Should I covert BTC to another to get lower withdrawal fees?

[sting8]

I noticed that the withdrawal fee for Bitcoin at my exchange was about $6 (0.0005 BTC)

Then I looked at the fees for Stellar (0.02 XLM) and Ripple (0.02 XRP) which equated to only a few cents.

My question is why wouldn't you change your bitcoin into one of these others, then withdraw, paying only pennies instead of $6.

What am I missing?

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

If your intentions are to finally convert the bitcoin or any cryptocurrency you intend withdrawing to fiat currency then it's best you go with the coin with the least withdrawal charges, also if you're hoping for a faster transaction, it's best you don't withdraw using bitcoin forget whatever the bitcoin maximalist will say. Go with what will be comfortable, less costly and less time consuming for you.

Although if you intend hodling the bitcoin you want to withdraw, then just go ahead to avoid mistakes and uncertainties. The high charges on service plus miners fees is the reason why withdrawing via bitcoin is that costly on most exchanges.

[Polar91]

I noticed that the withdrawal fee for Bitcoin at my exchange was about $6 (0.0005 BTC)

Then I looked at the fees for Stellar (0.02 XLM) and Ripple (0.02 XRP) which equated to only a few cents.

My question is why wouldn't you change your bitcoin into one of these others, then withdraw, paying only pennies instead of $6.

What am I missing?

I see no reason why you shouldn't do it since I do it myself in order to get rid of expensive fees. Usually since I'm a Bitcoin fan, I tend to withdraw my money from an exchange to my local wallet via ripple and then convert it into BTC after. However sometimes I also don't convert it into BTC again since I like to hold some XRP too.

[crwth]

That's the thing with the volatile markets in cryptocurrency markets, it will always have fluctuations that you would never expect, and it could cost you or benefit you. So I will share my opinion with you.

If you are only looking at the USD value of your coins

• Withdraw with using another cryptocurrency to have less fee
• If you could cash it out immediately, then it should serve you well

If not and you see the value of BTC

• You could HODL it and remind yourself that there's a possibility of it growing in value (bullish on the price on BTC)
• If you're not in a rush to get the money, use BTC to take advantage of the volatility. It could become a win-win or a lose-lose situation, depending on your status

[Velkro]

I noticed that the withdrawal fee for Bitcoin at my exchange was about $6 (0.0005 BTC)

Then I looked at the fees for Stellar (0.02 XLM) and Ripple (0.02 XRP) which equated to only a few cents.

My question is why wouldn't you change your bitcoin into one of these others, then withdraw, paying only pennies instead of $6.

What am I missing?

You missing risk involving changing your Bitcoin to some &^$#&^coin.
In time your withdrawal will be processed Bitcoin can gain/loose even 30% (minutes).
Is it really worth the risk of loosing that much value over $6?
Its not by me.

[TryNinja]

Looks like you need to switch exchanges instead. Binance only has a 0.0000022 BTC withdrawal fee. A 0.0005 BTC withdrawal fee is definitely too much in today's standards as the mempool is quite rarely congested in the past few weeks and months anyway.

Mind telling us what exchange you're using?

What? Binance has a fixed withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC. Where did you see 0.0000022 BTC?

I just logged in my account to confirm to confirm that.

[mk4]

What? Binance has a fixed withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC. Where did you see 0.0000022 BTC?

I just logged in my account to confirm to confirm that.

Deleted my reply. Didn't notice that there were two 'BTC's on Binance's fees page. Woops. 🤦

https://www.binance.com/en/fee/schedule

[joniboini]

In time your withdrawal will be processed Bitcoin can gain/loose even 30% (minutes).

XRP/XLM withdrawal tends to happens between seconds/2 minutes at best. And if there's a huge fluctuation on the market, maybe choosing BTC withdrawal is not the best choice as it could get stuck and needs 10-30 minutes for 1 confirmation. If OP purpose is saving fees, I think the strategy is quite good, assuming the liquidity on the other market is good enough.

What? Binance has a fixed withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC. Where did you see 0.0000022 BTC?

