Very high transaction fee

[swd80]

I'm trying to migrate away from my Multibit Classic wallet. Recommendations I've read say to setup a new wallet with other software (I'm trying Electrum) and then send the BTC to the new address. I've got about 0.95 BTC.
It's not been easy because the transaction fee in Multibit Classic is set too low, so I've had to get the private key to my wallet into Electrum (either sweep or additional wallet). This has been complicated because Electrum doesn't like the format of the key from Multibit Classic so I've had to find a website to decode it.
I am now in a position to send the BTC, but when I preview the transaction, I see my transaction fee is 0.08BTC - that's around $300! It would seem it's because the transaction size is large, as I collected by BTC through altcoin mining a couple of years ago, so there are lots of source transactions (141) which makes my transaction around 22KB. Would that sound right? See below.
https://preview.ibb.co/iGo145/bitcoin_high_fee.png
Can this be right? I can't believe I'm being charged $300 in transaction fees! Please help!

[stompix]

You just said it yourself, you have 141 inputs.
The fee is 8 million satoshi or 363s/byte, the average right now.

Move it to a wallet where you can set your own fee and try to get it confirmed with 200 or 1000 satoshi per byte.
That if you are in no hurry and you can wait for days... and days.

[exstasie]

I'm trying to migrate away from my Multibit Classic wallet. Recommendations I've read say to setup a new wallet with other software (I'm trying Electrum) and then send the BTC to the new address. I've got about 0.95 BTC.
It's not been easy because the transaction fee in Multibit Classic is set too low, so I've had to get the private key to my wallet into Electrum (either sweep or additional wallet). This has been complicated because Electrum doesn't like the format of the key from Multibit Classic so I've had to find a website to decode it.
I am now in a position to send the BTC, but when I preview the transaction, I see my transaction fee is 0.08BTC - that's around $300! It would seem it's because the transaction size is large, as I collected by BTC through altcoin mining a couple of years ago, so there are lots of source transactions (141) which makes my transaction around 22KB. Would that sound right? See below.

Can this be right? I can't believe I'm being charged $300 in transaction fees! Please help!

Based on current transaction fees and the huge number of inputs you are sweeping, that sounds about right. The network is being spammed pretty hard right now (likely to do with the Bitcoin Cash drama) and on top of it, the Bitcoin hash rate has dropped and blocks are being published slower than 10 minutes per block. You may be better off waiting until the congestion dies down; fees may drop considerably.

The other thing you can do, as stompix mentioned, is import the private key to a wallet where you can set a manual (low fee). It could take days to confirm, but some miner may publish your transaction eventually. If not, you can always re-broadcast it with a higher fee. Good luck!

[swd80]

Thanks for confirming I was reading it correctly. I'll keep an eye on the transaction fee then and wait until it drops.

[CryptosapienZA]

I'm trying to migrate away from my Multibit Classic wallet. Recommendations I've read say to setup a new wallet with other software (I'm trying Electrum) and then send the BTC to the new address. I've got about 0.95 BTC.
It's not been easy because the transaction fee in Multibit Classic is set too low, so I've had to get the private key to my wallet into Electrum (either sweep or additional wallet). This has been complicated because Electrum doesn't like the format of the key from Multibit Classic so I've had to find a website to decode it.
I am now in a position to send the BTC, but when I preview the transaction, I see my transaction fee is 0.08BTC - that's around $300! It would seem it's because the transaction size is large, as I collected by BTC through altcoin mining a couple of years ago, so there are lots of source transactions (141) which makes my transaction around 22KB. Would that sound right? See below.

Can this be right? I can't believe I'm being charged $300 in transaction fees! Please help!

 $300 in transaction fees is ridiculously too high. I dont care how many inputs are there. Personally I am on pause in BTC transaction, until this mess is sorted.

[tiggytomb]

That really is a huge fee, if you don't require your bitcoin now then wait a while and see if you can send it in quieter times as you will only get annoyed if you send it now and then in a few weeks the fee is considerably less.

