BTC failing as a payment method

[MrSpasybo]

I never thought Bitcoin was a cheap and fast blockchain ^^
But I agree that transactions on Bitcoin chain in December were really affected a lot by BRC-20 token/Inscription trend @@ I had to pay many times higher fees, and wait many times longer than before, this experience is not positive at all.

From a personal point of view, I wait for the protocol update to patch BRC-20 and return Bitcoin to its simplest feature of value transfer. However, I also know that Miners and BRC-20 token investors do not easily accept this

[MVL~$]

Bitcoin is currently the leading digital currency in my opinion when it comes to money transactions. Every thing has some downside. Nothing is perfect. BTC is in many ways the pinnacle of success when it comes to money transfer and payment methods. For example, with Bitcoin payments, if you get paid at a low rate and the market goes up, you will profit. But you also have the potential to make a loss here. However, I personally benefit from having Bitcoin as a digital currency to pay me.

[Wiseman]

Bitcoin can pay for anything and not only on the Internet but also in real life, who travels like me probably see the icons ( cryptocurrency payment ) there you can pay for any purchase using a crypto wallet, only it is not always profitable, but this is another point, the most important thing is that it can and works.

Paying with bitcoin may be easier for travellers, but it is currently not widely accepted in our country. While some goods and services can be purchased with bitcoin, but the options are limited. Additionally, paying with the national currency is often more advantageous than paying with bitcoin. However, it is hoped that in the future, cryptocurrencies (not just bitcoin) will be accepted as a form of payment.

At the moment I constantly use cryptocurrency to get fiat money in different countries, unfortunately it is not bitcoin, it is not often accepted in exchangers and I myself do not keep it for those cases when I want to save money because of its volatility, it is mainly usdt.

[owlest]

Bitcoin is primarily a store of value, similar to gold, and not designed for payments.

Really ?. Then the white paper shouldn't have been written in the first place. The p2p system of transaction was basically for what purpose?. Well I agree with the starter of this post when he said that: "it's only temporary", and I also agree with you by seeing it as something that store values. But I think it might remain temporary if we don't promote it use for daily transaction (p2p).
XRP are currently promoting the use of ripple as inter/intra bank medium of transaction which is currently making way for them. Bitcoin community needs to do the same for what we value.

I don't mind it, but how do you do it with commissions as high as they are now? But also not every bitcoin owner will want to part with coins because of fees. Everyone decides for themselves what they want to do with bitcoin.

Bitcoin can pay for anything and not only on the Internet but also in real life, who travels like me probably see the icons ( cryptocurrency payment ) there you can pay for any purchase using a crypto wallet, only it is not always profitable, but this is another point, the most important thing is that it can and works.

Paying with bitcoin may be easier for travellers, but it is currently not widely accepted in our country. While some goods and services can be purchased with bitcoin, but the options are limited. Additionally, paying with the national currency is often more advantageous than paying with bitcoin. However, it is hoped that in the future, cryptocurrencies (not just bitcoin) will be accepted as a form of payment.

At the moment I constantly use cryptocurrency to get fiat money in different countries, unfortunately it is not bitcoin, it is not often accepted in exchangers and I myself do not keep it for those cases when I want to save money because of its volatility, it is mainly usdt.

I think for such purposes it is better to use cryptocurrencies with fast payments and small fees. It is good that there is a great choice of such assets now.

I never thought Bitcoin was a cheap and fast blockchain ^^
But I agree that transactions on Bitcoin chain in December were really affected a lot by BRC-20 token/Inscription trend @@ I had to pay many times higher fees, and wait many times longer than before, this experience is not positive at all.

From a personal point of view, I wait for the protocol update to patch BRC-20 and return Bitcoin to its simplest feature of value transfer. However, I also know that Miners and BRC-20 token investors do not easily accept this

I'm sure the BRC20 tokens could have been created on any other blockchain than the bitcoin blockchain. This is only done to popularise this creation at the expense of bitcoin. Isn't it?

[Senin]

The current state of the bitcoin network is very disappointing to be honest and also say the least, but then, I do not think bitcoin has failed or is failing as a payment method.

