Bitcoin Forum

Small transactions on bitcoin does not make any sense now at all. Like to make a $20 amount transaction, one has to pay about same amount, $20 in fees. This does not make any sense. Have you stopped using bitcoin for small transactions completely because of this reason ?

In times like this, when the mempool is congested and fees are very high, you are expected to note that small transactions could incur high fees which might be equal to their output value. However this shouldn't deter small transactions altogether. If you own a business and use Bitcoin as a payment option you may consider utilizing other cryptocurrencies for such transactions temporarily. This isn't the first time we've experienced mempool congestion, and it won't be the last, so fees may take a while to return to normal. Some might also consider using the Lightning Network for small transactions during these times, but not everyone is familiar with it.

You can send transactions for a very low fee if time is not an issue. Just reserach how to set a specific sat amount for the fee.
Still this is not how it should be, but at this point I think Bitcoin has forever lost its ability to be usable for small transactions.

You can wait and you can use Bitcoin blockchain for small transactions again. Time is what you need because Bitcoin mempools can be loaded more or less with demands on Bitcoin on chain transactions.

If you don't want to spend expensive transaction fee and convert your bitcoins to dust, you can have chance to see your bitcoin increases in value and can enjoy cheap transaction fee in future.

In waiting time, you can use altcoins, I hate to say it, for transactions.

TBH, if I have some low fee altcoins at my disposal on my hot wallet, I always use it for small purchases like my VPN.

Otherwise, bitcoin could still do provided that the mempool is not congested AF. Bitcoin miner fees are dynamic so it's not always high. Once price correction starts, perhaps we could see the single digit sat/vb or so again.

You can use lightning network. If you can not setup your own channel, there are some wallets that will provide you an easy way. What you will do is to download the wallet, do backup and start sending and receiving bitcoin. But just for little amount of money.

You can go for those coins pegged with bitcoin price. They are not bitcoin and they may be centralized to some extent. They can also depeg from bitcoin price.

Small transactions using Bitcoin are not worth it. However, what types of transactions would a person make with $20? Unless it is in a place like El Salvador, where Bitcoin is legal tender and many merchants accept it, I would avoid it. Merchants help their customers avoid high transaction fees by using lightning payments, which are fast and cheap. This is what makes it attractive. For example, the Strike App enables merchants to use lightning payments, which I believe is being used in El Salvador. There is also another app called BitPay, which also utilizes the lightning network for payments. You have to check which lightning app is available for your country.

Bitcoin obviously cannot be used for small payments when the fees are so high. Several large altcoins can do the job for less than a penny per transaction. That's the way to do it for now. EDIT: Lightning network is also a good option, I currently have the habit of using alts.

If the medium priority transaction fee price is more than 10% of the amount I am sending, I opt to wait for a while until the fee becomes lower.  I agree that it does not make sense to pay a fee equivalent to the amount we are sending.  If the fund is on an exchange, I convert it to another cryptocurrency that has lower fees and can also be accepted by the merchant or person I am sending the amount to.  

I might look for another option until the price of the Bitcoin transaction fee returns to normal ($0.3 - $1) and it did not make me completely stop using Bitcoin for small transactions.

That reason won't be enough to make people stop using bitcoin for small transactions just because the transaction fee as of now have increased. It doesn't mean you can't send your bitcoin although it won't be confirmed right away and will take time before it is confirm when you set the sat/byte for lower or cheaper transaction fee. Anyway, if you really need to transfer small amounts of funds then using altcoins is also not a bad idea.

The high and unstable tx fees can be very discouraging to those who use bitcoins as currency.

As for me, I stopped using it for small transactions for other reasons not just this, because I consider bitcoin first as an investment. Using bitcoins for small transactions will be bad because it has the potential to affect what I am trying to Hodl immediately the habits gets used to me.

It makes no sense to make small transactions in bitcoin in a crowded mempool, you may be able to wait until sat/vB is low but it is uncertain when it will drop.
For now do not make small transactions in bitcoin, like gambling activities I prefer other coins that are lower, now for bitcoin only HODL.
Have you used this lightning network cheaper but unfortunately I have never tried.

Isn't it obvious though, that when the fees are high, making a small transaction doesn't make any sense. But it doesn't mean we will go on the argument that Bitcoin should increases and be a big blockers, we have that kind of Bitcoin forks and they seem to die down already.

And it's not Bitcoin's fault that the fees are getting ridiculous, it's a deliberate attack on the network itself and just trying to put pressure on the devs and other individuals. Anyhow, for now, it's better not to do another small transactions and the best thing to do is wait for the mempool to clear.

Also there is a option called LN (Lightning Network).

the question is have people stopped using bitcoin.. not have people started using other networks
why do some people keep trying t promote other networks while pretending by using other networks they are still using bitcoin

other networks ARE NOT BITCOIN, even LN is not


less than 1 billion people think $20 is insignificant/ only an hours labour
where as 7 billion people think $20 is significant and worth more then an hours labour

your question should be what types of people do you want to exclude from using the bitcoin network

seems to me segregation has a double meaning for bitcoin cores roadmap.. learn the other political/social meaning

bitcoin has no technical reason to be restrained. its dev political motivated. when you follow the funding and roadmap plans of core devs it is their plan to segregate and migrate people away from native use of bitcoin. bitcoin core added an exploit 8 years ago, which is being abused 2years ago to cause these annoyances/attacks and core devs have had 8 years of knowledge of the exploit and a few years of seeing the annoying results of its impact. but all they care about is migrating people away from using the bitcoin network.
even those performing the attack/annoyance are funded by the same groups promoting the segregation of majority/trying to push people into migrating people over to the other network(rich/poor divide)

anyone telling people to:
use another network
stop using bitcoin
wait weeks, month, years and hope the utopia fixes itself

is not a ally/friend of bitcoin

if they think their reasons are justified that spending $50 for 1 tx is fine but spending $50 spread over several years for a hard drive to store decades of transactions is some how bad economics.. those fools have their maths the wrong way round, and no understanding of math/economics of utility

as for the 'do nothing, just wait' i think 8 years of waiting for the promises of bitcoin scaling to offer more transactions of cheaper fee is enough waiting. lets accept it the promises made 8 years ago have not been met. and no, other networks are not the solution. they are the diversion

other networks only provide small niche sub services of options. and should not be thought of as the ultimate replacement utility.

