Is it safe to change the fee in Electrum to something really low?

[BlitzyDean]

I want to transfer money from a software wallet to a hardware wallet. The fee would be several hundred dollars if I used the default fee on Electrum, but I can change the fee.

I already spent a ton of money on the hardware wallet, and I'd really rather not lose a ton to fees.

Is it safe to set a really low fee if I don't mind waiting a week for my funds to transfer?

[SFR10]

Is it safe to set a really low fee if I don't mind waiting a week for my funds to transfer?

Since your in control of both ends, then yes but if you set the fee too low, it will take more than a week (most likely).
See the estimated inclusion of the transactions in a block: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/#fees
I still don't recommend what your trying to do but if you decide to go with this, make sure you enable the RBF (Replace By Fee) option, prior to sending the transaction (just in case you change your mind and decide to increase the fee in the future).

[DaMut]

safe ? it should be.
because no matter how low your fees are,in the future you will get it for sure.
even though the transaction is failed,it will not go anywhere and will be back to your account.
but it is worth to do that ?
i do not think so,because if you set it too low.you may be can have it in the next few weeks later ? or even months.
(well it's all depend on the network itself to be honest)

[TwSeventh]

just like other people say,
it is safe but it is not good enough for you to do that.
because a month ago when we were moving like a crazy,many people complained about their transaction.
some of them got their coins after for more than 20 days and some people said they got it for more than a weeks.
but it is safe even though you are set it to the lowest one.
it will not go anywhere or lose,it will be back to your wallet if the transaction is failed.

[dothebeats]

Even if I can, given the current scenario of transactions right now, I wouldn't do it. You would just wait in vain seeing that most miners only accepts bigger fees to include in their blocks. Tried it once with quite a small fee and I ended up using an accelerator just to have it received on the other end. Or does your hardware wallet support sweet privkey? That coupd also do the trick.

[Marteel]

just pay the fee or you will regret the days waiting you did not paid for it

[HabBear]

Is it safe to set a really low fee if I don't mind waiting a week for my funds to transfer?

What do you mean by "safe"?

The Blockchain transaction confirmation process is a free market, meaning that miners will do their work for the highest fee being offered. If you offer your transaction for a rate/fee that is significantly lower than the market then you will have to wait in line while miners confirm transactions with higher fees. This could result in you waiting days or weeks to get transactions confirmed.

Just over the last week of 2017 there was discussion of halting all new transactions so the miners would be forced to confirm the low fee transactions.

So, is it safe? Sure. Is it possible it'll take a very long time to clear? Yes.

[BlitzyDean]

Even if I can, given the current scenario of transactions right now, I wouldn't do it. You would just wait in vain seeing that most miners only accepts bigger fees to include in their blocks. Tried it once with quite a small fee and I ended up using an accelerator just to have it received on the other end. Or does your hardware wallet support sweet privkey? That coupd also do the trick.

I'm not sure what "sweet privkey" is. I'm kinda new to all of this. I was just hoping I could transfer my BTC without losing 200 dollars and maybe lose 10-20 at most.

Is it safe to set a really low fee if I don't mind waiting a week for my funds to transfer?

Since your in control of both ends, then yes but if you set the fee too low, it will take more than a week (most likely).
See the estimated inclusion of the transactions in a block: https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/#fees

From the looks of that if I do 1mBTC/kb it'll be confirmed within a day, right?

[SFR10]

I'm not sure what "sweet privkey" is. I'm kinda new to all of this. I was just hoping I could transfer my BTC without losing 200 dollars and maybe lose 10-20 at most.

He made a typographical error, he meant "Sweep private key". It's like sending all of the bitcoins from your software wallet to an address that is from your hardware wallet (involves an actual transaction).

From the looks of that if I do 1mBTC/kb it'll be confirmed within a day, right?

According to that website, yes but based on my experience (from recent unconfirmed TX's, it takes longer for such low fee transactions to receive confirmations [you have to take note that, that website shows estimates on current states and can't predict future states]). I suggest to not use anything lower than 3 mBTC/kb, in case you want the transaction to get any confirmations within the next 24 hrs (from what I've observed lately).

[BlitzyDean]

I'm not sure what "sweet privkey" is. I'm kinda new to all of this. I was just hoping I could transfer my BTC without losing 200 dollars and maybe lose 10-20 at most.

He made a typographical error, he meant "Sweep private key". It's like sending all of the bitcoins from your software wallet to an address that is from your hardware wallet (involves an actual transaction).

From the looks of that if I do 1mBTC/kb it'll be confirmed within a day, right?

According to that website, yes but based on my experience (from recent unconfirmed TX's, it takes longer for such low fee transactions to receive confirmations [you have to take note that, that website shows estimates on current states and can't predict future states]). I suggest to not use anything lower than 3 mBTC/kb, in case you want the transaction to get any confirmations within the next 24 hrs (from what I've observed lately).

I tried making the transaction and something weird happened. I did a low fee transaction of 1mBTC/kb instead of the default of 3mBTC/kb last night. The transaction size is 2kb.

I started the transaction late last night, at around 10pm. I saw my transaction sending from my Electrum wallet, and receiving in my Keep Key wallet. I went to sleep and woke up to no transactions on either side.

Where did my transaction go? Why did it just disappear?

[SFR10]

I tried making the transaction and something weird happened. I did a low fee transaction of 1mBTC/kb instead of the default of 3mBTC/kb last night. The transaction size is 2kb.

I started the transaction late last night, at around 10pm. I saw my transaction sending from my Electrum wallet, and receiving in my Keep Key wallet. I went to sleep and woke up to no transactions on either side.

Where did my transaction go? Why did it just disappear?

Before anything else, make sure you upgrade to the latest version of Electrum: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2702103.0
Did you happen to save its transaction ID? Could've been dropped (gone from the mempool completely) by all of the nodes (due to low fee being used for such big transaction), if that's the case then you should see the funds back in your address in few days (as if you never made that transaction).

[rohanshinde]

Pay the fees if you want the transaction to be quick. If you are going to hold for long term it's fine if you decrease the fees, but remember it will take days even week to transfer your coins depending on network.

[nguyenhoven]

don't do it, can only have problems. put normal fee better than wait and be sorry

[shaun98]

Yes, it should be safe. However, changing the fee to something really low will of course delay your transaction for a long time, and it could possibly take days to go through.