Bitcoin Fees

[realchlorum]

Hey,

i recently looked up out of interest what i payed back in the day in Fees.
Its insane how much the fees increased.
2016-02-09 58$: 26 cents Fees.  
2017-06-19 50$: 1.91$ Fees.

I hate it everyday when i pay with bitcoins. Bitcoin turns into Fiat Fees.
The Fees completly destroyed luckyb.it/ for example. They needed to make it a High rolling game.

I wondered why is the increase so much recently? And whats the solution to it? I pay everything i can on the internet via btc but the fees make it really expensive if you add them together compared to back in the day. And thats not even a long time i used for an example.

[Cereberus]

Hey,

i recently looked up out of interest what i payed back in the day in Fees.
Its insane how much the fees increased.
2016-02-09 58$: 26 cents Fees.  
2017-06-19 50$: 1.91$ Fees.

I hate it everyday when i pay with bitcoins. Bitcoin turns into Fiat Fees.
The Fees completly destroyed luckyb.it/ for example. They needed to make it a High rolling game.

I wondered why is the increase so much recently? And whats the solution to it? I pay everything i can on the internet via btc but the fees make it really expensive if you add them together compared to back in the day. And thats not even a long time i used for an example.

Fees are based on satoshi/byte size of a bitcoin transaction. Now if you keep collecting a lot of micro payments from mining or from faucets to the same bitcoin address or to the same wallet containing different addresses will result in higher fees when you want to spend all the available bitcoin you have in such wallet.

Let me make you an example, when I received only 1 payment of 0.08 btc to a single address and then sent it all to another address I only paid 0.001 btc in fees.

When I received a lot of different payments to different addresses in another wallet of mine and wanted to spend all available bitcoins the fees were crazy up to 0.026 bitcoin for sending 0.52 btc.

Now it is the user who should be careful, read more and get more and more familiar with fees because nowadays they are playing an important role in the bitcoin ecosystem.

[vh]

Why?
Increase in bitcoin price, Increase in number of bitcoin transactions.

Possible solutions:
    1. Wait for bitcoin price to drop and the $ per tx will fall too. 
    2. Wait for bitcoin network to become less congested.   
    3. Wait for changes to go into play allowing more tx to fit into a block. 
    4. Take the risk at lower fees and experiment with the so called accelerators.

#3 is probably the longer term solution everyone is watching out for.

[absy]

Things I do to prevent fee
1. Convert it to other altcoins like doge and then do the transactions .
2. Use the tx accelator sometimes

[EXtremeAEX]

i recently looked up out of interest what i payed back in the day in Fees.
Its insane how much the fees increased.
2016-02-09 58$: 26 cents Fees.  
2017-06-19 50$: 1.91$ Fees.

I hate it everyday when i pay with bitcoins. Bitcoin turns into Fiat Fees.
The Fees completly destroyed luckyb.it/ for example. They needed to make it a High rolling game.

Honestly, Bitcoin was not meant to be a digital currency for daily usage, but rather meant for an investment. I agree that the fees have gone up so high that faucets are not worth, and small donations/transactions are wasted due to fees.

If you are not in a hurry and you can customize your fees (if you are using a bitcoin client), then you can choose to minimize your fees if you are not in a hurry. However if you set too low fees, it may not go through. Check this thread below.

Low/Zero Fees

[buwaytress]

I, on the other hand, have learnt that as I control my fees and funds, I am finding ways to pay cheaper and cheaper transactions. For example, "back in the day" when I first started in 2016, I'd used flat-fee wallets to transact mostly. For a while, this meant I paid flat 20k satoshi or so on a lot of dust, so I probably saved money over the long run.

I then also realised I was paying a lot of fees for dust accumulated in Electrum.

These days, I transact far less often than before. I try to keep my inputs lean. I try to time my spends to coincide with non-congested network, and try to bundle them together (for example, my freelancing work, I get lump sump payments rather than per item now).

I'm paying lower fees now, and still keep a very respectable <0.5% average fee on amounts. 

[simik]

Most bitcoin wallets play it safe and set fees so that transactions get confirmed in the next block or two. But if you don't mind waiting 6-9 blocks (1-1.5 hours), you can get away with 1/10th the fees. Take a look at this graph:

https://bitcoinfees.github.io/misc/profile/

330 sat/byte to get to the next block, but just 26-32 sat/byte to get confirmed in 6-9 blocks.