its funny how those that support other networks are the solution where 'small' transactions should occur. but in same breath they dont want the 'small' transactions of bloat/spam to be stopped

anyone promoting to not censor junk, but to sensor genuine bitcoiner utility have thigns the wrong way round
bitcoin HAD rules to articulate every byte as having purpose. those rules have been softened and many transactions always have been:
'dropped', 'scrubbed', 'evicted', 'orphaned', 'pruned', 'unrelayed' and many other terms that made bitcoin clean and purposeful.
suggesting bitcoin should be filled with junk but actual use should be delayed/migrated elsewhere is a social-con, a social abuse of trying to suggest bitcoin shouldnt be used by bitcoiners

I have never used Bitcoin for small transactions. It has never been a good alternative for such negotiations. It's better to use Bitcoin for big and valuable purchases, so the fees you are going to pay totally worth when you dilute it inside the total price of the transaction. If you send too many small transactions, you are going to waste a lot of money in fees. If that is what you are looking for, you should look for alternative altcoins which present cheaper transactions fees. At least on this matter, altcoins have a very practical function.

Anyway, if I have a large transaction to do, I won't refrain doing so just because I have to pay a 20$ fee, because compared to the total value of the transaction, 20$ won't be a significant amount of money. So it totally makes sense to keep sending these transactions across the network, despite the high fees costs. What I suggest you doing is to accumulate the maximum amount of satoshis you can before moving it to another address. Don't be in a hurry. Thankfully we are in a good moment of crypto market to hold, so you can wait for the next increasement in price which should take Bitcoin to a new ATH.

For small transactions, yes!  
The mempool is currently congested and there's no two ways about it - atleast for a layman. I'd say running a lightening network node is an alternative but, there has not been any update about it since the last time.. Plus you'd have to pass through several processes of creating a channel, manual tweaking etc .. I prefer integrated transactions instead.
7 billion? Well, I understand your enthusiasm and nobody is against Bitcoin either, but do you have a chart to prove your estimation?

Yes, it doesn't makes sense if I'm going to pay with that amount and the transaction is even lesser than that. It's okay to stop for a while because the fees are going to calm down. As I type this, the fees are still quite high and the high priority is gonna cost one to pay $6 and that's still a lot. Before with the ordinals, the fees are the same but eventually it has became lower and that's why it's best to wait if you are not in a hurry doing that transaction but if you are, you have no choice but to pay that.

Well, for some folks, Bitcoin resembles an investment like gold - a way to stash value long-term, even if its not great for everyday purchases.  The possibility of appreciation matters more than trivial transaction costs.  Consider it a high-security bank vault for savings, where access takes some effort. 

But thats drifting from Bitcoin's original purpose as fast cheap peer-to-peer payments and  the stunted capacity is unfortunate.  Complex addons like Lightning feel inadequate; the base layer itself needs an upgrade.  The core devs ought to confront the scaling limitation more directly, imho.

In these days, committing to this kind of transaction is not practical or simple not a good thing because you will also pay a high transaction fee, lucky if that day the transaction fee is not that high, but still doing transaction in bitcoin with that small amount doesnt make any sense l, that's also why adopting bitcoin or accepting as a mode of payment is hard to implenent because its not practical to do transaction that is lower than the transaction fee, so this concept is need to be discussed and study further more, added with congested network so the transaction make took some time before it will be completed so yeah it is not practical so I dont also do transaction with bitcoin that I know is not efficient. If you want to just do fiat or other crypto currency, not bitcoin, it will also be a waste to use your bitcoin holdings as payment or whatever.

With the current transaction fee we are having, one can still manage to have between $3 to $7 as minimum transaction fee while you can as well discover some periods whereby you make use of amounts lower to these, it all depends on how the mempool state is as at that time, but anything below $10 as cost for transaction fee should be something we can be able to afford and pay, other networks charges more than that in this same cryptocurrency.

I have a website : https://bitcoinfees.net/ (https://bitcoinfees.net/) that shows me how much transaction fee you should spend depending on how long you’re willing to wait. If the transaction fee is up to 25% - 50% of what you’re transacting then it’s best for you to perform the transaction later of probably settle with an elongated but cheaper transaction fee. There’s no other option after all.

This is really the downside of Bitcoin, let's accept it. Especially during these times, when the market is volatile, high transaction fees in Bitcoin are normal.
But sometimes it is cheap, sometimes not. But it does not make sense to wait before the transaction fee gets cheap especially if you are really in a rush to do the transaction.

Well, using lightning network and other altcoins will solve this problem, for me, this is the best solution right now we have.

There is a tendency to think in small transactions, but the reality is that it should be measured percentageally, a fee of $1 is low but not, if you send $10, then $100 can be a high fee, but it is not, if you send $1000, and $1000 dollars may be small transactions for the size of your wallet if measured in hundreds of thousands or millions.

Few days ago without priority it was around 6 sat/Vb, and the average was 18sat/vB, today it is around 15 s/vB without priority and the average is 50v/sB, it doesn't matter, you simply give it the 3%, 5% ratio, as percentages appropriate to your "send", then if it is not met if necessary, emergency, the limit is 10%, but the best option is to use other means of payment, as simple as that....

