BitGo withdrawal fee is too high

[o_e_l_e_o]

So far I have downloaded latest version of Electrum wallet

Make sure you also verify your download.

https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/
https://bitzuma.com/posts/how-to-verify-an-electrum-download-on-windows/
https://bitzuma.com/posts/how-to-verify-an-electrum-download-on-mac/

[1714753518]

1714753518

[1714753518]

1714753518

[Findingnemo]

P.S. I will keep updating this topic with info how much I've managed to withdraw, how much it cost me, compared to what BitGo said I can withdraw. I think it would be a nice and free experience for others.

Recently I did paid nearly $20 as fee for a $250 transaction from my electrum.So downloading electrum may not change the things much because the transaction fee depends on the size of your transaction so if you are going to send all the funds from your wallet which you had received from 100 small transactions the fee is going to be same but at least you can set whatever fee you want if you can wait for your transaction get confirmed.

[LoyceV]

Their answer was:

"Our page will not update if you make any changes to the fee priority, but by default our system is showing it as if you were setting it at a two block confirmation priority, which is considered the 'high priority'."

That's a terrible design choice!

I find their way of work and presenting information - misleading.

I expect a Bitcoin wallet to be absolutely accurate when it comes to balance, transaction, funds and fees. This is plain stupid.

I have 0.15 BTC, with high priority transaction system says I can send only 0.12 BTC. Switching to less quick transaction amount available does not change, but in fact, I can send more. I've filled all the necessary and put 0.145 BTC with "Very Low Priority (Est. 300 blocks)" option and clicked Send. Next screen was:



As everyone can see, the button "Send Funds" is blue, which means I can send more than BitGo said I have available.

At least they give a preview before sending.

I've seen many times on this forum BitGo among the list of recommended online wallets.

I would only recommend online wallets for very specific purposes, such as very small amounts that you don't mind losing, for instance to make small payments when you're away from your own trusted computer.

I've been using BitGo to receive funds for more than than a year, but when the time comes to sending, I was not expected to have such issues with reputed wallet.

I wouldn't call it "reputed" Most wallets have a "Max" button that actually sends the maximum, and empties your wallet. Now you have to manually figure it out, based on your screenshots you may be able to withdraw something around 0.1485 BTC, then wait until it confirms. As long as they keep broadcasting the transaction it should arrive, even if it takes a few weeks.

You can have fee-problems with other wallets too when you have 79 inputs, so it's good practice to consolidate your inputs once in a while. Depending on the purpose of each wallet, I do this for anything between just 2 up to tens of inputs.

[Lucius]

I have 0.15 BTC, with high priority transaction system says I can send only 0.12 BTC. Switching to less quick transaction amount available does not change, but in fact, I can send more. I've filled all the necessary and put 0.145 BTC with "Very Low Priority (Est. 300 blocks)" option and clicked Send.

As everyone can see, the button "Send Funds" is blue, which means I can send more than BitGo said I have available.

Given the total network fee you would pay to withdraw 0.145 BTC you can help yourself with ViaBTC Transaction Accelerator and you certainly won’t wait 300 blocks for the first confirmation. The only thing that matters is that you speed up your transaction to the full hour - so paste your transaction ID an click send on full hour (you will also need to solve the captcha).

Regarding Electrum, if you download from official site and verify signature of file + your PC is virus/malware free you are relatively safe. Just keep your seed offline and check every address which you will use to protect yourself from clipboard malware.

[LoyceV]

Given the total network fee you would pay to withdraw 0.145 BTC you can help yourself with ViaBTC Transaction Accelerator

I've seen that claim before, but it's incorrect. The total fee doesn't matter, ViaBTC ignores anything with less than 10 sat/byte fee:

1. Free Acceleration: No need to sign in, you can submit any TXID of delayed transactions that at least include a fee of 0.0001BTC/KB.

[Lucius]

I've seen that claim before, but it's incorrect. The total fee doesn't matter, ViaBTC ignores anything with less than 10 sat/byte fee:

If it says so then it's probably true, but the OP can definitely try if it decides to try the Very Low Priority option - and given the current situation with 1-2 sat/byte it can take some time before miners get his transaction.

[2chase]

Did not expect that I will create a topic here, but here is my story and I'm asking for an advice.

I'm trying to withdraw some funds from BitGo online wallet. Transfer fee is just killing me. When I try to withdraw around 0.15 BTC, wallet wrote that I have available around 0.12 BTC only. This withdrawal fee seems very high imho. The only option I have is to set "Transaction Priority" (from "High priority (Est. 2 blocks)" to "Custom fee in Satoshi per byte"). Changing transaction priority does not affect the amount available.

Do I understand it right - I do not have any option to get my 0.15 BTC, instead of 0.12 BTC and I all I have is to take this as a lesson?

I think that in this way they are trying to forever bind their users to their service. When you have some amount left in your account, sooner or later you will try to use this application again in order to get your money back. And so every time you will return to them in the hope that something will change. I consider this to be a kind of fraud. It may be worth contacting lawyers, it may be possible to file a class action lawsuit against BitGo and try to force them to pay compensation to the wallet owners.

