Lowering Transfer Fees

[theredpill]

@fav, Every business do this in order to bootstrap, take look a look this exchange yunbi.com (everything is free for now) once we have the user base we can set the fees UP! I don't understand you people... Is not like this is a frozen parameter.

About the lifetime membership, is gonna work anyway because if you have refereed someone on the ledger is lifetime, that means once we get the fees higher your money is guaranteed, besides of those 0.2% on trades.

If we were a smart startup and have the means we should PAY our users, right now our system have little to zero utility from a user perspective.

[jakub]

the point is - we are not sure where we will find our userbase. So to make the hurdle so high for not so "rich" people it will
not bring them to us.

would it possible to say

a transaction with value <= 1000 BTS you have to pay say 5 BTS
if it is higher the normal transaction fee will be applied

so for the userbase say in Argentina, most of the users has not the need to make lifetimemembership account, but still can use our network. This will not hinder the referral idea.

@bytemaster , will the above idea by Shentist be possible for SmartCoins?
i.e. to have a BTS value threshold below which the transfer fee is very low and above which it is around $0.15 as we have it now.

This way we could:
- create a friendly environment for business based on receiving small tips
- still maintain a solid financial basis for the referral program

Would this require a worker proposal and a hard-fork?

[Musewhale]

good

[gunailei]

i think it is too different to get a conclusion
if team leader luck of intelligence.it would become bad
margin dns and vote make bts lost many user
and high fee would make bts lost more user again
the fact that price almost fall to lowest show we are losting user
if there is no user use it. ,it just a usless code without value.

my last suggestion about fee
adjust fee according to transaction per second
1. if tps <5. fee=2bts
2. if 5<tps<10 ,fee=4bts
3. if 10<tps<20,fee=6bts
4. if 20<tps<40 fee=8bts
5. if 40<tps<80 fee=10 bts
6. if 80<tps<160 fee= 12 bts
7. if 160 <tps<320 fee=14bts
8. if 320<tps<640  fee=16bts
9.if 640 <tps<1280 fee= 18bts
10. if tps>1280 fee=20bts

GOOD IDEA !!!

[BTSdac]

i think it is too different to get a conclusion
if team leader luck of intelligence.it would become bad
margin dns and vote make bts lost many user
and high fee would make bts lost more user again
the fact that price almost fall to lowest show we are losting user
if there is no user use it. ,it just a usless code without value.

my last suggestion about fee
adjust fee according to transaction per second
1. if tps <5. fee=2bts
2. if 5<tps<10 ,fee=4bts
3. if 10<tps<20,fee=6bts
4. if 20<tps<40 fee=8bts
5. if 40<tps<80 fee=10 bts
6. if 80<tps<160 fee= 12 bts
7. if 160 <tps<320 fee=14bts
8. if 320<tps<640  fee=16bts
9.if 640 <tps<1280 fee= 18bts
10. if tps>1280 fee=20bts

[luckybit]

One perspective that I find missing from the fee discussion is the one that can be learned from other successful affiliate systems. The one that I'm familiar with was (years ago) POKER. It's very similar to what we are doing in that:
a) users have to pay high fees and pay often
b) users are primarily attracted by 'liquidity' (availability of other players).

So what happened in the online poker scene was that competition between poker rooms was happening not via low fees but via HIGH fees that the rooms shared with affiliates who in turn shared them with users in the form of bonuses and 'rakeback'.

So I expect all Bitshares affiliates to eventually pay users a substantial percentage of their fees back. From the users perspective he won't be paying any fees, he'll be 'getting paid' for using the BitShares network.

You may think that it's basically a wash, but a better cash flow for affiliates translates to much better exposure of the system to the outside world.

This is one solution I've been thinking about but I think it could work. Referrers could set up lotteries, and other mechanisms, to reward loyal participants.

At the same time people could get paid to view ads, which is ultimately another way of getting paid to play. If people can get paid in enough ways by enough creative mechanisms then the fees wont matter.

[triox]

One perspective that I find missing from the fee discussion is the one that can be learned from other successful affiliate systems. The one that I'm familiar with was (years ago) POKER. It's very similar to what we are doing in that:
a) users have to pay high fees and pay often
b) users are primarily attracted by 'liquidity' (availability of other players).

So what happened in the online poker scene was that competition between poker rooms was happening not via low fees but via HIGH fees that the rooms shared with affiliates who in turn shared them with users in the form of bonuses and 'rakeback'.

So I expect all Bitshares affiliates to eventually pay users a substantial percentage of their fees back. From the users perspective he won't be paying any fees, he'll be 'getting paid' for using the BitShares network.

You may think that it's basically a wash, but a better cash flow for affiliates translates to much better exposure of the system to the outside world.

[tbone]

I think I've discovered a reasonable explanation why the current transaction fees are perceived by some of us here as too high.
We are generally BTS holders and the reason we hold our BTS is because we feel they are actually worth much more than their current market value.

So we perceive spending 20 BTS (and now even 40 BTS) as a significant expense because we take into account the expected future value of BTS.
In other words, in the not-so-far future 40 BTS might be worth much more in terms of fiat than it is now so it feels very expensive. It feels like the we are forced to sacrifice part of our core investment just to make a transaction.
But a non BTS-holder won't necessarily feel this way.

Does it make sense?

EDIT: So my point is that we need to differentiate between the point of view of BTS holders and BTS users.
We, as BTS holders, are likely to be biased because we value our BTS much higher than the outside world.
For an outsider $0.20 might be no big deal but for an insider 40 BTS is a big deal (especially if you are not a whale and every 40 BTS spent now is perceived by you as having e.g. 0.1% of your investment gone).
So let's make this pricing decision rationally, i.e. by doing a market research among people who have never heard of BTS. Because this is the actual pool of our future users.