L2 version of the bitcoin network exists for a reason, and that is to handle the micro payments of bitcoin, but the issue right now is that, many are yet to start using it, most don't even know that such facility exists for bitcoin, which is, instead of transaction on the L1 bitcoin network and paying exorbitant fees, one can easily use the lightening network to enjoy cheap and faster bitcoin transfers globally.

It's time we start looking at the L2 bitcoin network as a possibly solution to the high transaction fees on the main bitcoin network, or better still, avoid bitcoin transaction at the moment pending when the network returns to being cheap and stable again.

This is actually a very serious problem indeed. Bitcoin transactions are comparatively very expensive and the transactions themselves are slow in time. The Lightning Network and the L2 version of the Bitcoin network are difficult for the average user to navigate. If we want Bitcoin to become the most widely used and with the highest level of transactions, they must be very easy to use, cheap and fast. If the Bitcoin network is aimed at specialists, then it will be used mainly by specialists. After all, there are already thousands of different altcoins that have much better characteristics than Bitcoin.

Now we come to another problem. Bitcoin has not become full-fledged money. It is primarily used as an investment vehicle in hopes of price growth and profit. But on the other hand, if Bitcoin stops growing in price at the current rate, then people will lose interest in it.

[bmr]

For those of us who are trading small amounts of Bitcoin, it is more difficult because we have to pay more fees than the amount we are trading. Those of us who are transacting with low transaction fees are not those who are transacting with high transaction fees. When the ordinals finally come off the mempool, the transaction fees will definitely return to normal, it may take some time but I think it will still be resolved.  It takes 5 to 10 days for the transaction to be completed if the transaction is done with a small transaction fee.

[KryptoBull]

Currently, payments with Bitcoin are often conducted on Layer-2 Lightning Network with very high speed and very cheap fee. The main network is being bothered by brc20 token, we may not choose it to use.
In the future, Bitcoin may become a national reserve asset, and transaction demand will be transferred entirely to Layer-2. I'm not at all worried about the transaction value of Bitcoin.

[Stompix]

Is this happening for the first time? Such a situation already happened with bitcoin exactly one year ago +/-. As practice has shown, waiting is the best way to save money. Why overpay now? It's better to wait a bit, and then quietly deposit/withdraw funds, with minimal commissions.

You know what happens to a currency that nobody uses and it becomes less and less accepted worldwide because there are neither clients nor business interested in it?
Unlike gold Bitcoin is not an unique chemical element that needs alchemy or nuclear reactions to be produced, it's far more like other currencies that ran the world before the usd, when there was no interest in them anymore they went to the back scene or disappeared completely. 

L2 version of the bitcoin network exists for a reason, and that is to handle the micro payments of bitcoin, but the issue right now is that, many are yet to start using it, most don't even know that such facility exists for bitcoin, which is, instead of transaction on the L1 bitcoin network and paying exorbitant fees, one can easily use the lightening network to enjoy cheap and faster bitcoin transfers globally.

There is one tiny problem with it!
To use lightning you still need to make a on chain transaction every time you open a payment channel, and one other transaction to pull money out of it, although a funding tx is only 154vb in size it's still over $10 at next block fees.

Currently, payments with Bitcoin are often conducted on Layer-2 Lightning Network with very high speed and very cheap fee. The main network is being bothered by brc20 token, we may not choose it to use.

You can't use LN without using the main net first!

[Gurujebs]

I have been battling with making a transaction for some days now and the fee is not encouraging
Even viabtc has been taken over by ordinals bot.
Bitcoin was crested to be cheap and fast but the scalability issue is affecting it.
Sigh Making transaction with fiat is way faster and cheaper.

I had to check mempool to see if the mempool has reduced since today is weekend and it's Sunday but I'm shock for the first time that I'm seeing more than 500k unconfirmed transaction waiting in the mempool awaiting confirmation. This is bad and they need to fix this before transactions get above $100



Take a look at the smallest fee to pay to get a single transaction done. This is just for a single input and a single output, how can one survive this with multiples of inputs and outputs, even though there is adoption, it will cease for now because I can't pay such a huge fees when I there is alternative to make transactions.

In the festive period where transactions are rampant one can't even get any confirmation without paying an exorbitant fee.
What are your thoughts on this Decembers congestion in the mempool and how were you able to complete your transaction?

