Why is geth not letting me post a transaction with a low gasPrice?
> ./geth console
> eth.sendTransaction({ "from": "...", "to": "...", "gas": "30000", "gasPrice": "10", "value": "0.1" })
Gas price too low for acceptance
My understanding of Ethereum is that gasPrice is set by the user and either a miner will process it or they won't (presumably based on the gas price). However, geth appears to be forcing me to pick a gasPrice that it believes is reasonable. The exact algorithm is unclear, but also irrelevant to my question. This behavior seems counter to the entire concept of market driven gas prices.
Is there a way I can tell geth, "no really, let me submit my transaction with a low gas price"? Am I misunderstanding the whole gas model? Is this a bug in geth?
Best Answer
This is a limitation of the 1.3.x stable branch. This check was already removed for own/local transactions in the 1.4 branch (https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/pull/1997), allowing you to insert transactions of even 0 gas price into your local node. The nodes in the network will still not accept anything lower than their configured limit nor forward such transactions (otherwise it would be a magnification DDOS attack). However if you manage to connect to a node that does (i.e. altruist miner), then you could relay your transactions to it.