I think the fear of rising fees due to rising BTS value over time is just part of the problem.  It seems the bigger issue is the reality that some demographics are simply going to have lower average transaction sizes.  With a flat fee that means they will be charged higher rates to move funds.  That's too arbitrary, and it means we'll lose some users that would have been profitable for the network, even if they may not have been as profitable as others.  And we'll lose some businesses whose model depends on a lower than average transaction amount.  Do we really want to lose some users, let alone businesses that would otherwise build on top of Bitshares?  Aren't we're trying to achieve network effect?

So what's the answer?  We just need to use a percentage-based fee.  This way the fee is automatically dynamic and we don't have to keep changing it.   I think we should seriously consider that.  Of course, we'd have to set a minimum fee to discourage spam.  And we should probably have a maximum fee too. I think these parameters can be set at levels that would be sensitive to the different demographics, but without substantially changing the overall income to the network or the referrer/registrar.  Personally I don't see any reason why we shouldn't set the minimum as low as possible, just low enough to ensure the network doesn't get spammed and doesn't lose money on the lower end transfers. 

As for stealth transfers, we should definitely charge more (these may have to be a flat fee?).  And we should charge more for trades.  Although fees for setting and canceling orders should be set just low enough to prevent spam.  And to encourage liquidity providers, a maker/taker pricing model would be sensible.

[bytemaster]

It seems like there is a lot of debate around the transfer fees and this debate is both good and bad.

I expect transfers to make up a relatively small part of BTS transaction types.  The vast majority of the fees will be paid in the market as people place orders.

Rather than having negative PR of "high fees" we can offer Transfers at a lower fee, while maintaining the higher fees for everything else. 

If the transfer fee for normal users is equal to the BTC transfer fee then we cannot be accused of having "high fees".

If we lower the transfer fee from 40 BTS to 5 BTS then transfers will cost the same as bitcoin.   We can keep blind transfers at a higher price and keep market orders at 10 BTS.

It is just a question of asking ourselves what business are we in.    If we are in the exchange business then transfers can be nearly free because we make our money on exchanges.   

Having something that is "cheap" allows us to advertize  "lowest transfer fees of any crypto-currency".   

Thoughts?

i'm a fan of lower transfer fees as i believe our core business are the exchanges. 40 BTS at current market value isn't a big deal, but as we grow there needs to be a dynamic lowering to keep the fiat-equiv value about the same...

Thats the idea, it can change every day if necessary.

[cylonmaker2053]

It seems like there is a lot of debate around the transfer fees and this debate is both good and bad.

I expect transfers to make up a relatively small part of BTS transaction types.  The vast majority of the fees will be paid in the market as people place orders.

Rather than having negative PR of "high fees" we can offer Transfers at a lower fee, while maintaining the higher fees for everything else. 

If the transfer fee for normal users is equal to the BTC transfer fee then we cannot be accused of having "high fees".

If we lower the transfer fee from 40 BTS to 5 BTS then transfers will cost the same as bitcoin.   We can keep blind transfers at a higher price and keep market orders at 10 BTS.

It is just a question of asking ourselves what business are we in.    If we are in the exchange business then transfers can be nearly free because we make our money on exchanges.   

Having something that is "cheap" allows us to advertize  "lowest transfer fees of any crypto-currency".   

Thoughts?

i'm a fan of lower transfer fees as i believe our core business are the exchanges. 40 BTS at current market value isn't a big deal, but as we grow there needs to be a dynamic lowering to keep the fiat-equiv value about the same...

[r0ach]

Fees are too high because the referral system incurs a 400% markup from 5 to 20.  Any legit referral system should only incur something like a 5-30% markup max, not 400%.  Bytemaster wrongfully assumes that it's fine to have this dynamic because you can just "become a member" to lower fees, yet the fee for membership system is WIDLY unpopular amongst any average person in crypto you ask.  They're far more likely to just boycott the system entirely rather than pay any membership fee.  The only solution is to lower the subsidy for the referral system drasically, or abolish it entirely.  The current paradigm does not work whatsoever.

Bytemaster only seems to make decisions under the idea of "What will it take to make Bitshares profitable?" instead of "What will it take for people like r0ach to buy bitshares at all in the first place?".  He's acting like he has a captive audience.  That's not even close to the reality of the situation.  If you add some feature that's repulsive to users, nobody is going to be utilizing that mechanism to make the system profitable because nobody will be using the system at all in the first place!  It will just be an unused thing that sits there.

[Method-X]

I think I've discovered a reasonable explanation why the current transaction fees are perceived by some of us here as too high.
We are generally BTS holders and the reason we hold our BTS is because we feel they are actually worth much more than their current market value.

So we perceive spending 20 BTS (and now even 40 BTS) as a significant expense because we take into account the expected future value of BTS.
In other words, in the not-so-far future 40 BTS might be worth much more in terms of fiat than it is now so it feels very expansive. It feels like the we are forced to sacrifice part of our core investment just to make a transaction.
But a non BTS-holder won't necessarily feel this way.

Does it make sense?

  Spot on.

[liondani]

I think I've discovered a reasonable explanation why the current transaction fees are perceived by some of us here as too high.
We are generally BTS holders and the reason we hold our BTS is because we feel they are actually worth much more than their current market value.