It's for their BEP2 token that's pegged to BTC. Check at https://www.binance.com/en/fee/schedule.

[TryNinja]

Deleted my reply. Didn't notice that there were two 'BTC's on Binance's fees page. Woops. 🤦

To be fair, I also wasn't even aware of this. Googled a bit and looks like the other BTC (BEP32) is kind of a token on Binance's chain that is backed by BTC (1 BTC on their chain = 1 BTC on the real/native chain), which is why the fees are way lower.

On June 17, 2019, Binance revealed that it will introduce a Bitcoin-backed, BEP32 compliant token, referred to as BTCB. The token has reportedly been developed on the Binance Chain and each BTCB will be fully backed by the cryptocurrency being “wrapped” (in this case, Bitcoin).

https://www.cryptocompare.com/coins/guides/what-is-binance-chain/

[LoyceMobile]

LoyceV summoned.

OP looks like plagiarism to me.

[electronicash]

I noticed that the withdrawal fee for Bitcoin at my exchange was about $6 (0.0005 BTC)

Then I looked at the fees for Stellar (0.02 XLM) and Ripple (0.02 XRP) which equated to only a few cents.

My question is why wouldn't you change your bitcoin into one of these others, then withdraw, paying only pennies instead of $6.

What am I missing?

ye that make sense, 0.0005 is even cheap. some exchange asks 0.001 for withdrawal and what i do is if i have to cash out anyway, i just have to buy ETH and send it to my wallet to convert to fiat. or XRP which is pretty much cheaper. $6 is way too much fr sending coins to a wallet.

Looks like you need to switch exchanges instead. Binance only has a 0.0000022 BTC withdrawal fee. A 0.0005 BTC withdrawal fee is definitely too much in today's standards as the mempool is quite rarely congested in the past few weeks and months anyway.

Mind telling us what exchange you're using?

What? Binance has a fixed withdrawal fee of 0.0005 BTC. Where did you see 0.0000022 BTC?

I just logged in my account to confirm to confirm that.

0.0000022btc i think is the transaction  fee if you don't have bnb. not sure about that so don't quote.

[famososMuertos]

I noticed that the withdrawal fee for Bitcoin at my exchange was about $6 (0.0005 BTC)

Then I looked at the fees for Stellar (0.02 XLM) and Ripple (0.02 XRP) which equated to only a few cents.

My question is why wouldn't you change your bitcoin into one of these others, then withdraw, paying only pennies instead of $6.

What am I missing?

Many hours as you can in trading and paying high fee , unhappy You can get better fee with other coins, important that you want to do with your profit.

Research rates exchanges before buying, selling or depositing.

[mk4]

Deleted my reply. Didn't notice that there were two 'BTC's on Binance's fees page. Woops. 🤦

To be fair, I also wasn't even aware of this. Googled a bit and looks like the other BTC (BEP32) is kind of a token on Binance's chain that is backed by BTC (1 BTC on their chain = 1 BTC on the real/native chain), which is why the fees are way lower.

Yeah totally. If Binance was to make such a move, I'd expect it to be all over Reddit and Twitter. This is totally foreign to me hence I didn't even double check if there were other 'BTC's. Why did they also list it as 'BTC' in the first place. They should've at least named it BBTC or something, like how we have WBTC on Ethereum.

With that said, I don't suggest anyone to even touch that Binance BTC with a 10 foot pole.

[barnes13]

If you want to withdraw it to your bank account (want to cashout), the best way is as you say. I also usually convert BTC to LTC, ETH, or other coins to get a cheaper fee before withdrawing it to my bank account. However, if you want to hold BTC for a long time and want to withdraw it to your wallet, you better pay the $6. The difference in fee depends on the coin/token network. Usually if you want to withdraw from the wallet you can choose the cost incurred starting from the lowest price with a slow transfer rate to expensive with a high transfer speed. But, if withdrawing through exchange, it has been determined and becomes an absolute fee.

[pooya87]

In time your withdrawal will be processed Bitcoin can gain/loose even 30% (minutes).

