Bitcoin Forum

Good day everyone, can anyone explain to me here what I've been doing wrong or is it totally normal? I usually do this kind of transaction but the fees seem to be a little bit high this time as you can see here. Most of the time my transactions were around 40$ and transaction fees were only around 2$ most of the time, of course except if the network was congested but it doesn't seem to be congested as per checking.

https://i.postimg.cc/pLnKQyrt/Screenshot-2024-05-12-132523.png

I wasn't expecting this kind of fee since I've checked the mempool was only a 1$-2$ to confirm. It usually matches, electrum fees and mempool are matched in my past transactions as far as I can remember, It doesn't take this much gas or fees just to make these transactions, I would totally understand if the network was congested just like on the Bitcoin halving day, which is around 200$.

https://i.postimg.cc/RFvfzRRM/Screenshot-2024-05-12-132542.png

Am I missing something here? I just reformatted my desktop computer and reinstalled my wallet on it, is there something that I've changed on the electrum setting probably? or this was just normal because of the Bitcoin Halving? Thanks for your help.

The transaction fee doesn't depend on the amount of bitcoin you send. The transaction fee depends on the number of inputs and outputs, addresses type, how busy the network is and how fast you want your transaction to be confirmed.


The fee displayed on mempool.space is for a native segwit transaction with 1 input and 2 outputs.
Your transaction includes many inputs and that's why you have to pay higher fee for that. You may be able to decrease the fee with decreasing number of UTXOs via coin control.

By the way, 12 sat/vbyte is now enough for getting fast confirmation. No need to pay 30 sat/vbyte.

https://www.talkimg.com/images/2024/05/12/1HlY9.png

Look at the fee target which is set to static and it should be changed to Mempool and then you can see the fee is far less since the currently required fee for TX to be included in the next block is 11.1sat/vb.

What you see in below where you pointed out is that you are about to pay 51% as fee from the total amount you are trying to send.

You're TX is included with more inputs and outputs thus increasing the size of your TX fee if you know how bitcoin works then you should also know that the TX fee is paid depending on the size not based on the value you are trying to send.

The issue is a combination of using mid range of "static" fee slider @30sat/vB and the size of your transaction which is 2045vB.
Your screenshot already shows the simple formula on how to compute the absolute fee.

If you want to minimize it; set the fee rate to the current optimal which is that 12sat/vB in your other screenshot (same thing you'll get with "mempool" slider at '0.8mb from tip')
And more importantly, select only a few large UTXOs since your transaction probably used a lot of inputs for reaching 2045vB size.
To do that: enable and go to 'Coins' tab (View->Show Coins), multi-select some UTXO that are enough to pay your recipient, right-click and select "Add to coin control".

He can just make use of mempool.space or https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,24h,weight for the fee estimation. He can customize the fee on desktop Electum.

The fee depends on the virtual size or weight and not the size.

https://i.postimg.cc/05DGFVqJ/Screenshot-2024-05-12-144722.png

Do this one and make the fees lower to what I normally expected  :) Is this right? Set it to around 12sats since that is what's in the high priority of mempool.

Didn't know about his coins, static, add to control, etc. seems new to me, I usually just send it directly and the fees are lower and match on the mempool I didn't need to do this setup is it new?, thanks a lot!

It's not new, if I'm not mistaken, coin-control feature is already established in Electrum years ago (around 2015).

As for it being new to you, your wallet probably has only few UTXOs in your first few sends.

Have you been receiving Bitcoin to a single or just a few addresses?
Because if so, by default, Electrum will spend all of the associated UTXO with that address when sending (for better privacy),
the side-effect is the typical high transaction vB that you saw in the first screenshot.

With this, you should be able to make your transaction, the fee amount wouldn't be more than ~$2.1 or better still check mempool again if the fee rate has increased or decrease before you broadcast the transaction.


As he said earlier, you don't really have to worry about this though, as your fee rate isn't that much but there is disadvantage in consolidating many inputs in single transaction because it's break your privacy completely and chain observers can easily guess the destination of transactions.

For next time, you can learn to use it so you don't have to spend all your inputs when you want to spend just a little amount of bitcoin, because by default electrum will spend everything(all inputs) and give you a change in another address.

Firstly let me start by spotting the fact that that message that made you make this post is more like a warning. Electrum actually tries to weigh the amount of coins you are spending with respect to the fees you make use of. Now if the fee is too large compared to the amount you are spending then you would definitely get a warning since such a transaction is regarded as uneconomical. Also fees are not estimated by how much coins you are spending rather they are estimated by how much block space your transaction would occupy and also with respect to the conjestion on the Mempool at the time of broadcasting the transaction.

Now if you are making use of the latest version of electrum, you can edit your fees manually by typing in your preferred fee. Also it's very important to make sure you check the Mempool before broadcasting your transaction as it will help you a long way when you intend on picking the best fee for your transaction.

I have been receiving Bitcoin only in one wallet address.

Is the number of coin control inputs going to matter? is it going to affect the transaction speed or its just a matter of privacy?

So electrum uses all your UTXOs for your transaction, even if one of them is enough. This can make your transaction more expensive in fees.


The more inputs your transaction contains, the more fee you have to pay.
The solution is to go to coin control tab and select minimum number of UTXOs that can cover the sending amount.

Also note that you should consider consolidating your UTXOs when fees are low, so that you can make cheaper transactions when fees are high.

Yes, every input in a transaction matters. The more the number of inputs you add to your transaction, the more the size becomes bigger. Let me make an illustration for you:
Let's say our basis for inputs and output are native segwit(version 0) since you received your coins from signature, the transaction input is 68 vbyte and 31 vbytes for output.