So we perceive spending 20 BTS (and now even 40 BTS) as a significant expense because we take into account the expected future value of BTS.
In other words, in the not-so-far future 40 BTS might be worth much more in terms of fiat than it is now so it feels very expansive. It feels like the we are forced to sacrifice part of our core investment just to make a transaction.
But a non BTS-holder won't necessarily feel this way.

Does it make sense?

[jakub]

I think I've discovered a reasonable explanation why the current transaction fees are perceived by some of us here as too high.
We are generally BTS holders and the reason we hold our BTS is because we feel they are actually worth much more than their current market value.

So we perceive spending 20 BTS (and now even 40 BTS) as a significant expense because we take into account the expected future value of BTS.
In other words, in the not-so-far future 40 BTS might be worth much more in terms of fiat than it is now so it feels very expensive. It feels like the we are forced to sacrifice part of our core investment just to make a transaction.
But a non BTS-holder won't necessarily feel this way.

Does it make sense?

EDIT: So my point is that we need to differentiate between the point of view of BTS holders and BTS users.
We, as BTS holders, are likely to be biased because we value our BTS much higher than the outside world.
For an outsider $0.20 might be no big deal but for an insider 40 BTS is a big deal (especially if you are not a whale and every 40 BTS spent now is perceived by you as having e.g. 0.1% of your investment gone).
So let's make this pricing decision rationally, i.e. by doing a market research among people who have never heard of BTS. Because this is the actual pool of our future users.

[julian1]

This is mind blowing.  You can't judge the fees without the referral system working for several months. No other coin has a mechanism to pay merchants to go to the trouble of educating their user base to pay them in crypto.  We do.  That is unique and it is a chance (not a guarantee) that it we succeed where all other alts have failed.

Geo-pricing is just another level of confusion to add to the worlds most complicated product.  Lets not shall we.

[jakub]

This is mind blowing.  You can't judge the fees without the referral system working for several months. No other coin has a mechanism to pay merchants to go to the trouble of educating their user base to pay them in crypto.  We do.  That is unique and it is a chance (not a guarantee) that it we succeed where all other alts have failed.

Geo-pricing is just another level of confusion to add to the worlds most complicated product.  Lets not shall we.

[BTSdac]

to be fair - the only reason why the high fees are needed are because of the not working referral system!

the prices right now are fine with western world, but to get popular in other region we should lower the fees on the small end (small transaction).

if just reduce the transfer fee , it any a little influence to  referral system!

[bitmarket]

This is mind blowing.  You can't judge the fees without the referral system working for several months. No other coin has a mechanism to pay merchants to go to the trouble of educating their user base to pay them in crypto.  We do.  That is unique and it is a chance (not a guarantee) that it we succeed where all other alts have failed.

Geo-pricing is just another level of confusion to add to the worlds most complicated product.  Lets not shall we.

[fav]

A simple change in the GUI / billing / transfer page can make it looks like the sender is paying no fees.

I'd strongly advise against such tricks. I personally hate it when there are hidden costs not clearly stated and prefer to pay the fee than be cheated and discover it later on.
It would make us no different from the corporate culture where the general mindset is to be nice to the customer and then screw him behind the scenes.
Please, don't do it.

the merchant/receiver would pay the fee, not you as a customer. seems like all major payment services do it like this, why should we reinvent the wheel here?

edit: but it probably can't work like this. you could micro tx spam people and make them pay 40bts as fee... that's a weak point

[jakub]

If we are in the exchange business then transfers can be nearly free because we make our money on exchanges.

But if we are in the exchange business we should make sure we that at this initial stage we have trading fees lower than any significant competition. In that respect I'd agree with clayop:

As an ecosystem, the crux of current BTS is its exchanges. To promote trades in DEX, lowering trade fees is quite needed. Think about other exchanges that should attract new customers. "Zero trade fee" is very attractive. While zero fee is not feasible for us, very low level of trade fees (say 1 BTS for non-lifetime members) can attract traders and expand our ecosystem. Then we can slowly increase our trade fees. Even Apple music provides "3 month free trial" for new customers.

And we definitely need to be in the exchange business because we badly need liquidity. Liquidity for SmartCoins is the very basis of our business and without liquidity we are nothing - we have no product to sell, as Method-X rightly put it:

Market making seems to be the elephant in the room not being addressed by the developers. There has been so much talk about creating a pretty GUI and not enough talk about how to actually get liquidity. Honestly, the GUI is pretty sweet right now and will only get better. You can make a GUI that looks like Apple themselves created it but it'll still be useless without liquidity.

[jakub]

We've had feeback from South America (ElMato) , Eastern and Southern Europe (Noisy and Liondani) and China (Alt + many many more)  saying the fee is too high for their market.

@Empirical, this is quite ridiculous to make such arguments - drawing important pricing strategy conclusions from personal perspectives of single individuals from a given region who (I assume) have no professional background in this area (neither do I for that matter).

The only thing which is valid in our case is some sort of market research, or if we cannot have it - use rational arguments, not subjective points of view.
I'm from Eastern Europe and I don't agree with Noisy. Will this cancel out with Noisy?

Anyway, the pseudo market research poll that I created seems to contradict your point:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,19328.0.html

[jakub]

A simple change in the GUI / billing / transfer page can make it looks like the sender is paying no fees.

I'd strongly advise against such tricks. I personally hate it when there are hidden costs not clearly stated and prefer to pay the fee than be cheated and discover it later on.
It would make us no different from the corporate culture where the general mindset is to be nice to the customer and then screw him behind the scenes.
Please, don't do it.

[jakub]

Do stealth transfers cost extra? They should.

