Understanding Bitcoin Feeds and Fees with bitcoin-cli

As a beginner or cryptocurrency enthusiast, you have probably heard of the various commands available through bitcoin-cli, the command-line interface for interacting with the Bitcoin network. One of the most interesting features of bitcoin-cli is its ability to use RPC (Remote Procedure Call) to access and manipulate underlying blockchain data.

In this article, we will explore two specific topics related to using bitcoin-cli: accessing transactions via RPC commands such as listtransactions and gettransaction, and examining the implications of a positive fee on those transactions.

bitcoin-rpc commands

The “bitcoin-rpc” interface allows you to access various aspects of blockchain data, including transactions. The most commonly used commands are:

• listtransactions: Lists all unspent transaction outputs (UTXO) in your wallet.

• gettransaction: Retrieves a single transaction by ID.

Fees and Positive Fees

Now let’s get to the topic of positive fees in Bitcoin transactions.

Bitcoin has a feature called “soft-fees” or “variable-fees” that allows miners to set their own fees for processing transactions. This means that instead of using a fixed fee per byte of data (known as the base fee), miners can choose how much they want to charge based on the complexity and size of the transaction.

However, when you use “bitcoin-cli” commands like “listtransactions”, “gettransaction” or other RPC commands, you are actually retrieving data from the blockchain without paying any fees. This is because these transactions are not sent to a peer (another node on the network), but are retrieved directly from the blockchain itself.

Can fees ever be positive?

In theory, yes, it is possible for fees in Bitcoin transactions to be positive. However, this would require you to obtain the data from a source other than the main blockchain, such as a miner or a node on a separate network.

For example, if you used bitcoin-cli to retrieve a particular transaction and then send it back to another node on another network, the receiving node could potentially charge a positive fee for processing the transaction. This would require you to process payment transactions between nodes in this manner.

Conclusion

In short, while fees are typically charged when sending Bitcoin transactions to another node or miner, there is no inherent reason why they cannot be applied when using RPC commands such as `listtransactions'' andgettransaction''. However, retrieving data from the blockchain itself without paying any fees is a different story. If you plan to process payment transactions between nodes in the future, you should be aware that fees could become an issue.

• Usinglisttransactionsandgettransactionto get a specific transaction:

bitcoin-cli listtransactions -txid  --output json > tx.json
bitcoin-cli gettransaction -txid 

• Sending a payment transaction between two nodes on different networks using the `bitcoin-rpc' interface:

Node 1 (A) - sends payment to node B (B)
curl -X POST \
 \
-H 'Content-type: application/json' \
-d '{"txid": "123456789", "from": "A", "to": "B"}'

Node B accepts payment and updates balance

Understanding how bitcoin-cli` works with RPC commands, you can better understand the complexities of bitcoin transactions and network interactions. However, always keep fees in mind when processing payment transactions between nodes in the future.