How Do You Avoid High Fees When Exchanging Currency?

[Rezgar]

So I'm totally new to this, I researched on some currencies and thought to myself that I should invest while they're at such a low price. I buy like 200$ worth of bitcoins. I pay 20$ worth of fees for the exchange (changelly). Then I download a wallet so I can exchange for other currencies, using Jaxx a.t.m. So when I swapped like 45$ worth of bitcoins to another currency, I had to pay 19$ worth of mining fees. I don't mind the swapping fee but the mining fee is ridiculous. Why am I paying almost the double just to buy a freaking currency? I feel very much scammazed. There are like 3-4 other currencies I want to buy as well, but at this rate I'm going to loose whatever I invested to begin with. What the heck is going on?

How do you guys avoid this? The mining fee rate was on low by the way. Just checked with other swaps, it's all the same. Whatever I swap there's a 0.00095 BTC mining fee, now that's huge for me considering what I swapped was only worth 0.00200 BTC. All the profit I'm making is going to some damn fees that according to most people are going back to the system. I mean don't the big companies own most of this system anyways? Also I can't buy other currencies other than bitcoin with Changelly, why?

"Help me obe one kanobi, you're my only hope."

[Boseda]

Bitcoin transactions are quite expensive nowadays. It is better if you convert to another less expensive coin and then trade it for Bitcoin on another exchange.

[Rezgar]

So I should convert my Bitcoins into another coin, let's say Litecoin, then exchange that for alternative coins? Wouldn't that just make me loose even more? How come I can't buy alternative coins for USD on exchanges? I can only buy Bitcoins.

[gentlemand]

Bitcoin's chain has limited capacity and it's being hammered by the current hype. Lower fees are possible if you control the right wallet but many services have a fixed fee that you have no control over. They'll always go for fee overkill to avoid customer complaints.

What other coins interest you and what country do you live in? That'll influence your options. Changelly is slightly last resortish.

[BitHodler]

I usually never recommend people to start making use of online wallet services, but if you really care about fees, then I would have whatever you earn be sent to your wallet at Coinbase for example.

You can wait and let your earnings (whatever they may be) pile up, and then withdraw them to whatever offline wallet. It will then only charge you the network fee based on a transaction being ~226 bytes of weight.

If you let transactions pile up in your own wallet, and you want to send everything at once, the byte size will likely exceed 1000 bytes, which basically means that you need to pay a fee that's around 5 times higher.

In these cases an online wallet can offer you that advantage. It will save you a decent bit of money.

[Rezgar]

It's a variety of coins, mainly Golem right now, also I live in sweden, there's hardly any coin trade here atm. Most of people are busy mining the damn thing. I'm too poor to build something. So you're saying that a local trade would be the best option? There's no way of avoiding the mining fee even if I did that. Why would I pay a mining fee for something that already exists? It doesn't make sense to me. Would it be better to go on coinbase to exchange it with other people instead? I get there's an exchange fee, but the mining fee confuses me. The exchange fee is very low, but the mining fee is so damn crazy. Imagine trading in 100k$ and paying 40k$ fee, that's how I feel right now.

What's my best option right now? My coins are in Jaxx and it's in bitcoins. I want to trade some of these into Golem, and maybe other currencies in the future.

[Kriptex]

I can't avoid them because there is no way to control them. Exchange platforms set those fees up and they control it only.

[gentlemand]

It's a variety of coins, mainly Golem right now, also I live in sweden, there's hardly any coin trade here atm. Most of people are busy mining the damn thing. I'm too poor to build something. So you're saying that a local trade would be the best option? There's no way of avoiding the mining fee even if I did that. Why would I pay a mining fee for something that already exists? It doesn't make sense to me. Would it be better to go on coinbase to exchange it with other people instead? I get there's an exchange fee, but the mining fee confuses me. The exchange fee is very low, but the mining fee is so damn crazy. Imagine trading in 100k$ and paying 40k$ fee, that's how I feel right now.

What's my best option right now? My coins are in Jaxx and it's in bitcoins. I want to trade some of these into Golem, and maybe other currencies in the future.

Regardless of what happens you'll have to pay a fee to move your BTC to an exchange. They've exploded in the last few weeks. Normally it's far lower.

These are your options for Golem markets - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/golem-network-tokens/#markets

Bittrex or Poloniex are the biggest easily accessible exchanges it's on.

I don't know how Jaxx works but if it doesn't have an adjustible fee and all you have is Bitcoin in there you can reintroduce the same seed in a wallet that does like Mycelium. If you have other coins in Jaxx then you won't be able to access them with Mycelium.

Don't go with its fee recommendations, refer to this - https://bitcoinfees.earn.com

[Rezgar]

Appreciate the info. Which coin would you suggest has the best mining rate in case I swap to another in the future?

[player514]

Bitcoin's chain has limited capacity and it's being hammered by the current hype. Lower fees are possible if you control the right wallet but many services have a fixed fee that you have no control over. They'll always go for fee overkill to avoid customer complaints.

What other coins interest you and what country do you live in? That'll influence your options. Changelly is slightly last resortish.

I'm not sure which services have a fixed fee. For beginners, I know that blockchain.info is a pretty common wallet, but I know that you can adjust fee on that service. Electrum and other wallets that more experienced people use almost always have an adjustable fee amount.

Regardless of that, I think it's not worth it to put a small fee in with your transaction. Most services need at least 1 confirmation, so you want to hit that ASAP. If you don't, your transaction could be reversed. For now, try to wait it out a little. It's possible that fees go down soon, but if you really need to get a transaction through, maybe you could try to move more $ in a single transaction.

[gentlemand]

Appreciate the info. Which coin would you suggest has the best mining rate in case I swap to another in the future?