They do.

[Shentist]

I would urge the community to keep transfer fees in the US the same.  I think regional pricing is a good idea. 

As someone who is building a real US-based payments business on top of Bitshares the transfer fees are important to keep the business sustainable.   Otherwise it will probably take hundreds of millions of VC money, hundreds of millions of users, 10 years to even get the cash flow in the black, much less pay back the cost of capital.  Free or close to free is not a great business model unless you plan to show a 30-sec video ad before you send every payment.  I'm certainly not interested in pursuing a business like this.  I would argue without the payments side, the exchange side is far less valuable. 

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

This is a very good perspective.   The fees are already very low from a merchants perspective.  A simple change in the GUI / billing / transfer page can make it looks like the sender is paying no fees.

great idea! 

in the past i proposed the fees should be paying the reciever, so accounts like poloniexwallet etc. are in need to get lifetimemembers. In the backend you can split the fees between sender and reciever. it is
the same principle how creditcards apply the fees. never show them to the user, just to the merchants.

this way you can increase the lifetime member out and just charge a yearly fee.

[Method-X]

Do stealth transfers cost extra? They should.

[fav]

I would urge the community to keep transfer fees in the US the same.  I think regional pricing is a good idea. 

As someone who is building a real US-based payments business on top of Bitshares the transfer fees are important to keep the business sustainable.   Otherwise it will probably take hundreds of millions of VC money, hundreds of millions of users, 10 years to even get the cash flow in the black, much less pay back the cost of capital.  Free or close to free is not a great business model unless you plan to show a 30-sec video ad before you send every payment.  I'm certainly not interested in pursuing a business like this.  I would argue without the payments side, the exchange side is far less valuable. 

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

This is a very good perspective.   The fees are already very low from a merchants perspective.  A simple change in the GUI / billing / transfer page can make it looks like the sender is paying no fees.

great idea! 

[Shentist]

to be fair - the only reason why the high fees are needed are because of the not working referral system!

the prices right now are fine with western world, but to get popular in other region we should lower the fees on the small end (small transaction).

[clayop]

As an ecosystem, the crux of current BTS is its exchanges. To promote trades in DEX, lowering trade fees is quite needed. Think about other exchanges that should attract new customers. "Zero trade fee" is very attractive. While zero fee is not feasible for us, very low level of trade fees (say 1 BTS for non-lifetime members) can attract traders and expand our ecosystem. Then we can slowly increase our trade fees. Even Apple music provides "3 month free trial" for new customers.

[clayop]

set 5BTS as a minimum transfer fee, transfer of BTS, CNY and some other assets need to pay this minimum fee.
transfer of USD and some other assets need to pay $0.2.
to get a regional based fee rule is good idea,  as the business cultures in different regions are so different, keeping same may cause the community fall in endless debate and split.

5BTS transfer fee also make the lifetime memeber senseful. in China users hate high fee, but they may pay for lifetime member under 5BTS transfer fee condition. under $0.2 transfer fee condition what they think most may be "should I exit?"

I already paid 10000 BTS for one lifetime member, such a lifetime member price is acceptable, but the high transfer fee may make China users disappointed ans leave, this is what I really worry.

If different fee for each assets possible, 0.03~0.1 RMB transfer fee for CNY is acceptable while the fee for USD keeps $0.2.

[bitcrab]

set 5BTS as a minimum transfer fee, transfer of BTS, CNY and some other assets need to pay this minimum fee.
transfer of USD and some other assets need to pay $0.2.
to get a regional based fee rule is good idea,  as the business cultures in different regions are so different, keeping same may cause the community fall in endless debate and split.

5BTS transfer fee also make the lifetime memeber senseful. in China users hate high fee, but they may pay for lifetime member under 5BTS transfer fee condition. under $0.2 transfer fee condition what they think most may be "should I exit?"

I already paid 10000 BTS for one lifetime member, such a lifetime member price is acceptable, but the high transfer fee may make China users disappointed ans leave, this is what I really worry.

[BTSdac]

lower the transfer fees for now but make sure the lifetime member gets his 1/4 discount (or whatever that fraction is currently). I mean the network is all set up anyway, so we might as well be generating activity. we can talk about raising fees when we have too much traffic.

Keep the wallet creation fees high.

I notice you a fact,  user does not transfer and transfer , a normal user cannot transfer often , so they maybe not update to life-member , though they any bring a little fee to bts, but they can make BTS more popular, it is a big value.
but user often exchange ( buy/sell , get profile by back-spread) , so  I think many participant of exchange would become life-time member
my blueprint of bts is :
1.there are many many user transfer small amount bitusd ( $1~$10) by bts ,  they pay a little fee to bts at low fee level ,but make bts more popular . also they are the potential participant of exchange ,  and potential life-time member .
2. there are many user are exchange participant , the bring a half fee to BTS,  most of them are life-time member.
3. there are a little  user are borrow/bond and other high risk/profit participant. they pay a lot of fee to bts  at a high fee level.

[emailtooaj]

Someone mentioned earlier we need a sales person's perspective... so I'll throw in my 2 bits.
I agree that the majority here is correctly identifying that Bitshares main core is (and I'm listing in order what I see as priority)...
1) The DEX
2) Core SmartCoins (USD, CNY, EURO, etc.)