Yes I have stopped making $20 transaction on the bitcoin network since 2017. I’ve moved on to ETH for micro transactions but that also got conjested. Then I moved on to altcoins like Litecoin.

However for the last few years I’ve mostly used L2 networks like ARB. And recently started to use Solana. Fees are super cheap and it’s super fast. There is also Tron network which is pretty quick and cheap to interact with.

Yep. Btc isn’t good for buying a cup of coffee or making small donations anymore. Litecoin is the king of small purchases now. If you check binance, the withdrawal fee for litecoin is only 0.0001 ltc, that’s $0.008. You could send $1 worth of ltc and only pay below a cent to make that transaction.

I think transacting with btc only makes sense when you are sending big amounts. Like $1000 or more. For everything else, ltc is ready for duty.

In order to pay for certain subscriptions, I occasionally have to top up different accounts with small amounts like $3 or $7. In order to make these payments I convert some of my BTC into Liquid BTC. Wallets like Marina and Aqua Wallet allow you to pay Lightning invoices by swapping your L-BTC, you don’t have to manage your own channels. If Lightning isn’t a supported payment method, then I swap L-BTC through an instant exchange for whatever low fee altcoin is accepted.

I understand that Liquid BTC is not “real” BTC, but it is still backed by real Bitcoin which I’ve pegged into the network. To me this is a better alternative than holding random shitcoins which can’t be easily and with minimal trust be converted back to Bitcoin.

I would definitely avoid using Bitcoin for small transactions to avoid high transaction fees. we will not worry about btc's transaction fees as minimum $500 transaction is required.  But sometimes some situations force us to do small amount bitcoin transactions. For example, if we receive signature campaign money in our personal wallet and need to sell it in an emergency, then we are obliged to make a bitcoin transaction for that amount. And in some cases we have to pay in Bitcoin and we have no way to use other coins.  So we cannot avoid small transactions at all.

I am sure a lot of people have stopped using BTC for small tx's because of the spike in tx fees, BTC is no longer suitable for small tx's and that is the truth. However, you can consolidate your small inputs whenever fees are very low and use coin control to reduce the number of inputs that will be used in a tx, this will help reduce the fees you spend on a tx if you decide to use BTC to pay for something cheap later on.

There is Lightning network to use in small transactions mate so I guess there is no need in stopping to use bitcoin for now , though I must admit that some of my friends and client advises me to transact with them using altcoins so yeah i have to comply with them of course.

Yep, why I need to force myself to spend more when there's a better way? looks like a no brainer.

The only way I will send Bitcoin for small transactions even though the fees is rising very high if the sites only accept Bitcoin payment, just like this forum where buy a copper membership must in Bitcoin.

Tron is cheap, but TRC-20 tokens aren't cheap. I need to pay around $2 for every transaction I made, you could pay less if you own a good amount Tron and you stake it.

The efficiency of a transaction is fast, safe and the fees charged are low. We are currently losing a little in Bitcoin transaction costs, to use sending I usually set a ratio of 97:3 from 100%, as for paying with small transactions I use the alt option because anyone must be rational with the ratio issued. Having your own calculations is already a requirement that must be taken into account, I am sure that for matters like this, before carrying out a transaction, you will definitely first check the gas fee estimate at that time.

It has be long I Carry out small transactions on Bitcoin, because is a waste of Bitcoin based on the high fees involved but if you can wait to allow the Bitcoin to accumulate in your wallet before you can carry out your transaction, you will like the transaction and you will like to transact your Bitcoin in huge amount in the market. I think, there are some wallet you can download to store your Bitcoin and the gas fees will not be high both in small Bitcoin transactions and big transactions and your transaction will be successful without any delay. You can stop the small transactions if you can have other means to solve the challenges that is making you to transact Small Bitcoin, so that you will exercise patience till your Bitcoin increase higher in your wallet before you can transact, I believe it will help you to stop all those high fee in your small Bitcoin transactions.

I haven't made a transaction using Bitcoin for a long time and the reason is because there are no shops or sellers that provide transactions using Bitcoin or other crypto in my area. So I only use fiat to do any transactions.
And it's only when buying online or individually that happens unexpectedly with fellow crypto users that I sometimes do, and even then not making transactions in small amounts. However, sometimes I use other alternative cryptocurrencies if they exist as a transaction option because the costs are very cheap and even free, such as TRX, LTC, XRP and so on are examples of alternative cryptocurrencies that provide much cheaper speed and transaction costs.

Yes, the Bitcoin is not meant for small transactions now as the transaction fee could be higher than the value you are going to send. (I actually experience that) though you can use lighting network and I think some of the known wallets do already support it such as Electrum, but I am not sure if you need to create new wallet to use it as in my existing wallet, I can't managed to make it work. ???

You can also use other coins or network alternatives for small transactions, for instance just store around $100 worth of Tron or USDT (TRC-20) or other coins and just use it for micro transactions.

It doesn’t happen all the time. You were saying the case, when the mempool is crowded. It’s obvious that at that time, the network fees will also high. If I need to do the transaction of 20$, then I will wait till the fees become stable. Else if it needs to be done urgently, then I just convert the coin into any cheap alt and do the transaction. To be honest, I never like to give Bitcoins for something else, but still if the situation is worse, then I will use altcoins instead.

Well for me yeah, as we all know fee is quite high and local e-walllets also has high spreads so it's not worth it anymore for a smaller transactions but 7 years ago I used Bitcoin to buy mobile load for my data connection and it's  like $10-$20 + rebates. I personally don't have time to wait for the fee to dip low so it's not my option anymore.

