Lowering Transfer Fees

[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.