Since the DEX is the main backbone of our system, IMO it would be silly to over tax the activity of the exchange and in turn, dry up any incentive for future/present trading.  The only way (again IMO) is to set trading activity fees pegged to a percentage. I can see 0.5% being a great starting charge for trading fee's, but capped at 300 or so BTS, allowing those Large Quantity (ie Big Player) traders ample breathing room to play.
Putting this in a number perspective...
3000 BTS order = 15 BTS fee
20,000 BTS order = 100 BTS fee
60,000+ BTS order = 300 BTS fee
I don't see how you can effectively and fairly asses a "regional" fee or flat fee when it comes to DEX trading.

Now obviously we know that BTS (the underlying share) is the crucial life force, so squeezing that available supply line will help increase BTS value while also "guiding" people to start utilizing SmartCoin's more as the primary currency, while also giving more demand for creating more USD, which is what we want correct?   
So for a BTS Transfer fee, in my mind, should be a flat somewhat higher tiered fee...
1 to <100 BTS = 1 BTS fee
100> -1000 BTS = 5 BTS flat fee
and then 1 BTS per 1000 BTS thereafter and cap it a 500 BTS threshold.

For CORE SmartCoin transfer fee's.. I'd make it a percentage base fee of 0.05% and cap it at $5 USD (or it's equivalent to that specific SmartCoin).
So a $100 USD transfer would cost five cents ($0.05). 
$10,000+ USD would be $5 USD fee
Again, this will help keep Big players in the game to do big money transfers utilizing SmartCoins.

For UIA's transfer fees... again, I'd make it a low percentage like the CORE asset fees I just mentioned.  I almost hate saying this... but I could see it making sense to ONLY use CORE SmartCoin's for the transfer fee's of UIA's. 

So all-in-all keep DEX fees low.  Create higher friction for BTS transfers.  SmartCoin fees low to keep the flow!
 

[BTSdac]

I have two suggestion
1. reduce the transfer fee ,transfer fee should been lower than exchange fee , and the reasons are :
        1). transfer is a equivalent process between sender and receive. is it very sensitive with fee especially small amount transfer .
        2). small amount transfer with low fee can attract people to try transfer bitusd by BTS
        3). compare transfer and exchange , transfer is a lower level service than exchange , because transfer between user cannot get profit , but exchange (buy/sell bts or other IOU) can get profit .
2. what is profit from after reduce transfer fee
       1). as an exchange system , main profit is made by exchange . user does not normal often ,but user would exchange often , so reduce transfer basically does not reduce much.
        and I must emphasize once more , I think ,though user cannot transfer often ,  high transfer fee prevent new user to try transfer by bts
       2). as you (BM) mention "We can keep blind transfers at a higher price " it is higher level service pay higher fee     
       3). bond like other high everaged transaction/exchange should pay high fee .

[Moon]

are you crazey  ,  0.2 usd 

[sudo]

like ccedk  exchange fees is linked with trade volume
more  volume  low fee percent  to encourage more trade

transfer  baisic services  low fees
additional services  more fees

[gunailei]

1, User growth and transaction activity is the truth of the test of all strategies;
2, High fees if the user growth and transaction activity is successful, otherwise it will fail;
3, Now trading market is very low, very few transactions, leaving only the old users, and even the loss of the old user,BTS:USD,BTS:CNY,BTS:BTC,low depth;
4, Exchange(okcoin.com huobi.com btcc.com) through low fees access to user growth,.As long as there is a large number of users,we can  change strategy at any time to profit;
5, Please put the focus on:User growth,User activity,Trading depth, Trading activity;
6, no user no profit, no trading no profit, no trading depth no user growth;
7, Repeat:Please put the focus on:User growth,User activity,Trading depth, Trading activity;

[kryo2k]

When did fees go up?? Last I saw, it was 22bts, now it's 50! Probably explains the current dumping going on... 0.20 USD for a transfer is ridiculous.

[Empirical1.2]

Imo, poloniex should become a lifetime member.

If they do, they could start charging their customers 5 BTS to withdraw instead of 20, or whatever it is.

poloniex is a lifetime member I think. The account poloniexwallet is anyway.

So they are just making 16 bts every time they charge their customers 20 for a transfer?

I guess so.  Edit: I don't think they try to make money that way so presumably they will be happy to lower it.

[Ander]

Imo, poloniex should become a lifetime member.

If they do, they could start charging their customers 5 BTS to withdraw instead of 20, or whatever it is.

poloniex is a lifetime member I think. The account poloniexwallet is anyway.

So they are just making 16 bts every time they charge their customers 20 for a transfer?

[Method-X]

How is regional pricing even possible on a blockchain? Transfer fees are not the problem, traders have been saying since day one they want to place orders for cheap and only pay when it's filled. Raise the price of a successful order significantly and your problem is solved. Hold a focus group with ONLY traders and get their feedback (make a thread, do it on Skype, whatever). Don't listen to lay people who are not traders (myself included). Your product is a decentralized exchange, focus on getting that right before you pivot.

[Empirical1.2]

Imo, poloniex should become a lifetime member.

If they do, they could start charging their customers 5 BTS to withdraw instead of 20, or whatever it is.

poloniex is a lifetime member I think. The account poloniexwallet is anyway.

[Ander]

Imo, poloniex should become a lifetime member.

If they do, they could start charging their customers 5 BTS to withdraw instead of 20, or whatever it is.

[Ander]

I would urge the community to keep transfer fees in the US the same.  I think regional pricing is a good idea. 

As someone who is building a real US-based payments business on top of Bitshares the transfer fees are important to keep the business sustainable.   Otherwise it will probably take hundreds of millions of VC money, hundreds of millions of users, 10 years to even get the cash flow in the black, much less pay back the cost of capital.  Free or close to free is not a great business model unless you plan to show a 30-sec video ad before you send every payment.  I'm certainly not interested in pursuing a business like this.  I would argue without the payments side, the exchange side is far less valuable. 

