Quote from: d5000 on Today at 06:28:03 PM

I agree but I'm worrying about these 10-20%. Or do you think they're all altruist/hobby miners? Of course some of those miners will get priced out "normally" over time, but they could become priced out earlier due to the effect I was describing. It's an acceleration of an existing gradual process.

I think it's important that we define a few terms so we're all on the same page -- also for those following along. There's a clear distinction between miners (as individuals or entities operating hardware) and mining pools (as services coordinating hashpower). When spammers reach out to mining pools, they're effectively increasing the earnings of all miners in those pools. Contrary to what many believe, small miners are often found in large pools -- not the other way around. Why? Because large miners can afford to mine solo or in small pools with tolerable variance, while smaller operators need consistent payouts that large pools offer.

Those 10-20% you worry about are mostly coming from large private farms that deliberately avoid tagging their coinbases to stay under the radar -- not from tiny hobbyist miners.

Now, separating miners as people from the equation, let's talk about mining pools. If direct bribing is happening, it’s not related to pool size. How do I know? For example, Foundry -- currently holding triple the hashrate of ViaBTC -- doesn't offer transaction acceleration for non-RBF transactions. The idea that spammers are constantly using out-of-band channels like private APIs or transaction accelerators is overblown. These services are usually used as a last resort -- when users or wallets miscalculate fees or make a non-standard transaction that doesn't get relayed well enough, and need to pay out-of-band to recover stuck transactions. They're not the go-to for routine usage.

Spammers won’t use these channels unless they have to. Why would they pay a premium off-chain when they could leverage the mempool like everyone else and compete in a fair fee market? To do that, they need their transactions visible to as many mining pools as possible -- meaning the wallets and apps that create them must maintain solid connectivity to pool nodes. And conversely, mining pool infrastructure needs to be connected to sources of these transactions. That's their business problem to solve, not the average node operator's.

I’m not denying that some entities benefit more than others under the current settings. But that's exactly why mining pools and spammers -- both of whom are making money -- should solve their own problems. We shouldn't let their needs become a burden on the rest of the network. Let's prioritize the average user and ensure their transactions get reliable relay treatment. If the spammers want in, they can work harder for it.

Let me post a random example of this frog's video can be looked in this transaction
It breaks a default policy rule (MAX_STANDARD_TX_WEIGHT of 400) -- All nodes with stock settings did not relay this transaction. Why would we want everybody relaying a 1-minute video of a dancing frog holding a drink? That transaction still made it to Terra Pool (a tiny pool that probably nobody has heard of)