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   Terence Eden (edent@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Sep-2024 08:32:39 JST Terence Eden

   I have a sincere question about #Ethereum.

   Why does it cost money to transfer money?

   Someone sent me about US$50 worth of ETH. In order to transfer it from one of my wallets to another, I had to pay a gas fee of a few ¢.

   Why is this a good thing?

   Last week I transfered literally thousands of £ between my bank accounts and I didn't pay anything.

   (I'm interested in genuine answers. Please don't bother replying if you're a #crypto sceptic. I actually want answers, not snark.)

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Sep-2024 08:32:39 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @Edent so, between your own bank accounts at the same bank? Or to a different bank?

     Payment processors like Visa or SWIFT usually take a cut of transfers. It's not that unusual that Ethereum does too -- just in a more decentralized way.

   • Embed this notice
     Terence Eden (edent@mastodon.social)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Sep-2024 09:00:40 JST Terence Eden

     in reply to

     • Evan Prodromou

     @evan
     Different banks. In the UK, interbank transfers are free and instant.

   • Embed this notice
     Evan Prodromou (evan@cosocial.ca)'s status on Wednesday, 11-Sep-2024 09:00:40 JST Evan Prodromou

     in reply to

     @Edent nice! We have something similar in Canada, up to a particular limit; I think a few thousand CDN$

   • Embed this notice
     Alexandre Oliva (lxo@gnusocial.net)'s status on Friday, 13-Sep-2024 16:53:01 JST Alexandre Oliva

     in reply to
     I don't know specifics of ETH, but if it's anything like other cryptocurrencies, it uses a blockchain as a ledger for all transactions. adding to the chain blocks with proposed transactions has significant computational cost, so miners are allowed, by design, to add a payment to themselves to the ledger, out of thin air (as in, no payer). nevertheless, there are only so many transactions that can fit in a block, and if there are too many proponents of transactions, or if the costs of processing them are more than the built-in mining payment, miners can select transactions that offer higher payments for processing, in a sort of auction for priority in processing. given free competition among miners, I suppose the theory is that the transaction processing fee will narrow in to a fair market price, while making room for priority pricing