No i haven't stopped using bitcoin for small transactions. The reason is i the highest i spend on transaction fees is $2.3 which is affordable to me. Anything exceeding that range i find another means to make the payment. Although sometimes the fees are way less and sometimes congestions happen in the blockchain where the fees would be up to the $20 you mentioned. In such cases i would not use bitcoin for transactions anymore until the the fees comes down.

However congestion doesn't stay for long and i dont buy things using bitcoin everyday. Most times only when i want to gamble or pay for something online that is when i make use of Bitcoin. Either am not really affected with high fees.

As you said, this is not the first time we have encountered mempool blockage and up to now we still do not have any effective solution for this problem, so it can be said that this is a very serious problem. We cannot wait 2 to 3 months for things to get back to normal and do transactions and it happens again after some time. Waiting is not the solution in this case and it is a vicious cycle with no way out. Think what will happen next if the demand for bitcoin increases after the halving? The transaction fee will be double the current price and do you want to wait any longer? That's why I never expected or advocated for bitcoin to become a popular currency or payment method.

These days, or right now specifically, I'm not sending anything if the fees are more than 10% of the amount being sent. So yes Bitcoin is rendered impractical as a currency for small-scale pricing. That may change yet again, though. Really miss the days of 7 cents. If we could get down to about a dollar for next-block inclusion, that would be good enough for me.

Instead I find myself using Dogecoin & Litecoin more frequently -- fees are almost nil so sometimes it makes sense to do a conversion, especially if an exchange is gonna charge you an arm and a leg for withdrawing BTC.

With you examples, I understand that you want to use Proof of Work altcoins as your alternatives for Bitcoin. You don't mention any Smart contract altcoin and I can feel that you don't like them. I agree with your practice too because using Proof of Work altcoins is safer than Smart contract altcoins.

With Smart contracts, your altcoins can be frozen even you store them in your non custodial wallets. Blockchains and transactions can be rolled back by centralized teams and smart contracts too.

PSA: Most Stablecoins Can Be Frozen, Even in Your Own Wallets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5204055.0)

I have stopped using bitcoin for small transaction but which is not what I will like to talk about directly. That was the reason for my indirectly reply. That people can use bitcoin lightning network, altcoins pegged with bitcoin but which has some disadvantages because it can depeg from bitcoin, or to use altcoins instead.

I still use the bitcoin network but for transaction that seem high to me and also that would be when the network is less congested like 30 sat/vbyte or more lower fee rate.

Lightning network can be beyond bitcoin but bitcoin lightning network is about bitcoin stored offchain. It is bitcoin.

Have you ever found yourself in a position whereby you are trying to purchase something and they only accept Bitcoin payment? This was how I ended up paying for something that I really needed but have no choice than to use a high-transaction fee.

If you ever found yourself in such situation you won't have any choice than to proceed unless you really don't need that thing.

Apart from this situations, I don't have any reasons to use Bitcoin to pay for anything unless what I am trying to pay for is worth the money and the transaction fee, all thanks to other Blockchain projects, in fact, the majority prefer to use stable coin aka USDT or USDC to make payment online than Bitcoin.

I don't use on-chain Bitcoin for small transactions, considering the fees. Come to think of it, when fees are above $10, I try not to use on-chain Bitcoin at all. But that doesn't mean I fully stop using it, as I do have small amounts on centralized platforms (for gambling and betting on sports). Since money's already there, small transactions are possible there without any fees, and Bitcoin can still be useful. I know it's different and that it's not a solution, but it also means not stopping using Bitcoin for small transactions completely.

We can wait for cheap transaction fee time to consolidate small inputs or make on chain transactions to deposit our bitcoins to gambling site or centralized exchange. Consolidate small inputs when fee is cheap, is very good preparation for future on chain transaction when fee is expensive and we don't have time for waiting.

This case you are doing internal transfers, not on-chain transfers if I see it right. Gambling sites and centralized exchanges simply credit you a number you want to transfer or tip from one account to another account. They only proceed an on-chain transaction when a user submit a withdrawal request.

If we can wait a little time the fees are decreasing in such time but the problem about
others are they don't know or wanted to use customization and the one lower fee transacting
in which Lightning network.

correct , we can wait for short period to the fee lowering and that is a normal way
for people like us who knows how it works.

Right now it takes a dollar to make a transaction on Bitcoin but even with a dollar I dont want to make any transaction under $10 using one dollar, I prefer using another blockchain instead.

Don't stress it, the higher the success of a crypto project the more its transaction fee will grow, even the cheaper ones like Tron and others gas fee are still cheap because their value are still very small.

It's been a long time since I've paid for something using Bitcoin, but the last time that I did I paid for something that's over $800 in value using $4 at the time as the transaction fee.

The convenience about paying with Bitcoin is that it happens in private.

Even big transactions on bitcoin can be painful if you are lucky enough to wait for 50 minutes for new block. Im using ltc for payments mostly

Yes but regardless of transfer size I always transfer using LTC then convert to BTC.

But no one will have time to freeze your account if you don't have too much money and that money is related to money laundering, hacking...even centralized exchanges, they will not freeze your account for no reason if you comply with their regulations. I see many people like to buy bitcoin, USDT or altcoins of unknown origin outside at cheap prices then switch to exchanges and immediately their accounts are locked. They started spreading negativity on social networks but they did not admit that they bought bitcoins from hacked sources.

In Bitcoin we have a high fee and the Lightning network has the same lack of privacy, like it can be easily vulnerable for a fraud and nasty (malicious) attacks. So both have their porn and corn. I have never used Lighting Network because I have not done small transactions in Bitcoin and if I have, I have resorted to Altcoin because it has a low fee for small transactions.
 
