Bitcoin Forum

I don't get why lots of people are pay ridiculous overpriced fees when sending Bitcoin to those greedy ass miners! I've been experimenting with my wallet and reducing the fees each time and have been sending at 0.00005BTC/kilobyte. It only cost me $0.05 (5 cents) to send and I got 4 confirmations in 5 minutes! Anyone paying more than this is a complete idiot. I'm sure that I could even maybe do it at 0.00001BTC/kilobyte and it would get all confirmed within 20mins.

Anyway, let's discuss what is the fees you are paying when sending. What's the minimum fees you've tried?

it is not people, it is the wallet clients and their broken fee estimations most of the time.
right now that the memory pool is empty (<3000 tx) you can pay small fees and if the mining pools don't reject your transaction it will be mined. (some mining pools like F2Pool for example have set a minimum fee/B that they will reject lower than that).

checking the latest block it is filled with 1 satoshi/byte transactions:
https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000000513221a373529b99c1982999abcfc189f446e0a8896e03?show_adv=true

LOL, 4 blocks in 5 min or nearly 1 block every 1 minute. you got ultra lucky.

I have sent a fee of $0.05 CDN, which was something like $0.04 USD (likely a bit less) at the time. That was probably the lowest fee I have ever put on a transaction that actually went through within an hour or two, I can't remember what the timing was exactly. It was a fairly long time ago, so I don't remember the specifics.

I think there was once instance where I paid a fee in excess of $1.00 CDN, and that was essentially at the peak of queue times and flooding transactions. That was just to make it go through quickly.

Update: I got 12 confirmations in one hour with this $0.05USD (5 cents) fee paid. Nice :)

People need to stop using wallets where you can't adjust the fees and put in your own values for the fees. You've gotta be stupid if you are overpaying on fees for no reasons giving away money to greedy miners. I think that next time I need to do a transaction, I'll adjust my wallet to 0.00001BTC/kilobyte.

I only see spammers often make transactions using a large FEE fee to their own address :)
since yesterday until the bitcoin transaction network many have not get confirmation, yes I often see it but not with 2 days fee fee is not too big to send bitcoin and no longer see spammers do previous transactions and may come back :)
https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

You have a point but we have no choice. For example when we play dice games the minimum withdrawal fee is 0.0004 btc and on the exchanges the minimum fee is 0.0015 btc. If we are just allowed to place a small fee like you do then we will be glad to do so but since the fee is fixed we cannot but to comply and pay the required fee by the gambling sites and exchanges.

you have a very good point here but most of the times we cann not edit our miner's fees depending on the wallet type we use.... if i may ask what BTC wallet do you use?

besides i strongly feel the miners fees and way too expensive and should be reviewed by consesus.... its way too high... 0.0005BTC - 0.001BTC is unacceptable as some miners charge

Confirmations don't equal blocks. Correct me if I'm wrong, but for the number of confirmations that are used to verify one transaction multiplied by the number of transactions we'd need far more than 21m bitcoin if each confirmation awarded the miner with a block.

Can you clarify what you mean here? Thanks.

Give us proof or gtfo of here. A lot of people might follow your example and never get there transactions confirmed. < or they will have to increase the fees afterwards to get it confirmed > If you do not want to compromise your identity, you could take a screen capture of the tx and then edit the personal details.

I also hate the 3rd party wallets and their silly fee estimation, but some people do not even query these fees and just pay what is recommended.

Try to wait for a time when fees are lower because the mempool isn't as full.  If the transaction isn't urgent, always pay the minimum.  There are going to be some days when the mempool is swamped and you will have to pay higher fees if you want to get coins transferred.  At least segwit has helped a bit.

While using blockchain Im able to setup the fee myself. Which wallet are you sending bitcoins from ?

Start using a Segwit wallet. Block weight is 4x larger once you do. GreenAddress and Trezor have both released their Segwit wallets. I saw Jameson Lopp posting about BitGo clearing a lot of transactions and helping to create a couple 1.3 MB blocks by using Segwit, so I think BitGo might be ready, too. People are paying 1-3 satoshis/byte with Segwit transactions and getting confirmed without problems.

I have send amounts with 0 fees, but that was some years ago.

which wallet are you using?  well for me i actually tried  setting transaction fee to a verry low amount like 0.0003 but after i send it is still using the default transaction fee which is 0.0007 low priority. by the way im using a coinomi wallet for android.  i think that 0.0007 is too high for me because im not that earning much bitcoins here in the forum.

i saw a 0-fee transaction confirmed just the other day: https://blockchain.info/tx/2e1fca53148718bd4d00eeebed510a9417a96a5bbd09be395c51afe776954ef2

so it still happens today. this one was supposedly pushed by a transaction accelerator service right here on the forum. i would be careful sending no-fee transactions, though, for obvious reasons. very easy for transactions like this to get stuck. but if you're just consolidating inputs (sending to self) and you've got time, why not? :)

confirmation shows the "depth" of your transaction.
when you have 1 confirmation it means your transaction is inside the last block.
when you have 3 confirmation it means your transaction was included in 3 blocks ago or 3 blocks deep.