[hd49728]

So far I have downloaded latest version of Electrum wallet

Make sure you also verify your download.

https://bitcoinelectrum.com/how-to-verify-your-electrum-download/
https://bitzuma.com/posts/how-to-verify-an-electrum-download-on-windows/
https://bitzuma.com/posts/how-to-verify-an-electrum-download-on-mac/

A good topic on Electrum and verify this wallet
How to Safely Download and Verify Electrum

People who use Electrum the first time will do like it because it is simple to use. To get more safety, people have to verify wallet before using it. Verifying wallet first time is annoying and looks complicated for everyone, but beware of fake apps and those steps will be done more easily if you do it second, third and later times.

[bakasabo]

Continue of my epic usage of BitGo online wallet.

On Friday I've decided to make a test and send 0.05 BTC to an exchange. I've closed eyes on a transaction fee option that BitGo automatically offered and set 7sat/byte by myself.



With the current situation, I found that presented fee suits me and clicked "Send Funds". The exchange notified me in 2 hours that they see my funds, but they need "3 block confirmation" to add funds to my balance. The transaction was in status unconfirmed till Sunday. And everything in my story might seems brilliant, if not only one thing.

The transaction on blockchain looked like this:

First line is BitGo fee, Third line is the amount sent, but second line 0.01074352 does not look like Network fee 0,00056875 at all.
Plus my balance on BitGo is:



But according to blockchain it is:


I'm not proud and I'm not afraid to ask and to learn. So I asked the support about that second line. The answer was:

"The outputs on the transaction are to your recipients. One address is the one you entered to send the funds to, the other is your change address (leftover change sent back to your wallet), and the other is for your BitGo fees."

Change address... Ok, that was something new to me, because with previous transactions, I did not face "change addresses". The only thing I can do right now is to wait.

To be continued...

[LoyceV]

Change address... Ok, that was something new to me, because with previous transactions, I did not face "change addresses". The only thing I can do right now is to wait.

This is completely normal in Bitcoin
Note that the wallet uses more small inputs than needed for your payment, resulting in a larger transaction (in bytes, and thus in fees) than needed. So your wallet consolidated some of your small inputs already. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it would be a waste to do that when fees are high.

Just so you know: partially hiding addresses and txid doesn't stop anyone from finding the complete address and transaction. So it's kinda useless for privacy.

But according to blockchain it is:

Blockchain.com explorer shows the balance of one address, your wallet can hold many different addresses.

[bakasabo]

Thank you for all your answers in this topic. So I should not worry about "this 0.01074352 to change address" and I should just relax and what for funds to return ? How long does it usually takes for funds to return?

Sadly that during more than 2 years in crypto, I paid so little attention to bitcoin transactions... Everything on ethereum seems more easy. But no doubt, finding out all this "new" is interesting.

[LoyceV]

So I should not worry about "this 0.01074352 to change address" and I should just relax

Correct.

what for funds to return ? How long does it usually takes for funds to return?

No need to wait, the change address is already in your wallet:

Plus my balance on BitGo is:

Everything on ethereum seems more easy.

I have the opposite experience

[o_e_l_e_o]

How long does it usually takes for funds to return?

The funds won't "return" because there is no need for them to.

Your BitGo wallet contains potentially thousands of different addresses. The balance it displays is the sum of all the bitcoin stored at all these addresses. Up until now, you have only ever used a single address, which we will call Address A, and all your other addresses have been empty. Therefore, when you looked up Address A on a block explorer, the total value of bitcoin on Address A was the same as on your BitGo wallet.

Now that you have made a transaction, your change has been sent back to the next address in your BitGo wallet, which we will call Address B. This is normal for bitcoin, as it helps with privacy and security to not reuse addresses. Because Address B is also part of your BitGo wallet (the same as Address A), the funds are still displayed as normal, and you can spend from it just as you could before. If you look up Address B on a block explorer, you will see it contains a small amount of bitcoin, but if you add the values of Address A and Address B together, then it will equal your BitGo balance.

The funds on Address B will stay there until you spend them.

[Lucius]

How long does it usually takes for funds to return?

Change address is part of your wallet (in this case BitGo) and funds that go to change address should be visible on your overall balance at the moment you click send button. That coins never even left your wallet, but as LoyceV says they are only the result of the distribution of your funds between all the inputs you have created over time (incoming transactions) and the outgoing transaction in which you sent 0.05 BTC.

Since it was not possible to send exactly 0.05 BTC, part of the coins had to be returned to your change address - just like when you have to pay $7 and you have a $10 bill - you get the rest of $3 back.

[FalcDrag]

Another update:

Yesterday I've asked them to explain their calculation of available amount and how they calculate fees. The answer was the following:

"Network fees will vary and I cannot provide you with what it currently is.  You can refer to https://core.jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#0,4d to see what the trend has been for fee rates. You can alternatively set a lower fee rate if you'd like, but please keep in mind it will take longer to confirm as you will need to wait for fees to drop to that rate."

Also LoyceV was almost correct with:

I guess that's because fees are going up. Ask support why your Available balance doesn't increase when you manually set 1 sat/byte. It looks like that feature isn't working.