I think if anyone want to make a transaction now and want to make use of bitcoin, they should wait and for alternative. It's not as if they will be spending their bitcoin investment, if they have means to use other chain, I will support that because I don't know how you plan to spend big fees that can be use to do Christmas and enjoy life for the new year.

[Ambatman]

From a personal point of view, I wait for the protocol update to patch BRC-20 and return Bitcoin to its simplest feature of value transfer. However, I also know that Miners and BRC-20 token investors do not easily accept this

Seems like the war between the school of increasing block size and the school of lets leave it.
Hopefully Miners can look outside their short term benefit and think of the long term benefits.

I had to check mempool to see if the mempool has reduced since today is weekend and it's Sunday but I'm shock for the first time that I'm seeing more than 500k unconfirmed transaction waiting in the mempool awaiting confirmation. This is bad and they need to fix this before transactions get above $100

Lol funny how it would increase more around January 12

[alltalk]

Bitcoin is currently the leading digital currency in my opinion when it comes to money transactions.

What do you mean by "money transaction"?
Well, Bitcoin is already a popular digital currency but it can't be used in some countries/areas in the world. However, this limitation is the sign of the failure of Bitcoin to be a digital currency around the world. It just needs time to be adopted in every area in the world. In some countries, they need to adjust some matters if it is used to be legal currency.

[Uruhara]

I have been battling with making a transaction for some days now and the fee is not encouraging
Even viabtc has been taken over by ordinals bot.
Bitcoin was crested to be cheap and fast but the scalability issue is affecting it.
Sigh Making transaction with fiat is way faster and cheaper.

In the festive period where transactions are rampant one can't even get any confirmation without paying an exorbitant fee.
What are your thoughts on this Decembers congestion in the mempool and how were you able to complete your transaction?

Costs that are too expensive are indeed an obstacle to using BTC as a means of payment. Because the network is congested due to the accumulation of unconfirmed transactions on the network, people are competing to increase transaction fees, which makes fees continue to rise.

But if you want to use viabtc for accelerator then you can use it at certain times such as 05.00UTC or 22.00UTC usually at around that time ViaBTC has a number of free acceleration slots that have not yet run out. while at other times it's always sold out by bots or something like that.

But if you can wait to send the tx at round hours such as 00.00, 01.00 and so on then you can still do it. Because in the first 30 seconds there is usually still a slot left for free acceleration. but 40 seconds later it's always gone. So we have to compete to be the fastest against bots.

[pawel7777]

In the festive period where transactions are rampant one can't even get any confirmation without paying an exorbitant fee.
What are your thoughts on this Decembers congestion in the mempool and how were you able to complete your transaction?

It's pretty bad, not gonna lie. I was forced to pay over £30 fee just to transfer some btc from my wallet to an exchange. Luckilky I wasn't in a rush so didn't mind waiting for a bit. What annoyed me was that even if I followed the suggested fee (by Electrum in my case) I still couldn't get that confirmed and had to bump the fee up twice.
If you send any btc nowadays you must use a wallet with an RBF feature, otherwise you're risking the transaction getting stuck for weeks.

[Dr.Bitcoin_Strange]

Actually the issue of high fee of Bitcoin transaction  have occurred before and it was overcome after some months too, during that time, lots of people complaind just like many people are also complaining now. I am not happy about this high fee because it's actually becoming unbearable for my customers who pays me with Bitcoin at my business place.  I made some Bitcoin transaction last year December and I spent high fees too, the one that got me upset was sending $55 worth of Bitcoin and paying about $15 in fee. I was left with no option if not to make that payment. Although, i know that this high fee issue will be resolved and Everything will still because normal.

[pawel7777]

Bitcoin is not failing as a payment method, Bitcoin is only facing a temporary problem which the cause is already known to be as a result of the ordinals. If the ordinals finally get off the mempool, the transaction fee will definitely become normal, these may take some time but I believe it will still get resolved and when ever thing goes normal again, we will forget about this current issues and pretend like it never happended. Every thing on earth has its disadvantaged and advantage and right now Bitcoin is still faced with this issue but that doesn't mean it will not get better.

The problem with ordinals is that not everyone sees that as a problem. Many see it as a feature, not a bug.
If there was a consensus that we need to get rid of them, we would've done so long time ago.
Here's a video on the subject from Bitcoin University, explaining the issue in a bit more details: