What is minimum safe amount of fee that can be set manually in Electrum wallet?

[WLtoys V912]

I have a little bitcoin in my Electrum wallet (about 0.0006 BTC).
I want to send it to someone but the max amount that it lets me to choose is around 0.00043 BTC! with 18.2 sat/byte fee.

I tried editing fees manually and when I choose 5 sat/byte, the max amount that I can send is increased to 0.00056 BTC.

Is it safe to send money with as low as 5 sat/byte fee? What is the minimum amount of fee that lets me send the most part of my balance safely?
I don't care about how much time it takes to receive confirmations. I'm very patient. I only care about safety.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I don't care about how much time it takes to receive confirmations. I'm very patient. I only care about safety.

Then choose 1 sat/byte. This is the lowest fee which will be relayed by the network. The mempool is currently pretty full, so you will likely be waiting 6-12 hours for it to confirm, but you are not at any risk of your coins being lost. The worst case scenario, in the unlikely event that the mempool doesn't empty any time soon, is that your transaction is dropped and your coins remain in your wallet, at which point you can simply try sending them again.

[WLtoys V912]

I don't care about how much time it takes to receive confirmations. I'm very patient. I only care about safety.

Then choose 1 sat/byte. This is the lowest fee which will be relayed by the network. The mempool is currently pretty full, so you will likely be waiting 6-12 hours for it to confirm, but you are not at any risk of your coins being lost. The worst case scenario, in the unlikely event that the mempool doesn't empty any time soon, is that your transaction is dropped and your coins remain in your wallet, at which point you can simply try sending them again.

Thanks for your answer. I sent it at 1 sat/byte.
It seems that it will take some hours to receive confirmations. Can I close Electrum wallet and shut down my PC now? Or should I stay awake all night and wait for confirmations to arrive with my PC on?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Can I close Electrum wallet and shut down my PC now?

Absolutely. Once your transaction has been broadcast to the network, there is no need to keep your wallet open or your PC on.

You can check that it has been broadcast successfully by looking up the transaction on a block explorer. In the "History" tab in Electrum, right click on the transaction you just made and click on "View on block explorer". It should load a web page which shows your transaction and shows that is has zero confirmations. If you can see your transaction on this web page, then it means it has been broadcast and is waiting to be mined. You can shut everything down, go to bed, and when you wake up tomorrow it will very likely have been confirmed.

[WLtoys V912]

Can I close Electrum wallet and shut down my PC now?

Absolutely. Once your transaction has been broadcast to the network, there is no need to keep your wallet open or your PC on.

You can check that it has been broadcast successfully by looking up the transaction on a block explorer. In the "History" tab in Electrum, right click on the transaction you just made and click on "View on block explorer". It should load a web page which shows your transaction and shows that is has zero confirmations. If you can see your transaction on this web page, then it means it has been broadcast and is waiting to be mined. You can shut everything down, go to bed, and when you wake up tomorrow it will very likely have been confirmed.

Thanks again for your help.
Now, after about 8 hours it is still unconfirmed (0 confirmation). Should I wait more or is something wrong with my transaction? Is it because of busy network?

[nc50lc]

There's nothing wrong with your transaction.

Currently, 1sat/B is almost at the 2mB+ range (within 1mb is the priority) and there's a good chance for it to be included to a block within this hour
(if blocks aren't too delayed and more transaction wont flood in).

Past 4-8 hours's mempool size is worse.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yeah, if you take a look at the mempool graphs viewable on this page (https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,24h), you will see that the mempool has been pretty full for the last 8-12 hours, and only in the last hour or so has it finally emptied. As nc50lc has said, I suspect your transaction will now have confirmed, as the last 4 blocks all emptied the mempool down to less than 0.1 MB of pending transactions.

If it still hasn't confirmed for some reason, then post the transaction ID here so we can take a look at it.

[WLtoys V912]

Yesterday, I sent some BTC from my Blockchain wallet to another address. This time I chose 2 sat/byte instead of 1. However, 24 hours have passed since then and it is still unconfirmed! Not even 1 confirmation!
Is this normal? Has it ever happened to you? I'm starting to panic! 
What will happen to my fund?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Yes, this is normal. No, there is nothing to panic about. You just have to wait a bit longer.

In the last 24 hours, the mempool has never fully cleared, and although plenty of 2 sat/byte transactions have confirmed here have always been at least a few hundred transactions with a fee of 2 sat/byte waiting to be confirmed. Your transaction has been one of the unlucky ones which hasn't yet been picked by a miner. 2 sat/byte transactions are now 4 MB from the tip, and the mempool is starting to fill again as it usually does around this time of the day. In all likelihood the earliest you will get confirmed now is in around 16 hours, but you may be waiting a few days yet.

Since you are sending from a Blockchain.com wallet, the option of speeding up your transaction using RBF is not available to you. Who were you sending the coins to? The recipient could perform a CPFP transaction if you are in a hurry for the transaction to confirm, although this will incur a cost. If the transaction is not urgent, then just be patient.

[WLtoys V912]

Since you are sending from a Blockchain.com wallet, the option of speeding up your transaction using RBF is not available to you. Who were you sending the coins to? The recipient could perform a CPFP transaction if you are in a hurry for the transaction to confirm, although this will incur a cost. If the transaction is not urgent, then just be patient.