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

 
I am with this guy.

That makes sense.  And I would like to see as much bts burning as possible because it makes it a more attractive investment.  So maybe we shouldnt reduce them.

[Empirical1.2]

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

What about having merchant fees being different?

I don't use PayPal but they seem to offer free inter transfers for regular users

Send or receive money between friends and family and we won’t charge you anything.

https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/paypal-fees


However they have a different pricing fee structure for merchants...

https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/merchant-fees

https://www.paypal.com/uk/merchantrate

Purchase payments received (monthly)   Fee per transaction
£0.00 GBP - £1,500.00 GBP   3.4% + £0.20 GBP
£1,500.01 GBP - £6,000.00 GBP   2.9% + £0.20 GBP
£6,000.01 GBP - £15,000.00 GBP   2.4% + £0.20 GBP
£15,000.01 GBP - £55,000.00 GBP   1.9% + £0.20 GBP
above £55,000.00 GBP*   1.4% + £0.20 GBP

[tonyk]

I would urge the community to keep transfer fees in the US the same.  I think regional pricing is a good idea. 

As someone who is building a real US-based payments business on top of Bitshares the transfer fees are important to keep the business sustainable.   Otherwise it will probably take hundreds of millions of VC money, hundreds of millions of users, 10 years to even get the cash flow in the black, much less pay back the cost of capital.  Free or close to free is not a great business model unless you plan to show a 30-sec video ad before you send every payment.  I'm certainly not interested in pursuing a business like this.  I would argue without the payments side, the exchange side is far less valuable. 

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

 
I am with this guy.

[merivercap]

two points:

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

and the "first one's free" salesman trick

We need a sales team, and we need to pay them. Where's the money going to come from to pay them, and what is there incentive to sign up "big" clients?

At the same time, no one will try out a superior product if cost appears to be a barrier to entry. Look at what google's doing now with google docs enterprise... they are making it free/cheap so you adopt them and don't even try microsoft.

What is unique to the BTS network? These can have high fees
1) Decentralized Market
2) Smart Coins

What is not unique to BTS? these can have low fees
1) Transfer of cryptocoins (e.g, the BTS coins themselves)

Each fee should be set based on a competitive pricing model. BTS should trade with BTC level of fees.
Market and SmartCoins should trade with polo and paypal level fees, respectively.

If network bandwidth starts limiting transactions, then fees can be made proportional to the true "network cost" (which might mean raising transaction fees). Assuming unlimited network bandwidth, fees should maximize revenue and therefore at least be competitive with competing tech.

That's a good perspective to take. 

I like the idea of lowering transfer fees but keeping trading fees higher.

I agree you can make the case for trading fees being higher because of the value of a secure decentralized exchange, but traders are generally risk takers so unfortunately the low fees and liquidity of centralized exchanges may be more compelling no matter how many MtGox events occur.  It is also important to attract liquidity so trading fees that are at least competitive with centralized exchanges would be a good start.  .1 - .25% is what Bitstamp charges and at an average trade of $20 I think 5 cents is more appropriate to match the Bitstamp fee schedule.    We should have a maker/taker model with 0% fees for market makers so we get a lot of market depth.  Liquidity is king and that means keep trading costs extremely low especially for market makers.   

I would support regional based pricing if it was possible. $0.2 for US and Western Europe is fine.

We've had feeback from South America (ElMato) , Eastern and Southern Europe (Noisy and Liondani) and China (Alt + many many more)  saying the fee is too high for their market.

If we have $0.2 transfer fee for USD, it's okay. But if the fee of CNY is $0.2, it may not be acceptable. Differentiate transfer fees for each assets (especially smartcoins) would be the solution.

I agree China and other regions could be lower. 

Are we able to vote for different transfer fees PER bitasset? So USD can stay on the expensive side... CNY can be cheaper, etc. Whatever makes sense for each currency/country-demographic.

It would give us an easy way to have region-based pricing.. a must-have strategy for competitive pricing globally

That is possible by setting the core exchange rate and keeping the fee pool funded (subsidizing some transfers).     

That would be great if we did this ...

[phillyguy]

I would support regional based pricing if it was possible. $0.2 for US and Western Europe is fine.

Why is a $0.20 USD transfer fee considered high? Even in developing markets, or for the unbanked, is 20 cents per transaction really a financial burden that will hinder adoption?

I also think a lower fee is not needed. Lifetime membership returns $.16 of those cents anyway.

We've had feeback from South America (ElMato) , Eastern and Southern Europe (Noisy and Liondani) and China (Alt + many many more)  saying the fee is too high for their market.

You're competing with BTC, Centralized crypto exchanges and their local banking services at the moment with a by comparison new, risky, somewhat complicated alternative.

When you have a liquid and popular derivative stock market/ Popular BitAssets with easy BitAsset to real asset crossover/third parties offering full service remittance via BTS/BitGold to real vault options etc. Then you will start to be offering products and services they are used to and willing to pay much for and also in some cases won't be able to get anywhere else. Then you can look at raising fees substantially.

Thoughtful response. Makes sense - thanks!

[clayop]

If we have $0.2 transfer fee for USD, it's okay. But if the fee of CNY is $0.2, it may not be acceptable. Differentiate transfer fees for each assets (especially smartcoins) would be the solution.

[Empirical1.2]

I would support regional based pricing if it was possible. $0.2 for US and Western Europe is fine.