this "depth" also shows how likely double spending is.

for example this is the first bitcoin transaction ever:
https://blockchain.info/tx/f4184fc596403b9d638783cf57adfe4c75c605f6356fbc91338530e9831e9e16
it was included in block 170 and it has 484450 confirmation by the time i am typing this and the last block found was 484619 which means that tx is 484450 blocks deep. (there are 484450 between block 170 and block 484619 including block 170) mathematically: 484619 -170 + 1 = 484450

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Confirmation

Exactly.. It seems like that blockchain.infos way of showing "Cost per transaction" is utterly wrong. But even that fellow Roger Ver doesn't seem to notice it. He's yelling his fees are killing the system etc. Right after the switch i experimented with sending with lower fees and noticed that it worked flawlessly even with only 1 satoshi/byte. So in that statement he is utterly wrong!

To put it into perspective, this chart https://blockchain.info/sv/charts/cost-per-transaction?timespan=60days (https://blockchain.info/sv/charts/cost-per-transaction?timespan=60days) is so misleading because this following chart tells us that you don't need to pay high fees anylonger. Simply adjust it manually instead. https://blockchain.info/sv/charts/mempool-size?timespan=30days (https://blockchain.info/sv/charts/mempool-size?timespan=30days)

When you combine the options to look and think for yourselves then you could start sending BTC with lower fees for others/yourself if you don't need it super super fast then i'd opt to raise the fee somewhat to have the possibility to process it faster but most often even if i send two transactions at the same time with different amounts and fees they almost get confirmed next to eachother in time anyhow even if the fee is 100X+ higher.

I use this site as a measurement of how much that is in the pipe in different fee amounts... https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ (https://bitcoinfees.21.co/).
So as the topic says.. Do some tests with lower amounts and you'll see that it will work out for you.

well, i tried to to send a transaction with 10 satoshi per byte few month ago and it was stuck over 2 days until i accelerated through viabtc it took another 8 hours to be included in their block. if i used a high priority fee, it will cost me 10 dollars in fees if i used a high priority fee.

Try it today instead! Look at mempool.

I just did a test. Lets find out.. https://blockchain.info/sv/tx/1d083a2179ffc33eb8365406884fd26fe7cf64310d1733e2b42f89bf447b6407 (https://blockchain.info/sv/tx/1d083a2179ffc33eb8365406884fd26fe7cf64310d1733e2b42f89bf447b6407) how long it takes.

Never mind! I did get my first confirmation within two minutes.. And that with as low as 1.022 sat/B ... Go figure :)

This one https://core.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#2h (https://core.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#2h) gives a slightly higher definition and some history as well. You can see that if you are prepared to wait you can get transactions through with low fees. The number of transactions that go through with extremely high fees is mainly due to people withdrawing from sites that don't give the option to use low fees. They either use a fixed high fee to make sure transactions go through at high priority or they use dynamic fees that often stay high long after the mempool has cleared out.

4 confirmations in 5 minutes?

Guess you sent some altcoin by mistake, almost impossible 4 blocks be mined in 5 minutes with Bitcoin

Don't take it literally but it is a possibility that different pools could find their respective block within seconds but that would get rectified when difficulty adjusts itself within 1440 blocks if they start to find so many blocks in short time..

The opposite the other way ofcourse if it take too much time.

Usually I look at unconfirmed transactions before I decide if I'll place large fees or not. If it is only a few thousands, i'll risk it.


It got confirmed but after 99 days, I bet you don't want to do that on a tx you need badly

That was a fine chart.. It coincides nicely with the ICO ban in China/Korea (And the ICO people got a heads up ofcourse and the volume ceased) due to the regulations.. But it seems temporary as it was announced that a licensing model is required. https://cointelegraph.com/news/china-ban-on-ico-is-temporary-licensing-to-be-introduced-official (https://cointelegraph.com/news/china-ban-on-ico-is-temporary-licensing-to-be-introduced-official)

if you can not edit the fees to what you like then either stop using that said wallet and switch to another wallet that gives you this flexibility or just ask the developers of your wallet to change the fee and give you more flexibility. they usually are listening to feedback.

In my last transactions I always payed the minium fee of 1 sat/byte, when I'm not in hurry (and I'm usually never in hurry).

When mempool was big (> 50000 tx) my transactions took between 4 hours and 1 full day for first confirmation. Actually I was surprised that it did not take days...
After spamming of mempool stopped, my 1 sat/byte transactions went through within the next 1 to 5 blocks.

So I don't see any reason for me to pay more than the minimum fee at all.

Of course, the wallet need to be able to support those low fees, what is the biggest challange in my opinion.

Now after moving my coins to segwit addresses it's even cheaper as the size of the transactions are smaller.