Their answer was:

"Our page will not update if you make any changes to the fee priority, but by default our system is showing it as if you were setting it at a two block confirmation priority, which is considered the 'high priority'."

I find their way of work and presenting information - misleading.

I have 0.15 BTC, with high priority transaction system says I can send only 0.12 BTC. Switching to less quick transaction amount available does not change, but in fact, I can send more. I've filled all the necessary and put 0.145 BTC with "Very Low Priority (Est. 300 blocks)" option and clicked Send. Next screen was:

https://i.imgur.com/SKXQpQT.png

As everyone can see, the button "Send Funds" is blue, which means I can send more than BitGo said I have available.

I think this "bug" or misleading information was made on purpose. Users either send everything extra expensive, or leave funds in their wallet.
I've seen many times on this forum BitGo among the list of recommended online wallets. I've been using BitGo to receive funds for more than than a year, but when the time comes to sending, I was not expected to have such issues with reputed wallet.

Thanks for posting this. I was searching around Google for a solution to this 'insanely high BitGo fees' problem and your posts really helped me. Even I'm considering moving almost all of my web wallet funds (a big chunk of which is on BitGo's 'pay as you go') to a h/w wallet.

[Greatdev]

Did not expect that I will create a topic here, but here is my story and I'm asking for an advice.

I'm trying to withdraw some funds from BitGo online wallet. Transfer fee is just killing me. When I try to withdraw around 0.15 BTC, wallet wrote that I have available around 0.12 BTC only. This withdrawal fee seems very high imho. The only option I have is to set "Transaction Priority" (from "High priority (Est. 2 blocks)" to "Custom fee in Satoshi per byte"). Changing transaction priority does not affect the amount available.

Do I understand it right - I do not have any option to get my 0.15 BTC, instead of 0.12 BTC and I all I have is to take this as a lesson?

Since bitgo is online wallet like you claimed you have to abide with whatever fee they ask for, this is a major problem from Centralized wallets and platforms in crypto space, if this bitgo wallet have a recovery seed you could just import into another crypto wallet and adjust the transaction fee yourself

[Mighty_crypt]

People need to stop using web wallets, online wallets and centralized wallet, if anything happens to the wallet platform it will affect every users, coinbase for example whenever something happen to their server no one will be able to make transactions on the wallet, this is bad idea for those who don't know, you can't adjust the gas fee yourself either

[Mighty_crypt]

The worst of all is if the wallet developers stop development on the project there is no way to go away with your coins because such wallets don't release private keys and Mnemonic seed to their users, it means that any assets you store on such wallet isn't totally yours to control

[bakasabo]

Some time has passed and I have experienced one more weird thing that BitGo wallet makes. That is another warning to those who is using BitGo wallet.

Maybe this is all due to me being inexperienced enough, but I cant understand and find it weird and unfair, that while doing a transaction from wallet A to wallet B, BitGo add to transaction something extra. Here is an example of TXID. I was sending 0.0031 BTC but into that transaction BitGo has added 0.011 BTC. With 1 sat/byte 0.0031 would be transferred much faster than 0.0141 imo. So a warning for those who wants to use low fee and expect speed - dont use low fee, as you might wait days or weeks for confirmation.

Not to mention that you can send all of your balance. After hitting "max" button, you still have something left on a balance. If you have 0.01 BTC, you can write manually 0.009 in amount windon and use 0.0001 for a fee.

[LoyceV]

Some time has passed and I have experienced one more weird thing that BitGo wallet makes. That is another warning to those who is using BitGo wallet.

I don't think this needs a warning. I can see why they did this, and (depending on circumstances), it makes sense.

Maybe this is all due to me being inexperienced enough, but I cant understand and find it weird and unfair, that while doing a transaction from wallet A to wallet B, BitGo add to transaction something extra. Here is an example of TXID. I was sending 0.0031 BTC but into that transaction BitGo has added 0.011 BTC.

It looks like this wallet avoids creating small inputs. If you would have used only 0.00335 BTC to send 0.0031 BTC, you would have ended up with an input smaller than 0.00025 BTC. By adding another input, you end up with one larger input instead of a small and a large one. When fees are low, that's actually a good thing to do. And considering the fee was 1.012 sat/vbyte, it's a cheap consolidation and your next transaction pays a lower fee.
If you don't want this (for instance for privacy reasons), you should use manual coin control. I don't know if "BitGo" supports that.

With 1 sat/byte 0.0031 would be transferred much faster than 0.0141 imo.

Unlikely. Miners pick the transactions with the highest relative fee (per vbyte) first, and the total transaction size doesn't really matter.

So a warning for those who wants to use low fee and expect speed - dont use low fee, as you might wait days or weeks for confirmation.

Again: it depends. If you're not in a rush, a low fee is fine. Check Johoe's site for instance to see what you can expect.
If you're in a hurry, you should indeed pay a high enough fee per vbyte.

Not to mention that you can send all of your balance. After hitting "max" button, you still have something left on a balance. If you have 0.01 BTC, you can write manually 0.009 in amount windon and use 0.0001 for a fee.

It sounds like you should just switch to Electrum, where the "Max" button works as expected.