So I had a few dollars in an old bitcoin wallet that I haven't used in a couple of years. I decided to put the money to use so I sent it to my regular sportsbooks. Unfortunately, it's now been over a week and the transaction still hasn't confirmed so I contacted customer support. They told me that the fee I attached was only 5 cent which is much too small and it was unlikely to ever confirm. I guess it's my own fault for using an old wallet that used a fixed fee rather than a dynamic one. It's only a couple of hundred dollars so I won't lose too much sleep about it but can anyone recommend an easy way to increase the fee attached to transfer so that it gets confirmed?
You could try using the ViaBTC Transaction accelerator. ViaBTC are a mining pool so if you pay them a tiny fee they will prioritise your transaction in the next block that is mined. https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/
You could try Peter Todd's Replace-By-Fee that allows you to replace the fee in one transaction with a larger fee.
I thought they would simply stay in the mempool for a couple of weeks before returning to the wallet.
I never use wallets that allow you to set your own fee because it is too easy to get the figures mixed up. Every couple of weeks a transaction gets mined where the person entered the "send" amount as a fee and they end up paying $4,000 for a transaction that should cost $0.40.
This article is good for anyone looking to troubleshoot a stuck transaction. https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/what-to-do-if-your-bitcoin-transaction-gets-stuck-1481042383/
Bitcoin fees have been dropping recently so hopefully any stuck transactions have now cleared, even if you mistakenly added a low transaction fee....
Will it be possible for Lightning Network transactions to also get stuck if you don't attach a sufficiently large fee?
I don't think so. Lightning Network transactions should only cost a thousand of a cent so it will be hard not to attach a sufficient fee. They won't be broadcast on-chain either, which is where the real cost of processing transactions are.
Here is a thread that discusses transaction accelerators that you might find useful when a transaction gets stuck https://forum.bitcoingambling.io/threads/what-happens-when-a-transaction-gets-stuck.162/
Bitcoin weekly fees are literally 0 sat/byte so if any of you have a stuck transaction, it should clear this week....
i had a transaction that was stuck for a couple of months last year but it eventually went through in january once the backlog was cleared and fees dropped.
Use the Blockstream Green wallet for Android and iPhone and you can use Replace By Fee (RBF). If you're initial transaction fee is not big enough, the wallet basically allows you to make the fee greater so it gets included sooner.