So it is true that Bitcoin doesn't make any sense for small transactions because for small transactions paying a high fee is not a wise act Despite, if we talk about doing small transactions, then now i would go for Lightning Network. because Lighting Network is much more fast than others, and the best thing is that his low fee like almost equal to Zero. So Lighting Network have been used by many users since September 2023 almost 1.2 million people i.e Social media tipping, Streaming sector etc. This shows that many people prefer the Lightning Network for small transactions. due low fee and within a few seconds, the transaction is done.

I have fallen into the category too, I do not use Bitcoin for small transactions anymore, I use other crypto coins and prefer to keep holding my Bitcoin, the only things I can use my Bitcoin to purchase are lands, houses or cars, heavy stuffs that are costly.

As for those who hate altcoins, this is one of the reasons why you should be thankful that altcoins exist, they are faster and cheaper, more suited for payment solutions than Bitcoin, I wonder what it will feel like to make transactions using Bitcoin when $150,000 per Bitcoin is happening.

There are Litecoin, Dogecoin, Kaspa, BCH, Tron, and many more that are good for settling a small debt or transactions, there aren't many online stores accepting crypto payment in general but even if there are tons of them it still won't make people to start using Bitcoin as payment settlement when others are available.

Nexo has no fee on wd.. On my tier.

Listen man. BTC is the /dev/null of money at this stadium. You learn to love altcoins.

So far I have only been able to pay for virtual services. On the internet.

Meaning: I am not gonna buy a real bulldozer and run it over your house with the real money! Cheers! I be on defense.

It makes sense as long as you get rugged by fee's.

so if you use the main chain and do a 1 sat I think the lowest fee is 162 sats per tx.

which means at 100 mill a btc the fee would always be at least $162 usd.
at 10 mill a btc the fee would always be at least $16.20 usd
at 1 mill a btc the fee  would always be at least $1.62
at 100 thou a btc the would always be at least 16.2 cents

so we are pretty close to 100 k a coin  this means buying a 2 dollar item and paying at least 16 cents is pretty much going to be the lowest we ever pay.

and this means the main blockchain simply can’t work for small tranasctions.

who wants  to pay 16 cents on two dollars on a good day. no one really.

thus there are three realistic choices once btc gets to 100 k.

use doge
use ltc
use ln

it is simply not that the stats fees  are high this is that a sat has more and more value.

somewhere in the 100k to 1 million a btc smallest fee will be not practical.

I am not paying 16 cents to 1.62 for one or two dollar btc moves.


we are at 10-11 cents for the lowest chain fee of 162 sats.  I have zero desire to pay 10 cents to send 1 or 2 dollars.

I just sent 100 usd in LTC  to buy a Nano 3 my send cost was under 1 penny

if btc was letting 1 sat I would have spent 10 cents.

Yes actually which is just proof of the concern we have that must be addressed if we want to use bitcoin as intended. Even if it’s not for payment but rather investment purposes, lots of investors are still hesitant to buy or sell because of the high price of transactions.

Some end up waiting trying to save more funds but then bitcoin just becomes more and more expensive so it’s harder to find the right time to make these transactions

Based on how congested the network is right now, I'd say it's not ideal to use Bitcoin to facilitate smaller transactions. Selecting a lower fee would take much longer for the transaction to go through and paying almost the same amount in fees as the amount for good or services is not wise. In this situation, the Bitcoin lightning network should be used or altcoins that attract smaller charges like TRX, SOL, BNB etc.

Yes, I'd stop using this because doing any small transaction with bitcoin is not really worth it since we know that the required fee to make our transaction fast is so expensive.

That's why I choose other alts which offer convenience and low fees since this is more decision to do.

Right now I decide to hodl my bitcoin since I speculate about some possible big changes to happen since a lot of people giving such nice feedback that bitcoin price could able to reach a lot more that what we currently see nowadays.

I might either send Bitcoin using other chains or cheap altcoins, I'm not rich, so I can't bear the fees just to support Bitcoin on-chain.

That's true, but if the network is centralized, they can still offer cheap fees even though both of the market cap and trading volume are big.

If you mean privacy, Monero is better than Bitcoin.

I don't know, I don't use bitcoin for small transactions so far, even if the transaction fee drops to 10 sat/vbyte. I also don't use bitcoin for large transactions such as thousands of dollars, meaning bitcoin is not a means of payment for me so far. There are reasons why I don't use bitcoin as a means of payment so far in my country, of course one of them is a legal reason that completely prohibits me and everyone else from using it as a means of payment.

There are several options for making micro transactions with bitcoin, one of which is using the lightning network. You can of course take advantage of the lightning network to fulfill your desire for micro transactions, but there are also other options you can try including inter-chain transactions.

For transactions like this, you’ll only incur yourself more loss and it’s not advisable to continue using it for transaction when the mempool is congested. Most of the transactions I do with my bitcoin are mostly through exchanges. I usually take excess to use for myself and for smaller transactions and not going back within a short time to send money out from my wallet. Money used from exchanges after they’re sent there are converted to my fiat, so I don’t directly use bitcoin for payment but sometimes use stable coins like USDT through exchanges. In transactions that I pay using  cryptocurrency is when the receiver is also vast and uses crypto for transactions, it saves time to me and very fast as usual even though it’s through an exchange. In many cases, I use fiat for transactions, so I do bull conversion and then take from theirs for any transaction until it’s exhausted and I need to take from my wallet and convert to fiat again.

Stop awhile using bitcoin for small transaction after congested with network and have to bigger fees, its not worth yet when sending under amount around $20 to $30 we have to pay fees almost 30% of our amount sending transaction. Its normally with bitcoin has congested network and likely will back to normally and taking fewest fees for transaction, if your wallet support with lightening network better using this way for small transaction in bitcoin because not required fees yet.

