So I bought $50USD BTC on coinbase to start playing around and wanted to get XRP. So I sent it to Binance and I was hit with a $21 network fee.

My friend said oh just send it to GDAX (which you get with Binance account) then to Binance and the same transaction fee was like $2.

Why is there such a discrepency? What sets the fee, and why is it free from coinbase to gdax, and negligible from gdax to binance, but an a$$rape from coinbase to binance? i'll eat it as a learners fee but serious what the holy hell just happened?

ok so I joined coinbase after the above comments and yes, while it doesnt give you your private key, so in theory you can transfer your bitcoin to your own wallet... i have uncovered another major hickup which i hope someone can explain.

to test, i added $50 ($48 after the fee) in bitcoin to my coinbase account. under the accounts there was an option to send payment, so I copied my binance wallet public key address as the receiving party. ok so far. just for $hits i entered $10... it found the binance wallet address ok, and i was ok to accept thier advertised transfer fee of 3.99%... HOWEVER, I it said there was a $30, yes THIRTY dollar miners fee to transfer $10.... ummmm.... what am i missing here?? thats not 3.99%, closer to 399%!!

I have created my own hardware wallet and registered with an exchange so I can trade in the other currencies, but I cant find a way to actually purchase coins to fund the wallet/exchanges. coinbase and a few others as far as I can tell dont give you access to the private keys, so you are locked into using only their service and only trading what they offer (which is only the big 4). All other sites I've seen require you to enter your social and drivers license and all kinds of info that I will never give out to a random website or oversees companies. (looked at bitstamp but that also requires a ton of personal info and its oversees)

Long story short, is there anywhere online to just enter a credit card number and send the coin to your own wallet? Ive seen some places that have offers but they are to private traders or are asking stupid high prices.