Why unshielding transactions are sometimes delayed

[ning]

Hey, some of you guys have been running into issues with unshielding transactions - mostly in relation to the Ethereum chain. Here’s some background info that I hope will clear up some concerns.

Reasons for unshielding hiccups:

Incognito currently covers all cross-chain fees. Gas fees on Ethereum have been exceptionally high and very volatile recently (more info here: https://ethgasstation.info/). This results in some transactions getting ‘stuck’, and needing to be retried with a higher fee.

This issue has nothing to do with the incognito chain layer. If anything, this makes us even more committed to keeping native fees low for our users.

Our solution:

We will continue to increase the fees we pay for now, to ensure you guys get your funds in a timely manner. With an eye towards long-term sustainability however, we are also working on introducing unshielding fees. These will dynamically take into account fees charged by the corresponding external chain.

This will enable users to have more control over their experience: you will be able to choose to pay higher fees for faster transactions, lower fees for slower transactions, etc. This should go live in a few weeks, along with the community-requested merge of unshield and send.

What can you do in the meantime?

We hope most transactions will go through just fine. However, if yours does take longer than usual, or gets stuck, please be patient. Just post in the Help category or send a direct message to @support on the forum. If the correct flow is followed, funds will never be lost - just delayed.

And of course… you could always just stay incognito

[Revolve]

I’ve been hesitant to move my tokens at all because of the exorbitant gas fees. Normally I would put them in incognito, but some of the coins I own are not worth paying the 4-12$ in gas fees to move them there.

I know everyone is saying this, but we can really take advantage of the scalability problems that ETH is having. The reason why people aren’t using Incognito for moving ERC-20 tokens is because:
A) Not enough exposure about the incognito platform
and
B) Liquidating requires exiting the platform to an exchange. Incognito does not have any (good) rates for non mainstream tokens.

How can we fix this?
I think we should focus on making an exchange website just like one of the big mainstream exchanges (coinbase pro, bybit, poloniex). This would obviously be a big challenge, and the method of pricing coins is different, but I think it’s quite possible. Having a site dedicated to traders where you can put in orders and see price fluctuations might bring in the type of people we want. The fact that we can support any coin or token might be extremely attractive to investors, especially if everything is private. This could potentially be integrated into something like @raz’s Investor's Web Wallet, and the charts and transaction information can come from @inccry’s Incscan.io.

We want to bring in this demographic because that would give us the opportunity for liquidity providing in less mainstream tokens.

Also I would like to add that maybe when a transaction errors out, there should be a notification saying that their value isn’t lost, and they should contact support. This would help people be less nervous about failed or delayed transactions. Maybe provide a unique code, so users don’t have to screenshot transactions.

[doc]

@Revolve

Also I would like to add that maybe when a transaction errors out, there should be a notification saying that their value isn’t lost, and they should contact support. This would help people be less nervous about failed or delayed transactions. Maybe provide a unique code, so users don’t have to screenshot transactions.

@ning I think this is an excellent suggestion. If the Incognito app can have any information about why the transaction failed, and if it is due to high gas fees on Ethereum that Incognito is covering and is not because of Incognito chain, a real opportunity is being missed.

Currently this UX reads, “hmm, this chain isn’t stable, I am not sure if I can trust it with my coins”, compared too “Ethereum chain is so expensive and Incognito has been covering all of these fees for me, I can try again… at least Incognito chain is giving me the opportunity to save on gas fees”

[ning]

@Revolve

Also I would like to add that maybe when a transaction errors out, there should be a notification saying that their value isn’t lost, and they should contact support.

@doc

If the Incognito app can have any information about why the transaction failed, and if it is due to high gas fees on Ethereum that Incognito is covering and is not because of Incognito chain, a real opportunity is being missed.

thanks @revolve and @doc for your suggestions, the product team will make the tx detail screen more informative, and the support team will streamline the reporting process from the app.

[ning]

@Revolve

We want to bring in this demographic because that would give us the opportunity for liquidity providing in less mainstream tokens.

cc-ing @elena here, who handles new listings and our relationships with ERC20 projects.

[hellothere]

Thanks for the explanation! Totally ok if you guys increase the unshield fee (using PRV of course) as well since ETH gas has been ridiculous lately