Last weeks seems the increasing of bitcoin fees transaction after receiving payment from my friend and taking around more than two hours with transaction taken one block confirmation, I stop awhile and waiting the transaction fees normal and not required waiting for longer time with bitcoin transaction completed.

Yes, but you don't have to spend a small fraction of Bitcoin during a high transaction fee period, if that is not a must. Have Bitcoin and also have Fiat. Where it is not necessarily important that you pay in Bitcoin, you can use Fiat to perform your transaction. 


Not at all; the high Bitcoin transaction fee usually gets high sometimes and also becomes normal when the mempool is less congested. If the Bitcoin transaction fee is high above my expectations and far beyond what I can afford to pay, I will better look for another alternative to making that payment. Any time the fee reduces, I can still spend small fractions of bitcoin for any payment I want to make.

Someone already recommend you use the LN, which will help reduce the fee. 

There are so many irrelevant answers to this as the question is pretty simple so people don't need to explain why the charges are high and when it happens because as an end user i wouldn't like to pay transaction charges equivalent to my transaction amount itself it doesn't make any sense hence I have stopped Bitcoin for smaller transactions and it's been a while now.

I've never used bitcoin for small transactions, but what is small depends on your definition.

The way I see it, small transactions would be buying groceries, drinks, things of that nature and I never did that because when I used bitcoin for the first time it was an investment, so I didn't want to spend it. Now I could buy some stuff but fees are too high to pay for each transaction. Thankfully, you can buy in bulk. For instance, you can get a gift code to a store for $1k or more and use that for all your future purchases.

It depends tho, if its so urgent and I can afford to I would but if not I would compromise, besides I hardly perform transaction using bitcoin, except when I'm buying and when I do I do off centralized exchanges and I store them there untill there are up to a reasonable amount then I move them to a cold wallet for storage. I don't think it's that bad that you would consider to stop using it except you make transactions too often with it and little transactions for that matter, but if your use if for big transactions and no very often then it isn't that bad.

Fortunately, I have never made a transaction using Bitcoin at a merchant, to be honest, the fee charged for processing a Bitcoin transaction is currently very fluctuating, what if in an urgent situation, I definitely don't want to have to carry out the transaction

but even if I want to make transactions with bitcoin then I will only choose to do it with the lightning network, I am also quite active in using bluewallet, it is definitely safe to transact bitcoin without having to worry about high fees

You don't to spend to merchants just for doing small transactions. Like the payments in the campaigns and when you've decided to spend them as you've received your weekly reward, that's already considered a small but it's not that encouraging at all when you see that the lowest fee sometimes goes from $2 to $10 and there were times that it's been on $20. So just always monitor the fees when doing that and avoid spending a lot when it's not necessary.

Bluewallet is a good one and supports LN and this is what many haven't done yet in terms of transactions whether it's on the merchants or just a normal transfer. LN is cheaper and faster and there's no doubt with it but there's a lesser advertisement on it and that's why it's not yet known by many Bitcoin holders and the newbies don't also have an idea about its existence.

To be honest, yes. I have stopped making small Bitcoin transactions. A few months ago, I worked for a client to buy a domain. Previously, I bought a domain with Namecheap through Bitcoin, and as usual, I tried it. During that time, I was asked to pay $50+ fees for $50 transactions. So it's totally useless to use Bitcoin there. I had to use my card to purchase the domain name. So usually we can't make small Bitcoin transactions in this situation unless transaction fees become law. A few days ago, I also used LTC to make payments. I forgot where, but besides Bitcoin, there were options for LTC as well. So it does require only small transaction fees. 

     If the network is not congested, bitcoin fees are not high. Only when there is a large amount of traffic on the blockchain network is there a sudden increase in fees because, of course, the higher offer is prioritized over the lower one.

Then it doesn't always happen in situations where the fees are high; yes, it hurts the bangs, but it also returns to normal depending on the situation; you just have to be patient in waiting.

Despite how much of a bitcoin enthusiast that I am, I hate to say this but this is one of the limitations of bitcoin,  at this it doesn't accommodate or supoort for use by small/ medium scale or nano business  owners for transactions. A grocery store owner for instance can't make use of bitcoin right now for sales because fees could be slightly lower or higher than the amount needed for transaction.
 

That made me to cancel a transaction and leave it until the fee will go down. I was told or informed that the price of bitcoin will go or increase in the halving time. But that amount you used is like and exaggeration. I don't think the transaction fee has gone up to that amount of $20 to transfer $20 again. And if though it doesn't make sense there.is nothing we can do. We have been deliberating on this for past one year but no solution till now so we just have to let it be.

But really it is not good to make transaction for that amount for now because fee is high..

Reason why people stop using Bitcoin for small transactions varies but I believe the transaction is not mainly the reason because they can use the lightning network to avoid paying high transaction fees.
From my perspective, I don't use Bitcoin for small transactions to keep my bag intact cause I don't want to waste any, especially now that halving is approaching.

Buying for groceries is impractical irrespective of fees because bitcoin transfer is not instant.

Frankly speaking i do have several transactions which are currently stuck into the network and im not really that willing on paying up higher fees even if we do say i do make out $1000 in transaction on which paying up $20 or even more or having that spike of $110 as far as i have checked out yesterday then these fees gone crazy on which we cant really be able to deny that it do really sucks on making small transactions.
This is why i have stopped on making out some transactions as of this moment and would be waiting up for everything to settle down. Yes, this isnt something that we dont really like to see on Bitcoin fees
but with having that scalability issue but well this isnt something that would really be always happening.