Coinomi is the exact same wallet that I used. On the last screen before you actually send it gives you an option of the fee structure, but they automatically change the dropdown menu to "Normal". You need to select it and change it back to "Default" so it will use the fee you have set. That's one thing I don't like about that wallet, you need to be careful or you will overpay.

Lol...how did you become a "Hero" member when you have absolutely no idea? My online exchange account says otherwise. Oh, and my wallet only had BTC so it's impossible to send an altcoin when you have no altcoins.

no, it got confirmed in a little over 4 days (received by blockchain.info's nodes 8-28-17, confirmed on 9-01-17). even during that time, it would have been dropped from typical node mempools and would have needed to be re-broadcasted. if it was unconfirmed for 99 days, i highly doubt anyone would still be trying to re-broadcast it. :P

the push by the network towards segwit transactions has been great. i haven't upgraded yet myself, but the last few transactions i sent were all confirmed within a couple hours and all sent w/ < 5 satoshis/byte. :)

Which desktop & mobile wallets support segwit transactions?

Actually it is up to the preference of the sender on setting the miners fees he wants to pay, some users does not mind paying higher miners fees in order to get their transaction confirmed on the blockchain at a shorter period of time, for users that do not mind waiting for long hours to get their transaction confirm, they can always customize the miners fees to a lower amount.

The hardware wallets from Trezor and Ledger are the only ones I know of that have fully implemented segwit. All the others are at "coming soon" stage. That's why I don't think segwit has anything to do with the low transaction fees at the moment. It looks like a combination of the spammers have given up trying to slow the network down and the disruption of miners going off to mine Bitcoin Cash is over for the time being.

Let's carefully analyze how the situation has changed during the past 6-7 months time. At the beginning of this year, I remember paying around BTC0.0001 as the tx fee for most of my transactions. Back then, the exchange rates were around $1,000 per coin. And the fee was equivalent to $0.10. And after 6 months, I was paying somewhere between BTC0.0015 and BTC0.0020 as the tx fee. Considering the increase in the exchange rates, this represents a 90 times increase in the tx fee (from $0.10 to $9.00).

I agree with the OP. We need to unite against this fleecing by the miners. They've become too greedy.   

In really depends on the individual, if you don't want to used higher fees then don't send it but pay the minimum. But if you prefer that your transaction be picked up in the next 5 -10 blocks then you have to pay them at premium. I think this is how some payment scheme as well in the card industry. If you want to get your funds transfer quickly, then you have to pay them at premium otherwise you have to wait for 3-5 days before actually seeing the funds going into your account. That's why I customized my fee depending on my needs.

Well, I think so, why the fee for transaction costs Bitcoin now very expensive, in my opinion,
this will make people leave  Bitcoin because we can see that the transaction costs have been very high now.

A big part of the problem is that users are fleecing themselves, effectively, by paying more than necessary. I've recently had transactions confirmed which paid only a couple satoshis per byte. Congestion is actually down, and Segwit transactions are picking up, lowering fees across the board.

The other thing is that we can't look at fees in terms of fiat value. Fiat is irrelevant to the protocol; fees are built into the protocol in terms of BTC. If the market price of BTC will continue to rise in the future, you can expect fees to rise as well. I think we all better get used to that idea now. Batch payments efficiently, migrate to Segwit, and look forward to the Lightning Network and sidechains.

I think it's not only about the miners, but also when you pay for something, there is always a high priority fee for the transaction, and you end up paying more that normal in fees. The pools are also not that full, so the transactions are getting cleared more or less faster. This is good, and we should have always in mind, that whenever we pay in fiat with a credit card, the bank also takes a little amount for the transaction. Hope bitcoin transactions get cleaner,  and fees continue in some satoshis only.

If you send BTC to a Trezor or Ledger, are all receiving addresses Segwit addresses or do you need to do something special to make it on a Segwit address?

I don't have either so I'm not sure. they're just the only ones I've seen advertising that they support it. I believe it requires a firmware upgrade in old wallets. Personally, I use Electrum so I'm waiting for the version of that to come out so I can see how it all work.

i use exchanger fee and it is fixed 0.0006 BTC, never get problem with that because miner help us. if no miner how we can send our coins ?

It is not the miners to blame with this situation of bitcoin transactions right now because they have nothing to do with the price of transactions fees as they are just making the job for the network to function, it is the spammers of transactions that is the main culprit behind this increase of fees.

I just sent a transaction of mine earlier this day and I just paid less a dollar worth of bitcoin for the next 25 blocks so it is depends in you in how much faster you want to send your transactions, let's just hope that it will be all back to the good old days when segwit is fully functional with bitcoin.

no, what it is is meaningless in crypto world or more precisely it is meaningless to report fee in dollar value.
because first we are using bitcoin not dollar
second fee is not a fixed thing per transaction. instead bitcoin fees are an amount based on size. which is why you must report fee/Byte.

in fact $5 may very well be the tiniest fee possible you paid if your transaction size was huge with lots of inputs.