Whales = high fees

[thirdprize]

If you are moving 100s of BTC around then you don't mind paying $2 transaction fee to get it done quick.  You can afford it.  It hurts the rest of us though as we can't.  Btc will always be at the mercy of the whales.

[dothebeats]

As long as the sat/byte value doesn't change to extreme highs, this shouldn't be a problem. It's understandable that the dollar value of transactions would get higher on every bull run as BTC/USD pair also increases. Not that I'm okay with increase in fees but then again we should also look on the factors that affect such increases and try to draw a rather reasonable and rational conclusion from there.

[OmegaStarScream]

You're saying that as If hundreds of bitcoins are being regularly transacted through the bitcoin network and not inside exchanges...

The network is saturated a little bit but that's probably due to the increase in the price. People are constantly withdrawing/depositing money from/to exchanges.

[pakhitheboss]

I do have the same feeling, completely agree. It is still being controlled by the whales, but look at the bright side because of the bull run you are now planning to move your Bitcoin. The more the dollar value the more increase in the charge value.

[Beerwizzard]

To increase the average transaction fee we obviously need many transactions with a high fee. Those whale transactions probably wouldn't be even noticed. They would get to the 1st positions in queue, get confirmations pretty fast while the situation with the other transactions would probably remain the same. Even if we see some fee increase then it would probably be something except whales.

[NeuroticFish]

LOL! You guys think that the high fees are caused only by the ones moving around 100s of Bitcoin? Really??

How about the arbitrage bots? Every time there's a spike in the price, the fees go high. I've seen this behavior for months. As soon as the price "levels", the network gets free again. For arbitrage the time is crucial and they'll pay high fees. We, the others, have to wait. And yeah, blame the whales.

[Ailmand]

If you are moving 100s of BTC around then you don't mind paying $2 transaction fee to get it done quick.  You can afford it.  It hurts the rest of us though as we can't.  Btc will always be at the mercy of the whales.

Well, it is not their fault they have money to be a whale. If you want faster transactions pay higher fees. If you cannot afford the fees then just use the standard fee and wait for a standard confimation time.

[Jating]

If you are moving 100s of BTC around then you don't mind paying $2 transaction fee to get it done quick.  You can afford it.  It hurts the rest of us though as we can't.  Btc will always be at the mercy of the whales.

I really don't understand your logic here. How are we affected by whales moving huge amount of coins? It's boils down as to how much fee's you are willing to pay in order to get your transactions quick.

So we are not in the mercy of the whales, if you know how to manage fee's then there will be no problem in your end.

[pushups44]

If you are moving 100s of BTC around then you don't mind paying $2 transaction fee to get it done quick.  You can afford it.  It hurts the rest of us though as we can't.  Btc will always be at the mercy of the whales.

A big factor unnecessarily raising transaction fees is software that miscalculates the fee that should be paid by setting it higher than it should be. Also, bitcoin fees are driven by supply and demand, so if people are willing to pay higher fees and are able to do so we will just have to accept that. This is part of being a network.

[aad140386]

I do not understand the essence of this post. In this world, everything is controlled by people who have the power and money. Big money will always rule the world until another viable system comes to replace capitalism. Bitcoin is the same asset as everyone else, and seeing the potential in it big money will buy it, if not already bought. In any big business or investment there is no place for random people. Therefore, visitors to this forum are unlikely to ever get rich so much that they can somehow influence the market.

[okala]

We should always know that whenever the is increase in the price of bitcoin the transactions fee will be a little bit high because volumes of bitcoin are moving within the bitcoin network, and if you are familiar with exchange fees then you pay higher moving bitcoin from exchange the wallet or from wallet to exchange.

[bittraffic]

We should always know that whenever the is increase in the price of bitcoin the transactions fee will be a little bit high because volumes of bitcoin are moving within the bitcoin network, and if you are familiar with exchange fees then you pay higher moving bitcoin from exchange the wallet or from wallet to exchange.