Actually this is my first time on seeing Bitcoin fees playing around $20-110 maximum on which this isnt something those numbers that we've seen even into that BRC20 spam.
I dont know on whats the reason behind of this spike whether it do really talks about tons of buys but seeing on the current price that we do have on which it didnt really made out such move
that much. It would really be just that making out those kind of questions on whats happening now.

Plan in advance when there's are low Bitcoin fees by pegging into the Bitcoin Liquid wallets app Sideswap then top up an existing lightning wallet channel with cheaper fees which can be done via boltz.exchange Liquid BTC to Lightning BTC.  Also Liquid BTC and Lightning BTC hold their fiat value which can be exchanged back to Bitcoin whilst alt coins have high risk of losing fiat value.  Obviously keeping long term Bitcoin on the Bitcoin network as more secure.

I don't think anyone would do this kind of mistake in his sense, because when there are alternatives ways already, why  you will use Bitcoin using unnecessarily high transactions? Be it in case of small transaction or in case of big transaction if bitcoin transaction is to be done then I would say to hold the current fund and find out some other way for that transaction to complete it. And when the transaction fee of Bitcoin is reduced, then the transaction is completed.
Currently I am doing all my transactions through Lite coin because this coin seems safe to me and has the lowest transaction fee. I think that's Alternative Coins were not invented for going in vain, they also have a reason to be invented and that is why they are called Bitcoin Alternative Coins. So don't make the mistake of taking their benefits of these at the right time.

Yes you are right on which it is really that pain in the ass on making transactions as of this moment because of the fees. If you do tend to look at which we know that ETH does have that higher gas fees which the current ones is really that much more in Bitcoin on which this is really that in unusual sight and this is why it would really be that better that you do make use on other alternatives if you are really that eager on making up some transactions but same as you said that network condition would really be that becoming better but it would really be taking up a day or a couple and if you could be able to hold up for that long then it would really be your choice but if you are willing to pay up the high fees then its your choice. Now ive been using up some cheaper altcoin alternatives with the current fees on which making out some conversion on my
exchange wallet account into some coins and make out some transactions due to much cheaper fees and you cant really be able to complain. On the time that it would subside on then going back to business again.
This doesnt really last up that long and it does really need up a little patience for everything to settle down.

As it is there is no way to make small transaction. Today I was trying to see if the transaction is low from $100, guy I could not really believed on the fee I saw with my eyes. At first they refused to accept the transaction because the coins not enough to pay the fee. So I reduced it to $6 to be withdrew. But could you believed that the transaction fee was about $85.8 and if I convert the $6 to my local currency is about 8k that is my money from the transaction while the $85.8 is a about 100k. That is madness transaction fee. So all the small scale and medium transactions for now have been suspended till further notice.

I feel you, the current surge in Bitcoin transactions is very frustrating.  If the developer doesn't address this NFT minting on-chain that makes the transaction fee balloon,  sooner or later we might see people leaving the Bitcoin community.  

Due to the current situation, I think no one in his right mind will use Bitcoin for small transaction and if this on-chain NFT minting is not stopped or the developer won't create any solution for the congestion of the network due to these protocols, then I believe whether we like it or not, we will be forced to completely stop using Bitcoin for small transaction.

During these times when bitcoin prices are high and the mempool is congested, I try to look for altcoins with minimal transaction fees that can get the job done. It may not be something that supports bitcoin as a cryptocurrency but hey, that's why altcoin exists. If you are someone who's really strong into bitcoin and won't try to use other coins for something that can't be done by bitcoin then you'll just lose money in the long run. Let's face it, bitcoin isn't suitable for microtransactions as it gets bigger. We should look for alternatives if we want to accomplish what we need to accomplish.

When transaction costs are high, carrying out such small transactions will require costs that are not relevant to transactions in the amount you mentioned. Lightning Network might be an alternative even though not many people can use it. My question is why do people make transactions in small amounts in bitcoin because as far as involvement in bitcoin goes I have never tried making transactions in small amounts like that?

We should not need to carry out small transactions when the mempool is congested and busy because it will result in greater costs. If you don't need it, it's better not to make transactions in small amounts because it will result in large fees for one transaction. I have considered not making transactions in that amount because it will only cost me cost.

bitcoin has lost its ability to be used for small transactions, because just imagine you need to spend a few dollars just to buy coffee, for example. this is the issue why bitcoin cannot be used on a larger scale, such as for daily transactions, because the bitcoin network is not scalable for this purpose. so if someone hopes that they can use bitcoin for small transactions in the future, then they won't be able to find that with bitcoin.

High price of Bitcoin does not cause too much more expensive transaction fee. It does because transaction fee on Bitcoin blockchain paid in satoshi and when Bitcoin price is higher, satoshi price is higher too.

I mean that we have times when Bitcoin price is higher than $65,000 but transaction fees were not expensive like recent days, after the fourth Bitcoin halving and after Runes attackers did some shits on Bitcoin blockchain.

In times like these recent days, we can not use Bitcoin blockchain with small fund and if I have big fund, I will not use Bitcoin blockchain too. It raises another reminder that we need to diversify our assets to different things, Bitcoin, Gold, altcoins. We need prepare some different options when we need to move our funds.

It is sad, but this is the truth for many people, they go for alternatives, i do not like to point people to altcoins because of BTC's high fees, but right now there is nothing that can be done, other than that. However, people should learn to use coin control to reduce the number of inputs they add in a tx if possible, and when fees reduce, they should also consolidate their inputs, so they would save up on fees for future tx's.

People will need to keep their small transactions on hold for now, and when we talk about buying Bitcoin in small amounts then I don't think we need to do any on-chain transactions for that, we have centralized exchanges where one can buy and store their Bitcoin and wait until the transaction fees become normal and then they can withdraw those funds to their wallets if they want to keep them in a wallet.