[13abyknight]

I'm trying to migrate away from my Multibit Classic wallet. Recommendations I've read say to setup a new wallet with other software (I'm trying Electrum) and then send the BTC to the new address. I've got about 0.95 BTC.
It's not been easy because the transaction fee in Multibit Classic is set too low, so I've had to get the private key to my wallet into Electrum (either sweep or additional wallet). This has been complicated because Electrum doesn't like the format of the key from Multibit Classic so I've had to find a website to decode it.
I am now in a position to send the BTC, but when I preview the transaction, I see my transaction fee is 0.08BTC - that's around $300! It would seem it's because the transaction size is large, as I collected by BTC through altcoin mining a couple of years ago, so there are lots of source transactions (141) which makes my transaction around 22KB. Would that sound right? See below.

Can this be right? I can't believe I'm being charged $300 in transaction fees! Please help!

Considering the number of inputs you're having in this situation, the fees seems to be alright but its rounding up to almost $300 which is looking very high compared to normal fees. The fact that miners are migrating to mine BCH has also been impacting the transaction fee which everyone is setting a bit higher to get their transaction confirmed faster. You can just wait it out till the block times become normal and it should drastically reduce the fees which you will be paying to push this transaction.

[Vishnu.Reang]

A few weeks back, when the load was especially low, transactions paying extremely small fee (as low as 1 Sat/Byte) got confirmed. So my advice would be to wait until you get such an opportunity. Then you can try sending your coins with a small fee of 3 Sat or 5 Sat per Byte. If the load is low, then the chances are that the transaction will get confirmed after a few hours or days.

[foofya]

I myself always find this website very helpful to see the current transaction fees. They are estimates though!
https://bitcoinfees.21.co/#fees

I always pick the lowest fee that still show 0-x blocks, and I always use the grey number, which is the lowest of that range, not the black.

With 141 inputs I would definitely wait until Segwit is activated (August 24). I expect the fees to start dropping significantly after that.

[chip1994]

I'm trying to migrate away from my Multibit Classic wallet. Recommendations I've read say to setup a new wallet with other software (I'm trying Electrum) and then send the BTC to the new address. I've got about 0.95 BTC.
It's not been easy because the transaction fee in Multibit Classic is set too low, so I've had to get the private key to my wallet into Electrum (either sweep or additional wallet). This has been complicated because Electrum doesn't like the format of the key from Multibit Classic so I've had to find a website to decode it.
I am now in a position to send the BTC, but when I preview the transaction, I see my transaction fee is 0.08BTC - that's around $300! It would seem it's because the transaction size is large, as I collected by BTC through altcoin mining a couple of years ago, so there are lots of source transactions (141) which makes my transaction around 22KB. Would that sound right? See below.

Can this be right? I can't believe I'm being charged $300 in transaction fees! Please help!

I remember you can setting edit fees manually as my setting Electrum wallet, you can see this image and follow this guide: Tools -> Preferences -> In tab Fees check Edit fees manually and re-open your wallet again.

[swd80]

Thanks for all the advice. I don't need access to the BTC - my motivation was to move it to a new wallet as Multibit Classic is no longer supported. Now that I've managed to import the private key into Electrum, I'm happy.

I intend to keep this BTC for as long as possible as I think Bitcoin will carry on increasing and if it goes up a couple more orders of magnitude it could make a big difference to my life.

Also, the guide I'd read about how to claim my BCH said I ought to move BTC to a different wallet first just to make sure - any advice there?

[aleksej996]

You said you used a website to change the format of your private key. I hope you understand the security risks for that, especially because you probably went to a previously unknown website. You should be aware that you just gave them your private keys.

Segwit should activate in 13 hours, but that might not help with the fees instantly, you might end up waiting days. You should also consider the risk of waiting too long, since your private key might be in someone else's hands right now.

[matuson]

I have already the spirit grasps from such rates. Who can disagree with them? The greed of miners do has no limit. It seems to me that they do not understand that the more transactions the more popular will become the bitcoin and the money they earn due to the increase in the number of transactions.

[hatshepsut93]

I'm trying to migrate away from my Multibit Classic wallet. Recommendations I've read say to setup a new wallet with other software (I'm trying Electrum) and then send the BTC to the new address. I've got about 0.95 BTC.
It's not been easy because the transaction fee in Multibit Classic is set too low, so I've had to get the private key to my wallet into Electrum (either sweep or additional wallet). This has been complicated because Electrum doesn't like the format of the key from Multibit Classic so I've had to find a website to decode it.
I am now in a position to send the BTC, but when I preview the transaction, I see my transaction fee is 0.08BTC - that's around $300! It would seem it's because the transaction size is large, as I collected by BTC through altcoin mining a couple of years ago, so there are lots of source transactions (141) which makes my transaction around 22KB. Would that sound right? See below.

