BTC Transaction fees

[Ripper2017]

Just installed my first wallet and wanted to test, so I bought £5 worth of BTC from Coinbase, they charged £5.99, I then sent the max amount to my Electrum wallet, amount sent from Coinbase 0.00202070, my wallet received 0.00171727, so I paid £5.99 and have £4.29 in BTC? sound right?

[TryNinja]

This is probably because of the fees that the network charges to send a transaction.

You can see if that was the case by searching the transaction id in a blockchain explorer[1] and looking for "Fees" and "Fees per byte" at the bottom.

[1] https://blockchain.info/

[oxygen88]

Because Coinbase charged the miners fees for every transaction you send out of your wallet.

[Skarner21]

Just installed my first wallet and wanted to test, so I bought £5 worth of BTC from Coinbase, they charged £5.99, I then sent the max amount to my Electrum wallet, amount sent from Coinbase 0.00202070, my wallet received 0.00171727, so I paid £5.99 and have £4.29 in BTC? sound right?

Its just a normal because coinbase is asking for miners fee to their own estimation fee.
Sine you already receive it into your electrum expect that if you send it again to other bitcoin address it will ask again for miners fees
Check the default miners fee here bitcoinfees.21.co and use it to change your miners fee in electrum that you can found in tools>preferences..

[buwaytress]

Just installed my first wallet and wanted to test, so I bought £5 worth of BTC from Coinbase, they charged £5.99, I then sent the max amount to my Electrum wallet, amount sent from Coinbase 0.00202070, my wallet received 0.00171727, so I paid £5.99 and have £4.29 in BTC? sound right?

Sounds right. A few factors to consider when looking at your fiat value:

1. Each exchange has its own estimation of BTC value. Coinbase is quite close to the "average price" but often slightly higher.
2. In addition, exchanges charge their own fee. Usually it gets cheaper as you buy more. You actually bought £5 worth of BTC or 0.00202070 BTC. The £0.99 was Coinbase's fee. You can search for other exchanges to buy cheaper BTC. Localbitcoins is normally what I go for.
3. Most exchanges charge a fee for withdrawal, this was deducted from your amount. In this case, Coinbase charged 0.00030343 BTC as a fee (00202070- 0.00171727). Viabtc is currently the only exchange I know with 0 withdrawal fee.
4. BTC value is not fixed against another currency, just like any other currency, except in its own value . So yeah, you never end up with the same fiat value.

So yeah, you lost a substantial chunk of your buy in terms of percentages. But you might have lost a lot less %-wise had you bought 1 BTC.

Welcome to Bitcoin!

[Ripper2017]

Thanks for the help guys, now I know a little more

[odolvlobo]

Just installed my first wallet and wanted to test, so I bought £5 worth of BTC from Coinbase, they charged £5.99, I then sent the max amount to my Electrum wallet, amount sent from Coinbase 0.00202070, my wallet received 0.00171727, so I paid £5.99 and have £4.29 in BTC? sound right?

Keep in mind that you have 0.00171727 BTC and its value in £ will vary.