The only coins that have a congestion problem are Bitcoin and Ethereum. Everything else has an empty blockchain so fees will never be above the standard rate which should always be low.

If you're using it to transfer between exchanges and sell again to buy other stuff then obviously it needs to be a coin with a lot of volume that's easy to sell without losing anything. Litecoin is probably the most common option.

I'm not sure which services have a fixed fee. For beginners, I know that blockchain.info is a pretty common wallet, but I know that you can adjust fee on that service. Electrum and other wallets that more experienced people use almost always have an adjustable fee amount.

Regardless of that, I think it's not worth it to put a small fee in with your transaction. Most services need at least 1 confirmation, so you want to hit that ASAP. If you don't, your transaction could be reversed. For now, try to wait it out a little. It's possible that fees go down soon, but if you really need to get a transaction through, maybe you could try to move more $ in a single transaction.

Quite a few still do have a fixed fee, but it's the services like exchanges sending out to you that will hurt more. They don't give you a fee option and certain ones are insane. An exchange I use for XEM charges what is now $16 to send it out when the real fee is a cent or two.

[Fidemoga]

When I use an exchanger in a wallet like coinomi (Shapeshift/Coinomi), I exchange now only currencies with cheap fees, else I use my accounts on exchanging services like cryptopia or Poloniex. But also exchanging services can cause high withdraw fees like cryptopia with BTC. So when I plan to buy Bitcoin, I use Poloniex, else cryptopia.

[olushakes]

So I'm totally new to this, I researched on some currencies and thought to myself that I should invest while they're at such a low price. I buy like 200$ worth of bitcoins. I pay 20$ worth of fees for the exchange (changelly). Then I download a wallet so I can exchange for other currencies, using Jaxx a.t.m. So when I swapped like 45$ worth of bitcoins to another currency, I had to pay 19$ worth of mining fees. I don't mind the swapping fee but the mining fee is ridiculous. Why am I paying almost the double just to buy a freaking currency? I feel very much scammazed. There are like 3-4 other currencies I want to buy as well, but at this rate I'm going to loose whatever I invested to begin with. What the heck is going on?

How do you guys avoid this? The mining fee rate was on low by the way. Just checked with other swaps, it's all the same. Whatever I swap there's a 0.00095 BTC mining fee, now that's huge for me considering what I swapped was only worth 0.00200 BTC. All the profit I'm making is going to some damn fees that according to most people are going back to the system. I mean don't the big companies own most of this system anyways? Also I can't buy other currencies other than bitcoin with Changelly, why?

"Help me obe one kanobi, you're my only hope."

Your way out at this time is to try other currencies because bitcoin is way high for beginners at the moment due to the high fees that is being witnessed and its just better that you start small and gradually when things get better, you then move to bitcoin. There is no way to avoid the high fees if you still dealing with bitcoin because most of the exchange sites would not want you to wait for confirmation and shout scam that is why they go for the high transaction fees compared to wallets which you have the liberty to choose how long you want to wait.

[Anonylz]

That is because they are applying the miner fees, but the fees from changelly are less than 0.25% if i am not wrong (nothing)

I have already said it, there is no way to avoid fees.

So I'm totally new to this, I researched on some currencies and thought to myself that I should invest while they're at such a low price. I buy like 200$ worth of bitcoins. I pay 20$ worth of fees for the exchange (changelly).

If you do not want to spend a lot of money in exchanges, just put your money on an exchange, it is not a safe practice, but you are not going to pay money for fees, well, just the fees from the platform.

Maybe you are just going to risk your safety for a few bucks, but if you are looking for that.. just do it.

[jrrsparkles]

When the value of the bitcoin increases very high in that week the investors should interested in withdraw their money from their wallet so at that time the exchanging fees will be little higher when comparing to normal time. If you can wait for few days to exchange your money the fees will be normal. It is the best to way reduce the exchange fees.

[wndrbr3d]

One of best ways now is to convert BTC to LTC and send it to any exchange with little commission (for LTC). Then just swap LTC to BTC 

[gentlemand]

The problem I have is mostly the exchanges fees fro withdrawal. Those hurt.

That can be mitigated by checking the withdrawal rate of each coin. Sometimes it's freakishly high for no reason. Other times it's very close to the network rate. It seems to completely depend from coin to coin and there's no consistent reasoning.

[melamiras]

The problem I have is mostly the exchanges fees fro withdrawal. Those hurt.

That can be mitigated by checking the withdrawal rate of each coin. Sometimes it's freakishly high for no reason. Other times it's very close to the network rate. It seems to completely depend from coin to coin and there's no consistent reasoning.

I guess they  just optimise for profit. At the end of the day, if bitcoin transfers and withdrawals are too expensive people may start asking for different trade pairs or just using other coins like monero or litecoin for transfers and then converting back to BTC

[nightmanisrightman]

One of best ways now is to convert BTC to LTC and send it to any exchange with little commission (for LTC). Then just swap LTC to BTC 

Either that or use DOGE coin because that can also make the fees less. If I am not mistake LTC is now worth $300 and if continues to rise fees will be higher than DOGE coin. DOGE coin takes 10 coins and it isn't even at a cent meaning your fees will be 5 cents roughly to send it out.

[Rezgar]

Yea I guess I'll choose either, I mean I'm not familiar with some of the coins but I'll take a look. Litecoin was my first choice since it's stable, but the price is going up atm. I would really recommend small bitcoin buyers to stay off bitcoin unless you're willing to hold on to it until you sell it. The fees are crazy, just paid around 20$ to move 100$ to an exchange, did another one before that as well with the same fee. No one told me it was going to be this way....