As you said, Bitcoin is the best way to invest for the long term, so one shouldn't even be worried about their Bitcoin that is kept in the centralized exchange they have used because it's just for a few days until transaction fees become normal and then they can withdraw them.

Yes, mostly.
Also, because of the congestion within the Mempool I also try to have some liquity in some centralized exchange, like Binance, so in case I need to have some little bit of money from positions, I can close them and turn them into FIAT for small amount without having to pay for those crazy fees which would take me to have my transaction mined in the next block.
Unfortunately, I think the ecosystem has reached a point where Bitcoin is looking everyday that passes by like some kind of investment asset, instead what it was originally created for by Satoshi, to be an alternative to cash which could be used in a decentralized way and with a simple internet connection.

Still, I personally believe in the Future of Bitcoin and I would rather to take this small inconveniences than completely abandon the idea of decentralization. I guess second layer solutions like the lightning network will only become more relevant as time passes and the Mempool continues to get bloated with whatever the ordinal creators want to mint for the sake of speculation.

It's been years since I've spent bitcoin directly from a wallet. I had put (what I thought to be) a high tx fee of $20 for less than $200. transaction and it took days.
Maybe it will go back to low friction transactions someday?

I haven't, my clients have almost all of them done so!

It's disappointing but I had to split between running a business and my personal stand on this and switch to altcoins, with small exceptions over larger sums that are still worth in BTC and very few and little payments over LN. The cost are high for the ones paying me, the cost are high for me consolidating those $10-$15 worth of coins, we both incur costs too high to run a profitable business and why would anyone do such a thing.

What makes you so sure that transaction fees will soon decrease and return to normal ? If trading fees continue to rise higher and continue to do so during the bull season, what will you do to dispose of your assets on those exchanges ? Personally , I believe that transaction fees will not decrease anytime soon and will even go higher if we enter bull season as demand for bitcoin continues to increase .

It would be a bad idea to store bitcoins on centralized exchanges but I think it could be an effective solution for the current situation . So, choose the most trustworthy exchanges if someone wants to implement this idea.

If you're trading $100 or less in Bitcoin and you're paying $20 or more in fees to trade that small amount, I'd say you should definitely avoid trading. If you have to pay a fee of $20 or more for a $100 transaction or a $50 transaction, you will not feel comfortable doing this transaction. Bitcoin transaction fees are not always the same if you can wait then Bitcoin transaction fees will return to normal and when Bitcoin transaction fees return to normal then Bitcoin can be traded. Hopefully, for your own good, at least wait this long so that you can complete the transaction with a relatively low dollar amount.

Well yes, there are a couple of times I refuse to make transactions with small amounts using my Bitcoin holdings. One reason is high transaction fees which would cost you more thaan the amount you just have to pay. Also, if it is just a small transaction why don't you just use fiat to compensate for that something wherein this concern is coming from the idea of managing your money better. If I will have other options to pay then why not? Especially right now that the market price of Bitcoin is high and that means it could be bigger someday and same problem may still exist.
Won't be practical right? I understand that some people here are supporting this industry by pushing too much. It just happened that people benefit more from it as an asset that price or value is growing which redirects the idea of using it as a mode payment.

Waiting is only possible if a transaction one is doing isn't compulsory. Still, if someone has to make a transaction at any cost for some reason, they wouldn't have a choice but to pay a higher amount in transaction fees so that their transaction gets confirmed quickly because when the network is congested if you make a transaction with low fees, it's going to get stuck in the middle. Then you will need to double spend it with higher fees again to get it back to your wallet or boost the fees so that it goes through. In both cases, the initiator will need to pay extra money.

It's not mainly about trading in my opinion, but mostly about transactions that are sent from one individual to another or from an individual to a platform where they need those funds and they can't wait for the network to get back to its usual state.

This issue of Bitcoin high transaction fees that always happens when the mempool is congested is not a good development for the adoption of Bitcoin as a digital cash, because during congestions you cannot expect to buy an item of $20 and expect to pay an equivalent amount as transaction fee, it doesn't make financial sense. This is why majority of people hold Bitcoin for investment purposes, rather than a currency to make purchases, and as it is, it'll not take over fiat as the dominant currency, unless it's developers finds a lasting solution to this reoccurring problem. Lightening network as an alternative to Bitcoin high fees has not been adopted widely because of it's complexities, according to what I hear.

Very few people talk about small transactions for bitcoin transactions. Small transactions will not be very interesting here. Everyone prefers to invest in bitcoin as the fees are very low through investment. If you want to do it with small then know about the market first. Small transactions are rarely used here. It is processed and confirmed by blockchain for small transactions and there is no way to stop or reverse it.

No investor likes it when transaction fees increase from time to time, but that's the nature of the business. In fact, one of the gifts of the crypto world is the sheer number of cryptocurrencies available. Transaction fees vary between networks, which leads to the use of many networks. This shows us just how far the crypto world has expanded.

Making small transactions in Bitcoin doesn't make sense because of the high transaction fees. A few investors I know hold their Bitcoin for the long term and invest without making small transactions. When they need to trade, they wait for times when network fees are low. So the market gives us the space to do what we want. Of course, we all want Bitcoin transaction fees to be very low.

There are many use case to small transactions and that can be reason for users shifting to other altcoins.

For now, if the network is dense, this number is always present, but if there are other funds in the form of fiat to cover your needs, you should postpone the withdrawal first, even if you want to do it by reducing the amount of transaction fees with manual sets, the time can be up to 1 week and as early as 3 days.

I also felt it once and I did it because I needed some fiat at that time. What else do you want because miners prioritize the largest costs first to be processed.