We are working on a project that would enable paying for electronic goods using Bitcoin.
We are also considering encouraging participation by using Satoshis. Satoshis are a very small fraction of one Bitcoin, to be precise they are 1/100 Million fraction of a BTC or 0.00000001 of a BTC.
Using the Lightning Network it is easy to send even one single Satoshi because the transaction cost is extremely low. For this reason some apps allow people to send Satoshis to people as a way to thank them for their content, here is one example from Fountain, a podcast app:
What is the full transaction cost of sending one Satoshi using the Bitcoin functionality of the Internet Computer? The full fee that would be expected by using cycles, and the BTC feature?
I know the answer is there somewhere, but is not clear yet, it seems the minimum to send is more than one Satoshi, but not clear what is the fee structure, and what would be the minimum that makes economic sense.
If you are talking about the ckBTC transfers, then there’s a fixed fee of 10 Satoshis, it you want to do native BTC transfers, then you’ll have to pay regular BTC transaction fees.
Hope that helps and looking forward to what you’re building!
We are in the Product Pitch phase, but going fairly deep into the Technical Architecture.
At 10 Satoshis for ckBTC is not so much, since 10 Satoshis is just: USD $0.0027. So still appropriate for many micro payments, or tips.
We are working hard on a detailed product pitch, and plan to apply for a grant very soon. We are in the final phases of the detailed deck. We hope you and DFINITY are as excited from our project as we are, it’s something new and with great potential.
FYI there’s no additional cycle cost for the user besides the 10 Satoshi. The user does not need to hold cycles. In further comparison to lightning, you don’t have any infrastructure to maintain as you do with lightning. Your transaction time is 1-2 seconds, while on lightning it could be lower.
Thanks Timo, the fact that no infrastructure is needed is a big deal, since it simplifies a lot doing commerce with ckBTC. According to some developers we know in the Lightning Network camp, they tell me the DFINITY implementation is also much more secure.
I am not aware whether Lightning does any KYT either, which explains their very low transaction costs.