Dogecoin developer Ross Nichol is engaged in efforts to publicize plans to reform the fee policy on controversial and famous meme cryptocurrency.
It can be recalled that alongside its monumental rise in value this year, Dogecoin network fees have also increased tremendously. This resulted in loss of incentives for on-chain transactions.
Developers are now looking to fend off this problem by looking at policy changes with regards to fees, seeking a 50x reduction at a minimum. This move is expected to provide support for the joke cryptocurrency’s attempt to reinvent itself as a digital payment currency.
The supposed set-up
Dogecoin developers actually set an original fee structure that focused on reducing on-chain spam, centering on a 1 DOGE per kilobyte fee.
This was seen to provide relatively cheap transactions and still be balanced enough to prevent large amounts of network spam.
Moreover, in an attempt to stop network spammers, developers decided to recommend a minimum output size of 1 DOGE and smaller outputs than this were penalized with an additional 1 DOGE fee.
This kind of setup, however, was not enforced on the network, except as a default in the software. It wasn’t until late 2018 that this policy was enforced at the relay code level of Dogecoin nodes.
The community responds
When compared to that of other tokens, fees on the Dogecoin network are significantly lower, standing at a current average of around $0.49.
Bitcoin fees reach to as high as $7.12 while ethereum’s sit at $4.17. Even with this, developers want to reduce fees in order to encourage more free-flowing transactions and outflow of DOGE from exchanges.
Meanwhile, self-proclaimed “Dogefather” Elon Musk, seemingly expressed his approval with this plan, saying it is “important to support” them.
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