[iamTom123]

The fees, the fees and the fees. I am really hoping that after the SegWit can be implemented then we can go back to the level a year ago where transactions are charged fairly and rationally. It seems to be beyond belief if Bitcoin fees would continue with the way they are as they are definitely already higher than fiat money transfers.

Bitcoin holders are already expressing  a high level of exasperation and discouragement on paying higher fees because we all know that blockchain technology is supposed to keep the fees low and not make it exorbitantly high as they are now. Now, it would be a great travesty if after the SegWit the fees would remain the same all because those who are benefiting from it would not let it go.

[Syke]

Most bitcoin wallets play it safe and set fees so that transactions get confirmed in the next block or two. But if you don't mind waiting 6-9 blocks (1-1.5 hours), you can get away with 1/10th the fees. Take a look at this graph:

https://bitcoinfees.github.io/misc/profile/

330 sat/byte to get to the next block, but just 26-32 sat/byte to get confirmed in 6-9 blocks.

If you're patient, you can get away with 1 sat/byte fee and get it confirmed in a day or so.

[susila_bai]

Most bitcoin wallets play it safe and set fees so that transactions get confirmed in the next block or two. But if you don't mind waiting 6-9 blocks (1-1.5 hours), you can get away with 1/10th the fees. Take a look at this graph:

https://bitcoinfees.github.io/misc/profile/

330 sat/byte to get to the next block, but just 26-32 sat/byte to get confirmed in 6-9 blocks.

If you're patient, you can get away with 1 sat/byte fee and get it confirmed in a day or so.

I dont think that 1 sat/byte fees will confirm you transaction even on 48 hrs as almost it will get rejected, you have to put atleast some nominal fees if not why the miner will take your transaction for confirmation. Ya it is true that ViaBTC accelerator is working good and if you put minimum 50 sat/byte fees it will get your confirmation soon in 3 to 4 hrs time.

[vh]

Most bitcoin wallets play it safe and set fees so that transactions get confirmed in the next block or two. But if you don't mind waiting 6-9 blocks (1-1.5 hours), you can get away with 1/10th the fees. Take a look at this graph:

https://bitcoinfees.github.io/misc/profile/

330 sat/byte to get to the next block, but just 26-32 sat/byte to get confirmed in 6-9 blocks.

If you're patient, you can get away with 1 sat/byte fee and get it confirmed in a day or so.

I haven't seen any statistics regarding minimum relay fees lately.   With the amount of potential spam about, I suspect it has become common for node owners to set one.   Will that low a fee even propagate to a block solving node?

[Syke]

I haven't seen any statistics regarding minimum relay fees lately.   With the amount of potential spam about, I suspect it has become common for node owners to set one.   Will that low a fee even propagate to a block solving node?

1 sat/byte is the current default minimum relay. Few nodes change from the default. It'll get relayed to virtually everyone and mined just fine. I know, 2 weeks ago I sent 5.5 btc, just under 1500 bytes with just over 1500 sats, and it confirmed in a few hours.

[Hatcher]

Most bitcoin wallets play it safe and set fees so that transactions get confirmed in the next block or two. But if you don't mind waiting 6-9 blocks (1-1.5 hours), you can get away with 1/10th the fees. Take a look at this graph:

https://bitcoinfees.github.io/misc/profile/

330 sat/byte to get to the next block, but just 26-32 sat/byte to get confirmed in 6-9 blocks.

If you're patient, you can get away with 1 sat/byte fee and get it confirmed in a day or so.

Not that quick, but I got 1.547 sats/byte confirmed in 24.5 days. I had patience.  

[Syke]

Not that quick, but I got 1.547 sats/byte confirmed in 24.5 days. I had patience.  

Yeah, small micro-transactions with low fees like that will be the lowest priority, but they will relay and likely confirm.

[carlfebz2]

Not that quick, but I got 1.547 sats/byte confirmed in 24.5 days. I had patience.  

Yeah, small micro-transactions with low fees like that will be the lowest priority, but they will relay and likely confirm.

1 sat/byte is really ridiculous and not all people could able to wait for that long since we do make use of our bitcoin and we cant afford on that very long confirmation time and i somehow believe this fee would possibly be rejected- not to sure but most likely.

Back to op, you cant do anything about it on the sudden price increase of tx fee on bitcoin and you are not the only one having a problem on that. This is why when you tried to make transfers then better to avoid micro tx becuase fees will hurt you out.

