Bitcoin Forum

Bitcoin => Electrum => Topic started by: Tuco1954 on February 20, 2021, 10:03:30 AM



Title: Insufficent funds - is there a way to make the transaction?
Post by: Tuco1954 on February 20, 2021, 10:03:30 AM
I have a wallet with ~0.00233BTC, which worth at the moment about 120$. I'm trying to send the entire amount to another wallet, using my Electrum wallet, but it seems that I can't accomplish it, since I don't have sufficent funds.
The wallet shows that the transaction's size is 2742 bytes, and the fees are 111.3 satoshi/byte, so the fees are ~0.00305BTC. Even if I try to lower the fee, it is still not enough.
Is there any way to make this transaction happen? Or the network supports only larger transfers?


Title: Re: Insufficent funds - is there a way to make the transaction?
Post by: ranochigo on February 20, 2021, 10:07:46 AM
Are you using Electrum's ETA fees estimation? That tends to be quite inaccurate as it does a floating average of the fees in the previous blocks rather than the actual mempool fees.

If you were to switch to mempool, you should be able to see much lower fees. You'd want to set it at about 1vMB for a confirmation within the next two blocks or so. The transaction size is pretty big so if you're not in a hurry. I would wait for the mempool to be less congested and send with much lower fees, possibly by tomorrow or so.

You can see how the condition of the mempool here: https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,24h


Title: Re: Insufficent funds - is there a way to make the transaction?
Post by: Tuco1954 on February 20, 2021, 10:16:59 AM
Are you using Electrum's ETA fees estimation?
Yes, I was using the ETA estimation. Just switched to mempool, and indeed the fees are lower, but still a substantial amount of the total. I will wait for lower fees.
Unfortunately I understand nothing about these terms. Is there a good source where I can read about it (I mean what is ETA, mempool fees, why 2700 bytes considered a big sized transaction)?
Thx :)


Title: Re: Insufficent funds - is there a way to make the transaction?
Post by: ranochigo on February 20, 2021, 10:24:50 AM
Is there a good source where I can read about it (I mean what is ETA, mempool fees, why 2700 bytes considered a big sized transaction)?
The ETA feature is like Bitcoin Core's floating fees which estimates the number of blocks it takes before the transaction gets included. It's more expensive than mempool as it takes a more conservative estimates based on the recent trend with the mempool and/or the fees paid by the transactions included by blocks. Mempool is a more up to date method to estimate the fees as it takes the current conditions as it is; each blocks takes 1vMB of the top paying transactions by fees/size and having a transaction with fees that puts it under that 1vMB threshold will probably result in your transaction being included in a block if it a block is mined immediately. Mempool is not the most accurate as it cannot take into account the possibility of blocks having a longer interval, etc.

2700bytes is fairly big. You likely have a lot of inputs which results in a larger transaction. A typical 1 input and 2 output bech32 transaction is about 142 (virtual)bytes. You'd want to consolidate[1] your unspent output often to have a smaller transaction size.

[1] https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987.0


Title: Re: Insufficent funds - is there a way to make the transaction?
Post by: LoyceV on February 20, 2021, 10:27:16 AM
You can/should manually edit the fee. Under Preferences, enable "Advanced preview". Then, when making the transaction, don't use the slider but just type a fee, for instance 10 sat/byte. For 2700 bytes that's still going to be around $15 and it won't confirm any time soon. If you're lucky, it may confirm tomorrow.

For future planning, you should read my topic on consolidating small inputs (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2848987.0).


Title: Re: Insufficent funds - is there a way to make the transaction?
Post by: Oshosondy on February 20, 2021, 10:33:32 AM
It is not good to have many inputs, that is the cause, you will need to consolidate, it is not hard to do, you need to send all the bitcoin to an address on your wallet, use the fee customization to edit the fee and type in as appropriate, the transaction will later be confirmed but will take time. You can use the mempool to determine that, but setting the fee low will be good. If you have consolidated it, you will be able to make use of your wallet for normal transaction fee. Make sure you consolidate again when you are having higher inputs and outputs.