0.04 BTC transaction costs 0.0017 BTC fee?

[someone111]

I want to send  0.04 BTC. Using the cheapest within 25 blocks setting for fee. Electrum says the fee would be 0.0017...

And electrum is pointing out "unusually high fee".

Using dynamic fee setting.

0.0017 BTC seems high. From what I read fee should more be like
0.0001 BTC something.

Any idea how to fix this?

[HCP]

Can you preview the transaction and see how many inputs are being used to create it?

I suspect you are using something like 10-15 inputs (faucet payments?) and the overall transaction size is like ~1500 bytes instead of the "normal" ~200 bytes... so a recommended fee of around 100-120 sats/byte ends up ballooning out to 0.0017 BTC.

Your options are (in recommended order):

1. Suck it up and send the transaction with the recommended fee (you should double check what the fee is as a sats/byte value and compare with bitcoinfees.21.co and btc.com fee estimates.

2. Switch Electrum to manual fees and manually calculate what the fee should be, using your transaction data size and current recommended sats/byte fee values.

3. Switch Electrum to manual fees, manually calculate at least a 10sat/byte fee (based on your transaction data size), wait until the mempool is quite empty (like under 10K unconfirmed transactions) and then send your transaction. Once sent, submit your transaction to the ViaBTC TX Accelerator and start praying.


If you have indeed been collecting a lot of dust sized payments from faucets etc... I suggest you see if you can get your payouts grouped into larger amounts like 0.001 minimum before receiving payment to help prevent this problem occurring again in the future.

[someone111]

Thanks for your help!

6 inputs.

Yes, I got a lot small payments earlier. Perhaps that's why it's now kinda messed up?

How do I know how many bytes my transaction is sized?

[HCP]

When you're setting it up, click the "preview" button... Electrum should show all the inputs it is going to use and also list the size in bytes of the transaction, that should allow you to make the correct fee calculations if you go the manual method.

[someone111]

It does not show the size in bytes in the window. I've been looking at that window now 5 times and I just cannot see it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1712036.0 says it's not that simple.

Using electrum 2.7.9.

[kolloh]

It does not show the size in bytes in the window. I've been looking at that window now 5 times and I just cannot see it.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1712036.0 says it's not that simple.

Using electrum 2.7.9.

Download the latest version of Electrum. I verified that version 2.8.2 definitely shows the size of the transaction right under the amount sent in the preview window.

[HCP]

Using electrum 2.7.9.

I think that may be the reason why... I'm on 2.8.2... and I see this:



Note: this value may not be the final size of your transaction... as if you change the fee, it might change the total amount of BTC that needs to be used and that may change the inputs that Electrum will use to construct the transaction... However, it is a good starting point to work from to get an idea of approximately how large your transaction is going to be so you can calculate your manual fee a little more accurately

[pooya87]

Using electrum 2.7.9.

I think that may be the reason why... I'm on 2.8.2... and I see this:

apparently it was added in 2.7.13 https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/blob/master/RELEASE-NOTES#L69

p.s. why are we even talking about the size! the only thing that you need to know in (the user friendly) Electrum is how much to pay as fee per kilobyte. just set that amount and let Electrum decide the size and set the total fee for you. you don't need to worry about all that extra stuff

[HCP]

p.s. why are we even talking about the size! the only thing that you need to know in (the user friendly) Electrum is how much to pay as fee per kilobyte. just set that amount and let Electrum decide the size and set the total fee for you. you don't need to worry about all that extra stuff

His whole issue was questioning why Electrum was trying to use such a large fee in relation to the amount of BTC being transacted... Understanding why this is happening is very important. It will enable the OP to be more wary of accepting a lot of tiny dust sized payments and then wondering why Electrum is trying to use a 0.0017 fee to transfer 0.04 BTC... because fees are directly related to size.

I think the issue with setting the BTC/kB fee and using the slider, is that if you get the slider in the wrong place you could potentially end up using a sat/byte fee that is 1/10 of what it should be!

Personally, I think that if you are not just going to "use Dynamic Fees" (and people really should 99% of the time), then calculating the actual fee to be used and just entering that directly into the "manual fee" box, is probably safer than using the somewhat confusing "max static fee" in the preferences that is in BTC/kB and the slider... especially because all the recommended fees (from bitcoinfees.21.co and btc.com) are all shown as sats/byte... not BTC/kB.

But, hey...  that's just me... find what works for you and go with it