21 Inc. launches a free online service that estimates the fees and delay associated with bitcoin transactions.
A Bitcoin startup 21 Inc., has recently launched a free web application that would help bitcoin users determine the fee required to confirm a transaction in a given amount of time.
The application and service, hosted on bitcoinfees.21.co, offers real-time figures to show relevant fee amounts that are being paid on the bitcoin network. Besides, the service shows the expected times for confirmation of transactions. Fees are established in satoshi(s) per byte, making a nod to the smallest denomination of a bitcoin.
When sending bitcoin payments, users are typically required to send a transaction fee to reward the miners who verify the transaction on the blockchain. In stating the obvious, miners prefer transactions with bigger fees as rewards. Higher fees bring faster transactions recorded onto the blockchain, enabling quicker confirmation.
Exactly how large a fee you need to get rapid transaction confirmation can be hard to predict in advance, because everyone else sending a bitcoin transaction at the same time is effectively competing with you for the speed of inclusion into the blockchain.
In providing its solution, the company revealed a new interface that bitcoin users can access on the web. Users who manually send bitcoin transactions will now gain predictions of the optimum transaction fee.
The fees predictions are gauged from blockchain data from the previous three hours as well as the current pool of unconfirmed transactions.
Furthermore, the company claimed that its simulations provide a clear indication on how quickly transactions with different fees “are likely to be included in the upcoming blocks.”
“Please note that including a recommended fee does not guarantee that you will end up in the next block; it just gives a recommendation based on recent past performance,” the company disclaims.
21 Inc. has provided the API for the new service for developers.
“People compare Bitcoin to the Internet. Well, the Internet required an enormous hardware infrastructure buildout before its potential as a software platform could be realized. That’s where we come in. We believe that Bitcoin isn’t going to happen simply by dropping a line of JavaScript into a webpage. Someone needs to build the full-stack infrastructure for Bitcoin, from silicon to software. Backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Qualcomm, Cisco, and Peter Thiel, that someone is us,” says the company’s website.
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