True. Everything will increase as price also rise.
Those who were here long enough had experienced it that even sending  a fraction of BTC will have higher fee than the usual due to bullrun. Its not like BTC is worth $250 anymore. A transaction fee of 0.001 btc is now worth $8 when its less than $1 years ago.

[LoyceMobile]

Fees spiral up because many wallets use the "best fee" to be included in the next block by default.
Most of my transactions don't need fast confirmation, so I barely pay high fees.

[BossMacko]

On my experience Botcoin fees sre not stable, fees varies depending on how congested the blockchain is. The more congested the more you need to pay higher for your transaction to be in queue, else your transaction will take time bbefore it reflects.

[Lucius]

In last bull run fees are go up to $50 or even more, and fees will always go up in times such as now. Things work that way, and if any user want to get quick confirmation they need to pay price for that. Problem is that big number of users think that they need to pay fee which is shown in their wallet, instead to calculate their own fee based on how quick transaction should be confirmed. Some fee can also be saved with SegWit, so switch to wallet that support such address.

Let's take an example how you can save on fee by using SegWit wallet for confirmation in next 2 blocks :

For legacy transaction with 2 inputs / outputs user need to pay : 112 satoshis/byte -> size 374 bytes -> 41888 satoshis -> $3.38

For SegWit transaction with 2 inputs / outputs user need to pay :  112 satoshis/vbyte  -> size 265 vbytes -> 29680 satoshis -> $2.39

So it is easy to save $1 on such transaction, and it is easy to use fees calculator like this : https://www.buybitcoinworldwide.com/fee-calculator/

[hatshepsut93]

Bitcoin transactions don't care about how much value you transact, only how many inputs/outputs you use. Fees rise because a lot of addresses become active, not because whales move a lot of money - in fact if whales have reasonably consolidated funds, they would be much more efficient in the network than many people with smaller amount.

Anyway, the biggest impact on network fees can be accounted to market activity, when people move a lot of coins to exchanges to sell them, it quickly clogs the mempool.

[eternalgloom]

Using segwit addresses definitely helps a lot and it also pays to check what kind of fee you should be paying, in order to get your transaction confirmed in X amount of time.
Most wallets will "charge" you too much fees, I've just always checked the fees manually on https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ and then I lower them, depending on how long I want to wait for confirmations.

Sometimes I really don't mind waiting a couple of hours, so at those times I can pay significantly less fees.

[drumamat]

I think that if You sell 1 bitcoin then the Commission of $ 2 you will not even notice.But the problem takes place if we are talking about micropayments.Buying a product or service for a small cost,the Commission of $ 2 really seems big.

[KennyR]

LOL! You guys think that the high fees are caused only by the ones moving around 100s of Bitcoin? Really??

How about the arbitrage bots? Every time there's a spike in the price, the fees go high. I've seen this behavior for months. As soon as the price "levels", the network gets free again. For arbitrage the time is crucial and they'll pay high fees. We, the others, have to wait. And yeah, blame the whales.

Yes, this happens whenever there is some big increase in the price of bitcoin. Similar form of transaction fee increase happened when the price of bitcoin increased during the 2017 bull market. Once it took days for confirmation as more transactions got stuck to the network even when more fee were added to the transaction. By that time transaction accelerators played a big role.

[BitHodler]

Buying a product or service for a small cost,the Commission of $ 2 really seems big.

It is big in terms of the overall ratio, but you can save a lot in fees by using the bc1 address format of SegWit. It can save you like 30-40% in fees without doing anything, so isn't that enough reason to upgrade?

I use the Electrum client both on my desktop and smartphone and it works extremely well. Give it a try and see for yourself how much you save in fees compared to legacy format addresses

If you want even cheaper (and faster) transactions, then LN is the right option for you. The only downside for now is the fact that it is very early on and the overall adoption isn't as widespread yet, but we'll get there eventually.