[Bothebu]

To avoid micro wallet deposits creating large numbers of inputs am I better sending them to an exchange and let them "consolidate" there and then move them when I need them?  IF I send to my Electrum wallet after a month I have 30 inputs, which is going to cost a fortune to move.  I just tried to move 12 days worth and the lowest fees setting was still going to amount to about $15.  Middle of the road setting was $25.  To move $84 worth of BTC is going to cost $25?  Not doing that.  So is the exchange consolidation plan viable?

[HCP]

Probably not... most online services have a minimum deposit amount, usually around the 0.001 region... anything less than that will be considered a "donation"

So be careful that you don't lose any coins attempting to send dust payments to exchanges etc.

Where are you getting these inputs from? Fauceting? Cloud mining? Can you not set the minimum payout amount to 0.01 or higher? That way you won't get as many UTXOs and your transaction sizes and fees won't be made unnecessarily large.

Poloniex has this to say about minimum deposit amounts:

Some currencies have a minimum amount for deposits, this amount is written at the deposit page under each currency deposit address.

If you send less than the minimum by mistake, you can simply send more until the balance of the deposit address is above the minimum, you can use a block explorer to track the address balance, simply search for your Poloniex deposit address on the block explorer to check exactly how much you already have at your deposit address and how much you still need to send.

Please mind the network fee when making the transaction, 1 ETH after the network fee will be .99 ETH, if the minimum limit is 1 ETH the .99 ETH will not credit until more ETH is sent. This apply to all coins with a minimum deposit limit.

Once the deposit address is funded with enough balance the whole amount will be automatically credited to your Poloniex account.

So maybe your consolidation plan will work... but bear in mind that you have no control of the fees they choose to send your transaction out with...

[Dart18]

Dont wonder.  Just look at how many numbers the bitcoin price have gotten into.
That is why it really takes a lot of money for every transaction.
Actually, I have thought of this.

Why the hell it became the opposite.
When bitcoin is cheaper, miners need a lot of money for electric bills. So they should have increase the tx fees.
Now that it is so expensive, why do the increase?  Lame and somehow it looks like greed.

[Bothebu]

Probably not... most online services have a minimum deposit amount, usually around the 0.001 region... anything less than that will be considered a "donation"

So be careful that you don't lose any coins attempting to send dust payments to exchanges etc.

Where are you getting these inputs from? Fauceting? Cloud mining? Can you not set the minimum payout amount to 0.01 or higher? That way you won't get as many UTXOs and your transaction sizes and fees won't be made unnecessarily large.

Poloniex has this to say about minimum deposit amounts:

Some currencies have a minimum amount for deposits, this amount is written at the deposit page under each currency deposit address.

If you send less than the minimum by mistake, you can simply send more until the balance of the deposit address is above the minimum, you can use a block explorer to track the address balance, simply search for your Poloniex deposit address on the block explorer to check exactly how much you already have at your deposit address and how much you still need to send.

Please mind the network fee when making the transaction, 1 ETH after the network fee will be .99 ETH, if the minimum limit is 1 ETH the .99 ETH will not credit until more ETH is sent. This apply to all coins with a minimum deposit limit.

Once the deposit address is funded with enough balance the whole amount will be automatically credited to your Poloniex account.

So maybe your consolidation plan will work... but bear in mind that you have no control of the fees they choose to send your transaction out with...

I get about .0028 everyday from cloud mining BTC.  Genesis doesn't have a minimum threshold, they send once per day, no matter what.  I asked support they said they would be less desirable to hackers since they don't hold large balances.  And if they did have a hack, they could easily cover one day worth of mining without going out of business.  I changed my wallet for genesis to an exchange, lets see what happens for a bit.  Thanks for reply.

[Syke]

To avoid micro wallet deposits creating large numbers of inputs am I better sending them to an exchange and let them "consolidate" there and then move them when I need them?  IF I send to my Electrum wallet after a month I have 30 inputs, which is going to cost a fortune to move.  I just tried to move 12 days worth and the lowest fees setting was still going to amount to about $15.  Middle of the road setting was $25.  To move $84 worth of BTC is going to cost $25?  Not doing that.  So is the exchange consolidation plan viable?

Be patient and go with the minimum fee (~1 sat/byte). Your minimum consolidation fee should be about $.15. That's an extremely low .2% fee.