<p>The vast majority of nodes on the Bitcoin network do not participate in mining. Wallets are usually either connected to a) a full node controlled by the wallet owner, b) a full node controlled by the wallet software provider, c) a listening full node on the open network.</p>
<p>In the case of a) and b), the node operator is directly incentivized to disseminate the transaction. They want the wallet user to succeed and assist by telling all their peers about the transaction. When wallets connect to random nodes on the network, they generally connect to multiple in order to ensure that they are not subject to eclipse attacks. Each listening full node has usually 125 connections. Each non-listening full node makes usually 10 connections. Since most nodes do not participate in mining, it is completely reasonable to expect that submitting your transaction even just to a few nodes is sufficient for your (high-feerate!) transaction to propagate widely as each honest node would immediately relay it to its 9–124 other peers.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-11-27T18:04:54.170Z
2023-11-27T18:04:54.170Z
Murch
<p>What you're missing is that it doesn't matter. If Alice wants to send a message to Bill and Bill wants to hear the message from Alice, if both Alice and Bill are connected to the Internet, it doesn't matter if Charlie, David, and Edna don't want them to.</p>
<p>So long as the people making the high fee transactions want miners to get them, miners want to get high fee transactions, everyone is connected to the Internet, and the Internet isn't broken, there's no problem. There is absolutely nothing difficult about solving this problem.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-11-25T22:04:53.587Z
But wallets are usually connected to 1 or 2 nodes and send the transaction to those nodes. Suppose those nodes decide to keep the transaction to themselves until they are able to mine them in a block. In that case, other nodes in the network can't include those transactions in their blocks, resulting in the transaction taking longer to be included in the blockchain. 
Isn't this true?
Amin Bashiri
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-11-25T22:40:37.680Z
@AminBashiri Arguments aren't like buses, you can't get off at your stop. You have to ride it to the end of the line. If that were true, miners would run nodes specifically to gather transactions from the wallets and wallets would connect to those nodes for their mutual benefit. So either everyone is stupid, they already do this, or it's not true.
David Schwartz
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-11-24T21:06:11.450Z
2023-11-24T21:06:11.450Z
David Schwartz
<p>The way I see it there's no incentive for miners to broadcast high fee transactions they receive. They are more incentivized to keep these high-fee transactions to themselves until they can mine them and put them in a block.</p>
<p>This is ironic because users usually pay high fees when they want their transactions to be included faster. Still, if they send it to 1,2, or 3 nodes and all these nodes decide to keep the transaction to themselves until they can mine them in a block so that these fees won't go to any other miner, it would take a longer time for these transactions to be included in a block.</p>
<p>Is this valid or am I missing something?</p>

<transaction-fees><mempool><transaction-propagation>
Is there an incentive to broadcast high fee transactions?
Amin Bashiri
# Is there an incentive to broadcast high fee transactions?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-11-24)

The way I see it there's no incentive for miners to broadcast high fee transactions they receive. They are more incentivized to keep these high-fee transactions to themselves until they can mine them and put them in a block.

This is ironic because users usually pay high fees when they want their transactions to be included faster. Still, if they send it to 1,2, or 3 nodes and all these nodes decide to keep the transaction to themselves until they can mine them in a block so that these fees won't go to any other miner, it would take a longer time for these transactions to be included in a block.

Is this valid or am I missing something?

**Tags:** transaction-fees, mempool, transaction-propagation


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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-11-27. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

The vast majority of nodes on the Bitcoin network do not participate in mining. Wallets are usually either connected to a) a full node controlled by the wallet owner, b) a full node controlled by the wallet software provider, c) a listening full node on the open network.

In the case of a) and b), the node operator is directly incentivized to disseminate the transaction. They want the wallet user to succeed and assist by telling all their peers about the transaction. When wallets connect to random nodes on the network, they generally connect to multiple in order to ensure that they are not subject to eclipse attacks. Each listening full node has usually 125 connections. Each non-listening full node makes usually 10 connections. Since most nodes do not participate in mining, it is completely reasonable to expect that submitting your transaction even just to a few nodes is sufficient for your (high-feerate!) transaction to propagate widely as each honest node would immediately relay it to its 9–124 other peers.


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### Answer by username_2 on 2023-11-24. Score: 1

What you're missing is that it doesn't matter. If Alice wants to send a message to Bill and Bill wants to hear the message from Alice, if both Alice and Bill are connected to the Internet, it doesn't matter if Charlie, username_2, and Edna don't want them to.

So long as the people making the high fee transactions want miners to get them, miners want to get high fee transactions, everyone is connected to the Internet, and the Internet isn't broken, there's no problem. There is absolutely nothing difficult about solving this problem.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: But wallets are usually connected to 1 or 2 nodes and send the transaction to those nodes. Suppose those nodes decide to keep the transaction to themselves until they are able to mine them in a block. In that case, other nodes in the network can't include those transactions in their blocks, resulting in the transaction taking longer to be included in the blockchain.  Isn't this true?  
> **username_2**: @username_0 Arguments aren't like buses, you can't get off at your stop. You have to ride it to the end of the line. If that were true, miners would run nodes specifically to gather transactions from the wallets and wallets would connect to those nodes for their mutual benefit. So either everyone is stupid, they already do this, or it's not true.  

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