size limit if it has to add up more than 500 of the largest payments you've received to make up the amount.  A transaction over the size limit can still be sent if a small fee is added.

The average transaction, and anything up to 500 times bigger than average, is free.

It's only when you're sending a really huge transaction that the transaction fee ever comes into play, and even then it only works out to something like 0.002% of the amount.  It's not money sucked out of the system, it just goes to other nodes.  If you're sad about paying the fee, you could always turn the tables and run a node yourself and maybe someday rake in a 0.44 fee yourself.
BitcoinTalk
#9
From:
theymos
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
Is the fee enough to always ensure the profitability of running a node, even when BitCoin generation stops being profitable?
BitcoinTalk
#10
From:
satoshi
Subject:
Re: What's with this odd generation?
Date:
Right.  Otherwise we couldn't have a finite limit of 21 million coins, because there would always need to be some minimum reward for generating.  In a few decades when the reward gets too small, the transaction fee will become the main compensation for nodes.  I'm sure that in 20 years there will either be very large transaction volume or no volume.