Can this be right? I can't believe I'm being charged $300 in transaction fees! Please help!

If you are not going to spend all your coins, you don't need to move them. Just import all private keys to Electrum or other trusted wallet and spend your coins as you need. If you want to deal with dust, you can sort your coins by their amounts and send the smallest ones with some low fee to your new address, to "melt" them into new bigger coin. On August first there was an opportunity to send any transaction with 1000 satoshi fee, because the mempool was empty.

 $300 in transaction fees is ridiculously too high. I dont care how many inputs are there. Personally I am on pause in BTC transaction, until this mess is sorted.

Transaction fees are measured in bitcoins per bytes, because everyone is competing for space in bytes in the next block. You could put hundreds of inputs and outputs to effectively push hundreds of transactions into just one. Transactions are not equal, so they need to be priced differently to have a healthy payment system.

[oaz7t]

Never had chance to earn that much of the bitcoins at the same time. Hope to see myself reaching at that savings. The fees look fair as much as I have read about the fees in current time. You are also sending huge amount, so fees are going to be much more. This is already said in the above post but you can actually go for lower fees and wait for more time to get it confirmed.

[NUFCrichard]

I myself always find this website very helpful to see the current transaction fees. They are estimates though!
https://bitcoinfees.21.co/#fees

I always pick the lowest fee that still show 0-x blocks, and I always use the grey number, which is the lowest of that range, not the black.

With 141 inputs I would definitely wait until Segwit is activated (August 24). I expect the fees to start dropping significantly after that.

They aren't estimates, the website shows how many unconfirmed transactions there are and what fee they have paid.
You can see then what the optimum fee to pay is, so that your transaction will be confirmed in the near future, or at some point.

As of now, you could use 100 satoshis per byte and you will get confirmed quite quickly, that is still $100 for you, but is better than $300.
To be honest, 50 sats per byte would also be confirmed within a few hours.

[Red-Apple]

...
 $300 in transaction fees is ridiculously too high. I dont care how many inputs are there. Personally I am on pause in BTC transaction, until this mess is sorted.

you can try any other cryptocurrency (the altcoins) but let me save you some time and say all of the altcoins that i have seen so far will require a huge fee amount for a transaction that is as big as 20912 bytes (~21 kB) it may cost less in $ just because the altcoins are cheap but it doesn't change the fact that you pay for the size in byte.

[cjmoles]

Here use this: https://estimatefee.com/  it states ~304.81 USD for 141 inputs.....I'd just set a low to moderate fee and wait it out.  Screw them and their fees!  Sell and buy something that works decently, like DASH, Litecoin, or Ethereum.

[NUFCrichard]

...
 $300 in transaction fees is ridiculously too high. I dont care how many inputs are there. Personally I am on pause in BTC transaction, until this mess is sorted.

you can try any other cryptocurrency (the altcoins) but let me save you some time and say all of the altcoins that i have seen so far will require a huge fee amount for a transaction that is as big as 20912 bytes (~21 kB) it may cost less in $ just because the altcoins are cheap but it doesn't change the fact that you pay for the size in byte.

He would have to send his Bitcoin to an exchange - so pay the transaction fee - to be able to buy an alt.
It isn't a solution, unless he finds someone who is willing to swap private keys, which I wouldn't recommend as they might have copies anyway.

Just pay 50 sats now, that will cost you $40-50 for the transaction. It sucks but now is a very good time to do it.

[NeuroticFish]

Thanks for confirming I was reading it correctly. I'll keep an eye on the transaction fee then and wait until it drops.

Since all you want to do is migrate, it's enough to export the private key from multibit classic and create a wallet in Electrum with that key. I think that you did that and it that case you have plenty of time to wait for the best moment. I think that even 50$ fee is high and in your case can be avoided.
I use to watch the graph at the bottom of this page: https://btc.com/stats/unconfirmed-tx
When the mempool size becomes very low (let's say under 5MB?) then it's your moment to consolidate your inputs / transfer your Bitcoin. Then you'll be able to play with fees like 10 satoshi/byte or even lower.

Since SegWit is now activated, I expect the mempool drop fast, so the 5MB is, hopefully, less than 2 days away.

Edit: on a second thought, it may take longer than the initially estimated 2 days...