XRP/XLM withdrawal tends to happens between seconds/2 minutes at best. And if there's a huge fluctuation on the market, maybe choosing BTC withdrawal is not the best choice as it could get stuck and needs 10-30 minutes for 1 confirmation. If OP purpose is saving fees, I think the strategy is quite good, assuming the liquidity on the other market is good enough.

the problem is usually with the time it takes for the other place to credit your account. you may make a withdrawal from one exchange and within 3 seconds get the transaction and have it confirmed but as long as the other exchange takes 2 hours to credit your account (usually they do it to fight against the insecurity of altcoins) you will end up seeing the huge volatility specially if that altcoin is in a pump and dump interval.

besides if a trader in this market is really concerned with 0.0005 or lower bitcoin withdrawal fees then they are doing something wrong because that should be a tiny fraction of the profit they can make in the market.

[LoyceV]

Despite my déjà vu, I couldn't find direct plagiarism so I'll assume good intentions here

Short answer: yes, you can do this, and for low amounts of Bitcoin you can even use another exchange to exchange your altcoin back to Bitcoin (and still save on fees!).
Example:

Real trade to minimize Yobit's BTC withdrawal fee.

1. BTC to LTC trade in Yobit
      -- Starting Yobit Balance BTC0.00834885
      -- I bought 1.22594414 LTC at the price of BTC0.00681014

2. LTC withdrawal to Coinomi
      -- Less 0.002 LTC withdrawal fee
      -- Final amount arrived in Coinomi is 1.22394414 LTC

3. Coinomi to CoinPlaza
      -- Sent 1.2219 LTC to CoinPlaza
      -- Less 0.00000243 transaction fee
      -- Balance 0.00204171 LTC in Coinomi Wallet

4. Coinplaza to my BTC Wallet
      -- Exchanged 1.2219 LTC for 0.008232 BTC at the rate 0.006805 LTC/BTC​
      -- Coinplaza Service fee: 0.000083 BTC
      -- Final amount arrived in my BTC wallet 0.008232 BTC

So if I had withdrawn BTC from Yobit then I'd have received BTC0.00834885 - BTC0.0012 fee = BTC0.00714885

But with the above trade & routes, I have received BTC0.008232 and saved BTC0.00108315 from loss. Moreover, I still have some LTC balance in Coinomi

I recommend to read How to save few bucks while withdrawing from exchanges, and it's probably better to lock (lower-left) this thread and continue the discussion there.

[sting8]

Thanks for the help everyone. Very interesting.

The reason for my withdrawal would be to hold the crypto long term in cold storage, NOT to convert back to fiat. I read that it's better to store it that way as opposed to keeping it on the exchange long term.

However, if I convert it from BTC to another coin for this long-term storage to save the commission, I guess I'm taking a gamble that that coin will hold it's value... maybe BTC is the wisest choice despite the larger fee?

[TryNinja]

Thanks for the help everyone. Very interesting.

The reason for my withdrawal would be to hold the crypto long term in cold storage, NOT to convert back to fiat. I read that it's better to store it that way as opposed to keeping it on the exchange long term.

However, if I convert it from BTC to another coin for this long-term storage to save the commission, I guess I'm taking a gamble that that coin will hold it's value... maybe BTC is the wisest choice despite the larger fee?

You can always withdrawal the LTC and then trade to BTC in another exchange or a “quick swap website” where the fees are lower than the one from Binance.

[pooya87]

The reason for my withdrawal would be to hold the crypto long term in cold storage, NOT to convert back to fiat. I read that it's better to store it that way as opposed to keeping it on the exchange long term.

then your comparison of withdrawal fees and even talking about withdrawal fee doesn't make any sense. you should instead focus only on the "investment" you are making and see if the coin you want to hold for long term can keep its current price let alone give you a profit!

[Raymondavid47]

Absolutely. I don't think I have have withdrawn btc to my personal wallet this year. What I do is to convert my btc to xlm, xrp or ltc and transfer it to bitmax exchange. Then convert it back to eth and I can withdraw it at a very low fee. And it's very fast.