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What should I be aware when I want distribute say 0.0001 bitcoin to 50 bitcoin wallets. I this be done with one transaction? what are the implication of transaction fees?
I want my students to experience the bitcoin phenomena.
I want to distribute small amount of bitcoins
Answers
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I read this on bitcoinfees.com
If any of the outputs (including any change) of your transaction are less than 0.01 BTC, then a fee of 0.0005 BTC is required.
This is called bitcoin dust. Smaller transactions as you intend todo comes with a fee.
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Well, I don't see the point in giving each student 0.000002 bitcoin, they cannot do anything with it as it is less than the transaction fee.
I'd recommend you to split maybe 1 BTC or 0.5 BTC amongst your student, to that they can actually use the coins.
For the practical side of the question, this can (and should) be done in a single transaction to reduce data overhead. Bitcoin allows to specify multiple inputs and outputs in a transaction, so you can take some bitcoins from your wallet and send some amount to 50 different addresses. However though, I think the original Qt client does not support this. (EDIT: As julian-goldsmith pointed out in his comment, it does seem to have this functionality after all.)
You could consider using a more advanced wallet like Armory (I have no experience with MultiBit or Electrum, maybe they can do the job as well). I think the web-wallet on Blockchain.info supports multiple outputs as well.
As long as the outputs are sufficiently big, like Filip says bigger than 0.01 BTC, you will not have to pay a fee, but of course you always can to support miners.
1I don't have it up, but if I remember correctly, the Qt client has a "+" next to the address you're sending bitcoins to, that will let you add more addresses. – julian-goldsmith – 2013-06-18T20:48:06.313