Why is a $0.20 USD transfer fee considered high? Even in developing markets, or for the unbanked, is 20 cents per transaction really a financial burden that will hinder adoption?

I also think a lower fee is not needed. Lifetime membership returns $.16 of those cents anyway.

We've had feeback from South America (ElMato) , Eastern and Southern Europe (Noisy and Liondani) and China (Alt + many many more)  saying the fee is too high for their market.

You're competing with BTC, Centralized crypto exchanges and their local banking services at the moment with a by comparison new, risky, somewhat complicated alternative.

When you have a liquid and popular derivative stock market/ Popular BitAssets with easy BitAsset to real asset crossover/third parties offering full service remittance via BTS/BitGold to real vault options etc. Then you will start to be offering products and services they are used to and willing to pay much for and also in some cases won't be able to get anywhere else. Then you can look at raising fees substantially.

[merivercap]

This is a very good perspective.   The fees are already very low from a merchants perspective.  A simple change in the GUI / billing / transfer page can make it looks like the sender is paying no fees.   

Being able to change the GUI like that would be great.  We are thinking of not showing fees and temporarily putting the following note as a modal or info link:
“Note: Please be aware recepient will receive amount after deducting 20 cents (and up to 2 cents based on memo length fees) to support our company and protocol for each transaction:.  Thank you.” 

I think for the average consumer this should work well and they will probably only need to see this note maybe 5 times as a reminder and after that there is no need to inform them.  We are planning to limit memo length to 40 characters so that's around 2 cents right now it seems. 

[Ander]

I like the idea of lowering transfer fees but keeping trading fees higher.

[maqifrnswa]

two points:

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

and the "first one's free" salesman trick

We need a sales team, and we need to pay them. Where's the money going to come from to pay them, and what is there incentive to sign up "big" clients?

At the same time, no one will try out a superior product if cost appears to be a barrier to entry. Look at what google's doing now with google docs enterprise... they are making it free/cheap so you adopt them and don't even try microsoft.

What is unique to the BTS network? These can have high fees
1) Decentralized Market
2) Smart Coins

What is not unique to BTS? these can have low fees
1) Transfer of cryptocoins (e.g, the BTS coins themselves)

Each fee should be set based on a competitive pricing model. BTS should trade with BTC level of fees.
Market and SmartCoins should trade with polo and paypal level fees, respectively.

If network bandwidth starts limiting transactions, then fees can be made proportional to the true "network cost" (which might mean raising transaction fees). Assuming unlimited network bandwidth, fees should maximize revenue and therefore at least be competitive with competing tech.

[phillyguy]

Why is a $0.20 USD transfer fee considered high? Even in developing markets, or for the unbanked, is 20 cents per transaction really a financial burden that will hinder adoption?

I also think a lower fee is not needed. Lifetime membership returns $.16 of those cents anyway.

[mike623317]

I would not lower it to 5 BTS, 10 BTS should be the minimum, that is 4 cents. Very reasonable IMHO.

I agree.

[bytemaster]

I would urge the community to keep transfer fees in the US the same.  I think regional pricing is a good idea. 

As someone who is building a real US-based payments business on top of Bitshares the transfer fees are important to keep the business sustainable.   Otherwise it will probably take hundreds of millions of VC money, hundreds of millions of users, 10 years to even get the cash flow in the black, much less pay back the cost of capital.  Free or close to free is not a great business model unless you plan to show a 30-sec video ad before you send every payment.  I'm certainly not interested in pursuing a business like this.  I would argue without the payments side, the exchange side is far less valuable. 

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

This is a very good perspective.   The fees are already very low from a merchants perspective.  A simple change in the GUI / billing / transfer page can make it looks like the sender is paying no fees.   

[merivercap]

I would urge the community to keep transfer fees in the US the same.  I think regional pricing is a good idea. 

As someone who is building a real US-based payments business on top of Bitshares the transfer fees are important to keep the business sustainable.   Otherwise it will probably take hundreds of millions of VC money, hundreds of millions of users, 10 years to even get the cash flow in the black, much less pay back the cost of capital.  Free or close to free is not a great business model unless you plan to show a 30-sec video ad before you send every payment.  I'm certainly not interested in pursuing a business like this.  I would argue without the payments side, the exchange side is far less valuable. 

We shouldn't compete with other cryptos on cost.  Bitcoin and other cryptos are already essentially 'free'.  But ask yourself how are business that build on those ecosystems going to grow?  What is the revenue business model of anyone who builds on other cryptos?  I would tell you most have no sustainable business model. 

We can do well with peer to peer payments, but this should be a secondary focus because the perception and reality for the mainstream public is that payments are already free.  I would even recommend Venmo, Square cash, traditional online bank transfers via email/phone # as much better solutions for the average consumer.  I'm saying this as a competitor to those payment solutions.  We are naturally going to need and get a good % of unbanked, anti-bank, be-your-own-bank crowd that don't like traditional solutions and the fees aren't going to be a deal breaker.

We should be focused on merchants.  They are desperate for a solution because they have to pay 3 - 8% transaction fees,  annual/monthly fees,  hidden fees,  and deal with the headache of chargebacks.   When I tell merchants the cost for them is  20 cents  they are immediately sold.  The question I get from merchants is why and how are we so cheap?  I got a question from a merchant (who actually worked in payment processing before) about if we are going to be around in the future because 20 cents doesn't sound sustainable for any payment business.   I agree.   I assume if we want we can structure payments so that merchants are 'paying' the cost so that should allow users to feel like they aren't paying anything in transaction fees. 