Thanks for your fast and helpful support.
Actually, I wanted to convert some of my BTC to USD through an online exchanger. They gave me a wallet address for sending BTC. I sent them my BTC when it was $10.084! The problem is that BTC fell to $9600 today and my transaction has not been confirmed yet. This long waiting time made some losses for me. I placed my order at $10K but I don't know how much I will receive in my Perfect Money USD account. They should be really generous to calculate my conversion based on yesterday's exchange rates.
Maybe I'm lucky enough and at the time of confirmation, BTC rises again to $10K!

[mocacinno]

Since you are sending from a Blockchain.com wallet, the option of speeding up your transaction using RBF is not available to you. Who were you sending the coins to? The recipient could perform a CPFP transaction if you are in a hurry for the transaction to confirm, although this will incur a cost. If the transaction is not urgent, then just be patient.

Thanks for your fast and helpful support.
Actually, I wanted to convert some of my BTC to USD through an online exchanger. They gave me a wallet address for sending BTC. I sent them my BTC when it was $10.084! The problem is that BTC fell to $9600 today and my transaction has not been confirmed yet. This long waiting time made some losses for me. I placed my order at $10K but I don't know how much I will receive in my Perfect Money USD account. They should be really generous to calculate my conversion based on yesterday's exchange rates.
Maybe I'm lucky enough and at the time of confirmation, BTC rises again to $10K!

If it was a "traditional" exchange (not an on-the-fly-no-kyc-needed exchange) , usually, you get a deposit address, and as soon as a transaction funding this deposit address is confirmed, they let you trade at current market conditions...

This has it's upside: you can fund the address they generated for you with a tx with a 1 sat/byte fee, it doesn't matter if it takes days (or weeks) to confirm... However, if you chose a low fee and your transaction remains unconfirmed at the "perfect" trading time, you won't be able to make the trade.

Things are a bit different with those on-the-fly exchanges that don't require you to create an account, these exchanges usually give you a limited amount of time to fund the deposit address, but they usually do guarantee a certain exchange rate (albeit, it's usually higher than with the "traditional" exchanges)

[WLtoys V912]

Can I use lightning network to solve this problem and send my BTC as fast as possible before the exchange rate drops?

[o_e_l_e_o]

Can I use lightning network to solve this problem and send my BTC as fast as possible before the exchange rate drops?

If the exchange you are using accepts Lightning payments, then yes, you could send your bitcoin via Lightning and have it arrive almost instantly. Blockchain.com does not support this though, so you will need to look in to using another wallet. Lightning channels also need funded in advance by making a standard on-chain transaction, so you can't take advantage of a sudden price surge to sell immediately unless you have planned ahead and have your bitcoin already in an open channel.

The simplest option for you to avoid this kind of scenario in the future is to click "Customize Fee" within your Blockchain.com wallet, and pick a fee yourself based on how full the mempool is, rather than just accepting the fee that Blockchain.com tells you to use. Automated fee algorithms are notoriously inaccurate.

[HCP]

Can I use lightning network to solve this problem and send my BTC as fast as possible before the exchange rate drops?

Also, note that lightning generally isn't suitable for sending "large" amounts... for one, it is still in "beta" and putting in large amounts has a higher risk... also, most channels only hold a few hundred thousand sats at most... so, you'll generally only be able to send $10's of $ of value... rather than $100's or $1000's.

Lightning is really aimed at micro-transactions for a few dollars.

Sadly, the fees charged by most exchanges will eat into small dollar transactions quite significantly.

[pooya87]

Lightning is really aimed at micro-transactions for a few dollars.

i don't think that's true.
Lightning Network is mostly about the number of transactions not the amount. meaning if you want to send a micro transaction you still have to use on-chain transactions, because it would cost you more to use LN. but if you want to send hundreds of transactions (no matter their value) then LN is the best choice.

[HCP]

Well... currently, it's constrained more by amounts than anything else. Trying to find paths through channels that allow sending of more than 50k-100k sats can be problematic

[Rath_]

Well... currently, it's constrained more by amounts than anything else. Trying to find paths through channels that allow sending of more than 50k-100k sats can be problematic

As long as you are connected to a well-connected node or have multiple active channels, you can split your payment into multiple smaller parts. All implementations now support this feature; some clients need to be updated, though.

[Wind_FURY]

I believe that there should be topics/guides about "Fees, and how to know how high to play the miners", pinned in the main Bitcoin forum, Bitcoin Technical Support, and Beginners/Help subforums.

A new generation of Bitcoin newbies will be arriving soon.

[WLtoys V912]

Can I use lightning network to solve this problem and send my BTC as fast as possible before the exchange rate drops?

The simplest option for you to avoid this kind of scenario in the future is to click "Customize Fee" within your Blockchain.com wallet, and pick a fee yourself based on how full the mempool is, rather than just accepting the fee that Blockchain.com tells you to use. Automated fee algorithms are notoriously inaccurate.

This seems like a practical solution. Could you please explain a little about mempool charts in the following website?

https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,24h

As you said, I have to choose my fees based on mempool statistical data. How can I read the chart? What do the numbers on the vertical column mean?

[Rath_]

As you said, I have to choose my fees based on mempool statistical data. How can I read the chart? What do the numbers on the vertical column mean?

The vertical column tells which color on the graph represents the specified fee range. It's not really convenient to read from it. If you hover your mouse over the chart, you will see more detailed data for each fee range at a specified time.



Blocks usually take from 1,2 MB to 1,6 MB of space. In this case, we take the virtual size of the block which is 1 MB. So, according to this image, if you sent a transaction paying 80 sat/byte or more, it would very likely confirm in the next block. The interval between blocks is 10 minutes on average. You should also take into account that sometimes there could be no new block found for the next 30-40 minutes which could result in much higher fee needed to confirm your transaction in one block.