Electrum Fee's and long transaction times.

[DoctorG]

Hi Guys,

Ive been struggling with Electrum a lot recently, I dont know if this is down the the current state of the Blockchain and Difficulty.

Sending small amounts, such as 0.01 BTC have taken 2 - 3 days before now!

I have had Electrum on Auto Fee's and I have seen the FEE TO LOW message a couple of times.
I have hit the slider to Max Fee which on 0.01 is 0.001, but found that it is still around 25 blocks.

Is it possible to hard type the fee for a transaction, as I dont want to get caught out?

Stuck transactions in the Core wallet are one thing, but not a lot of information online about stuck transactions in Electrum.

Ive been singing the praises of Electrum since I was introduced to it 6 months ago, now Im wondering if it really is the best solution for someone like me, who sends small amounts.

Thanks in advance.

G

[NeuroticFish]

Electrum is ok, just before every transaction you should check on sites like https://btc.com/stats/unconfirmed-tx what's the recommended fee and adjust the numbers in Electrum.
And it doesn't mater how much is the value you send; the fee depends on the number of inputs and outputs.
And as bottom line, it's the network tx fee, not Electrum's fee (I am not sure you know or not, the title may be misleading).

[BigBoom3599]

Sending small amounts, such as 0.01 BTC have taken 2 - 3 days before now!

Fees aren't based on how much bitcoin you are sending, they're based on how large the transaction is e.g: a transaction of 5BTC can have the same fee as a transaction of 0.01BTC.

I have had Electrum on Auto Fee's and I have seen the FEE TO LOW message a couple of times.
I have hit the slider to Max Fee which on 0.01 is 0.001, but found that it is still around 25 blocks.

Is it possible to hard type the fee for a transaction, as I dont want to get caught out?

AFAIK, you can adjust the dynamic fee in the preferences or just turn them off and use a fixed fee per byte.

Stuck transactions in the Core wallet are one thing, but not a lot of information online about stuck transactions in Electrum.

Ive been singing the praises of Electrum since I was introduced to it 6 months ago, now Im wondering if it really is the best solution for someone like me, who sends small amounts.

It doesn't matter which wallet you use to send transactions, the only thing that will influence the confirmation time of a tx is the fee. All transactions from all wallets are handled equally in the blockchain  

[HI-TEC99]

I have had Electrum on Auto Fee's and I have seen the FEE TO LOW message a couple of times.
I have hit the slider to Max Fee which on 0.01 is 0.001, but found that it is still around 25 blocks.

Is it possible to hard type the fee for a transaction, as I dont want to get caught out?

AFAIK, you can adjust the dynamic fee in the preferences or just turn them off and use a fixed fee per byte.

The quote below explains how to hard type the fee per KB for a transaction, and then view the total fee you will pay before you send the transaction.

If you want to set a very high fee then click tools in the menu bar, then preferences as shown below.




In the window that opens uncheck "dynamic fees", and check "set transaction fees manually". Then enter the fee rate you want in the text box marked "transaction fee per kb". The screenshot below show you which settings to change.




For instance if you want a fee five ties higher than 50k sat per KB (which is extremely high), then put 0.0025 in that text box. If you want a lower fee of 50k sat per KB, then put 0.0005 in that text box.

You can always switch back to dynamic fees when the network's not as busy as today.

You can find the ideal fee to pay for fast transactions at the site linked below. It currently says it's 200 satoshis/byte. If you want to manually set electrum to pay that fee then put 0.002 in the text box marked "transaction fee per kb".

https://bitcoinfees.21.co/

The fastest and cheapest transaction fee is currently 200 satoshis/byte

If you manually set the fee per KB using the settings above you can view the total fee you will pay before you send your transaction. The screenshot below shows the fee appearing below the amount you are sending.



note

The preferences window shown is from an older version of electrum, newer versions have a different layout.