I think low transfer fees will also render the referral system ineffective.   There would be very little reason to upgrade memberships and people won't be incentivized by getting a few cents trickling in each month from referrals.

[clayop]

Are we able to vote for different transfer fees PER bitasset? So USD can stay on the expensive side... CNY can be cheaper, etc. Whatever makes sense for each currency/country-demographic.

It would give us an easy way to have region-based pricing.. a must-have strategy for competitive pricing globally

That is possible by setting the core exchange rate and keeping the fee pool funded (subsidizing some transfers).   

I support this idea!

[ElMato]

What happens if we set (as a registrar) the network_fee_percentage to 100%

Will the users registered by this registrar only pay $0.04? and nothing to the registrar?

[bytemaster]

Are we able to vote for different transfer fees PER bitasset? So USD can stay on the expensive side... CNY can be cheaper, etc. Whatever makes sense for each currency/country-demographic.

It would give us an easy way to have region-based pricing.. a must-have strategy for competitive pricing globally

That is possible by setting the core exchange rate and keeping the fee pool funded (subsidizing some transfers).   

*Except* it is technically possible to pay your fee in any asset (different from the one you are transferring) thus it would have to be a wallet enforced convention rather than a blockchain enforced rule.

[bytemaster]

Are we able to vote for different transfer fees PER bitasset? So USD can stay on the expensive side... CNY can be cheaper, etc. Whatever makes sense for each currency/country-demographic.

It would give us an easy way to have region-based pricing.. a must-have strategy for competitive pricing globally

That is possible by setting the core exchange rate and keeping the fee pool funded (subsidizing some transfers).     

[roadscape]

Are we able to vote for different transfer fees PER bitasset? So USD can stay on the expensive side... CNY can be cheaper, etc. Whatever makes sense for each currency/country-demographic.

It would give us an easy way to have region-based pricing.. a must-have strategy for competitive pricing globally

[roadscape]

I would set fees very low at this time. (transfer and market orders)    As a sort of introductory rate.  No sense in generating "high fee" press at this point.

As the price of BTS rises, the $ rate on fees will rise without doing or changing anything.

As the $ price of fees approaches the ideal rate (~$0.20) begin lowering the fee (in terms of BTS) to maintain this.

I think its important to reach as many people as possible right now, and fees should be so small as to not even be a factor.  If you're selling the idea of lifetime member to someone the % savings is still the same and the idea of slowly reaching a target of 20 cents can be communicated.

Tending to agree.. if we set the transfer fee to $0.05 now, all we'd have to do is lower it when market cap goes over 40M to maintain ~$0.20.

[void]

I agree with this logic

transfer fee should be low,  so that a casual user can transfer any amount, incl. micro-transactions, for a very low fixed fee.  (otherwise we're not showing that DPOS is the most cost effective technology - i.e., low fee without any hidden inflation due to a POW/etc. scheme.)

exchange fee can be higher -  provides incentive for lifetime membership & target market of professional traders

[Empirical1.2]

  Sounds good.

Being competitive with BTC for transfers and competitive with centralized exchanges for trading sounds like a good starting strategy.

(I believe people are willing to pay more for larger transfers up to a point, so a percentage based system could increase profitability & the success of the referral programme particularly in US/Western Europe. It's also how trading fees are calculated on most exchanges. So it would be good to have some time in the future.)

Premium UIA and account names are where we can experiment with high fees at the early stages imo. They are also 'limited' so if we undercharge now we lose that opportunity for good.  So I would consider making those very high to start.

[Xeldal]

I would set fees very low at this time. (transfer and market orders)    As a sort of introductory rate.  No sense in generating "high fee" press at this point.

As the price of BTS rises, the $ rate on fees will rise without doing or changing anything.

As the $ price of fees approaches the ideal rate (~$0.20) begin lowering the fee (in terms of BTS) to maintain this.

I think its important to reach as many people as possible right now, and fees should be so small as to not even be a factor.  If you're selling the idea of lifetime member to someone the % savings is still the same and the idea of slowly reaching a target of 20 cents can be communicated.

[clayop]

IMO transfer fee of BTS can be high. However, the transfer fee of Smartcoins should be low. Is it possible?

[Shentist]

the point is - we are not sure where we will find our userbase. So to make the hurdle so high for not so "rich" people it will
not bring them to us.

would it possible to say

a transaction with value <= 1000 BTS you have to pay say 5 BTS
if it is higher the normal transaction fee will be applied

so for the userbase say in Argentina, most of the users has not the need to make lifetimemembership account, but still can use our network. This will not hinder the referral idea.

[mindphlux]

I would not lower it to 5 BTS, 10 BTS should be the minimum, that is 4 cents. Very reasonable IMHO.

[fav]

not needed in my opinion. that's why we got Lifetime Memberships

[bytemaster]

It seems like there is a lot of debate around the transfer fees and this debate is both good and bad.

I expect transfers to make up a relatively small part of BTS transaction types.  The vast majority of the fees will be paid in the market as people place orders.

Rather than having negative PR of "high fees" we can offer Transfers at a lower fee, while maintaining the higher fees for everything else. 

If the transfer fee for normal users is equal to the BTC transfer fee then we cannot be accused of having "high fees".

If we lower the transfer fee from 40 BTS to 5 BTS then transfers will cost the same as bitcoin.   We can keep blind transfers at a higher price and keep market orders at 10 BTS.

It is just a question of asking ourselves what business are we in.    If we are in the exchange business then transfers can be nearly free because we make our money on exchanges.   

Having something that is "cheap" allows us to advertize  "lowest transfer fees of any crypto-currency".   

Thoughts?