£5 fees for a £2 transaction? Bitcoin newbie confused!

[PeskyWabbit]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for taking the time to read my question

I just transferred £2 worth of Bitcoin with my coin.space wallet, and only after it had happened noticed I'd been charged £5 in transaction fees!

Does this seem normal to everyone?

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[Iranus]

When sending a Bitcoin transaction, what you're basically paying for is permanent space on the blockchain.

Because of that, your fee is not linked to how much you're sending, it's linked to how much space you're taking up on the blockchain.  This is why fees are usually measured in satoshi/byte.

The fee is high because there is a limit to how much space a block can take up (1MB) and the high demand for space has resulted in a "fee market" in which people pay higher fees in order to ensure that their transaction is included in a block.

However, you may be able to pay less than that if you want your transaction to be lower priority.  Have a look at this site.

[LeGaulois]

Yes, it's the average fee that people are currently paying, especially if you use a web-based wallet or an exchange. It's useless to send 2£ if you pay 5£ in fees. You should take a look at Bitwala if you want to use a web-based wallet and to pay fewer fees as you can set the fees yourself, so paying less or more, or use a bitcoin client.

[PeskyWabbit]

Oh, I see. Thanks ever so much for answering Iranus!

[canvan]

Hello everyone,

Thanks for taking the time to read my question

I just transferred £2 worth of Bitcoin with my coin.space wallet, and only after it had happened noticed I'd been charged £5 in transaction fees!

Does this seem normal to everyone?

I don't know much about that wallet but generally web wallets will charge a fixed fee in bitcoin regardless of the transaction amount (as others have said). If you are more patient to wait more than 1 blocks worth you should choose a wallet that lets you set the fee, then you can set it low (check https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/). You can set much more appropriate fees, but the drawback is you will have to wait a long time for the transaction to go through.

[PeskyWabbit]

Thanks for all your answers! Very kind of you. I'll look at all the links and options you shared.

According to their illusive support documentation, it's possible to choose different fees at the time of transaction. If it was offered I didn't notice. I'm certainly not going to test it and hit the confirm button again to "double-check" lol ... If I was writing that software (the wallet) I would definitely, definitely check something like that first and proactively check with the user "The transaction fees are high compared to the amount you are transfering, are you sure you wish to continue?"

[Mountaingoat]

Other people are saying you are better of using an altcoin to transfer funds because of the fees being high atm.

I hope this gets fixed if that is even possible in the future.

[onnz423]

Currently the network is under high demand, hence the extremely high fee, if it's not important I suggest you use a wallet such as electrum which allows you manually change the fee, then you can set a very low fee and it'll be confirmed in a few days, make sure you select the replaceable option so you can change the fee later if it takes too long to confirm.