If you are spending:
1 input and 1 output will give you 109.5 vbytes transaction.
2 inputs and 1 output will give you 177.25 vbytes transaction.
5 inputs and 1 output will give you 380.5 vbytes transaction.
More input and 1 input will give you bigger vbytes transaction consequently.

Now, imagine having 10 or even 15 inputs for a single transaction, you will have to pay more fees for every vbytes for that transaction. More inputs, more fees.

You can check this thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5370591.0) by Charles-Tim for more understanding.

However, with coin control, if you have much inputs and you want to spend only few Bitcoin, let's say you have $300 worth in total balance and you want to spend $100, you can just add few inputs that can give you equivalent $100 or more to spend and get back a change if there is from your transaction.


Speed of transactions has nothing to do with your inputs, if you want a faster transactions, you have to pay an optimal fee to get your transaction included in the next block.

Privacy comes when you spend inputs together.

Even if it's not the latest version of Electrum he can still use these features. It's good advice to check the mempool first, just like the OP did, otherwise, he would have paid half of what he is sending. A lot of members have already spotted the mistakes and guided the OP accordingly. TBH I was also not aware of some info before but as OP asked questions I got to know more as members explained with examples.

Like others said yes it increases the size of your transaction but the transaction speed depends on the fee you set.
And for me, it is better not to use coin control to consolidate all of your UTXO while the recommended fee from mempool.space is cheap because if the network is again congested in the future you would pay a much higher fee due to many UTXO so I do recommend don't use coin control instead let it merge all UTXO it would benefit you in the future when the network is congested.

If you are in a hurry now, use coincortol to reduce your transaction fees, but in the future you can reduce the fees  by collecting all your outputs in one input by sending all to address you control but you need to wait until the transaction fees are less than 8 sat/vB.

8* 2045= ~$10.32

Your screenshot shows that you chose an option Static for fee rate. Let's return to see how many options in Electrum wallet, to choose fee rate, when you broadcast a transaction from Electrum wallet software.

There are three options
- Static
- ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival)
- Mempools

With Static, you choose on fixed fee rate for a transaction today, then tomorrow or in future, when you return to broadcast a new transaction, that chosen fixed (static) fee rate will be used by default.

If you see that fee rate is no longer feasible (because it is expensive now like the screenshot shows), you have to edit the Static fee rate.

You can check your previous transaction with Electrum wallet and see a fee rate used for it. I am sure it is 30 sat/vbyte.

You are forgetting about the weight. In your example, that's a much smaller transaction of only 277 vBytes. Look at the picture in the OP. The weight is over 2000 vBytes as he is using many inputs. It will cost him much more than the estimate your Electrum wallet shows.

Learning how to check and understand the mempool conditions yourself isn't difficult, and it's better than relying on any software to make the recommendations for you. When you understand it, you will probably always stick to entering custom fees. 

It isn't simply about the version of Electrum you are using, but if you are using either mobile or desktop. On Electrum mobile version you cannot customize your fee, but on the desktop version you can do so, that is one reason why the desktop version is a better choice.

You quoted the wrong picture.
OP actually created two transaction. The first one was when he added many inputs transaction that amount to 2000vbyte.

https://i.postimg.cc/pLnKQyrt/Screenshot-2024-05-12-132523.png

He was then advice to reduced the inputs which I think he chose one input to spend which gave him a total size of 277vbyte with optimal fee rate of 12.2 sat/vbytes which gave him 0.00003444btc total fee.

https://i.postimg.cc/05DGFVqJ/Screenshot-2024-05-12-144722.png

I converted it to the btc(0.00003444btc) to usd at time which was $2.1 and seeing that it's considerable, I advice him to just use it.

If these are just two different examples, and in any case he will need to make a translation from many input transactions, then it does not matter separately or together, he will have to pay this fees. If he will pay it separately, it will not be less than a sum of all transactions feeses.

Sometimes changing from "Static" to "Mempool" does not make the transaction fee lower as per our desire. I usually will keep this option as static but manually input the static value after seeing the transaction confirmation rates from mempool. Sometimes we are not in a hurry to get our transactions confirmed so we can put a bit lower values (get the idea from mempool) and this will further save the fee.


If you are still receiving the bitcoins in one wallet address (like all of us receive the signature payments in a single address), the best thing you can do is to consolidate the inputs after few weeks / months by sending all of your coins to another address of your wallet. Do this activity one you see very low mempool fee (https://mempool.space/). Usually in the weekends you will find comparatively low fees and that maybe the best time to consolidate your inputs.

There is no time either of them can reduce the fee you are going to pay. Static, eta and mempool are just Electrum's algorithms to estimate fees for their users, so it depends on the one you wish to use. Eta and mempool options are better because they estimate based on market conditions, while static is just fixed and you simply select from 1-300 sat/vbyte. However, the best method is still to check mempool.space before setting your fee rate or manually inputing it if you use Electrum on desktop.

It's good to check mempool.space, but that's not the best thing you can do.
The best thing you can do is to check the mempool by yourself and estimating the required fee rate by analyzing that. To do so, you can use jochen hoenicke's website (https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC,24h,weight).

It's still guesswork. The only difference is the source you are using to guess and estimate the fees. I agree with you that checking Hoenicke's mempool is the better choice, but Mempool.space is the best alternative I know of for people who wish to avoid manual analysis and just go with the rates they see on the site, depending on their confirmation priority.