Constant BTC fee on JaxxLiberty wallet

[karboaz]

Hello everybody

Trying to send BTC from my JaxxLiberty wallet, when I go to send page, a transaction fee of 50+$ appears, even before I sign in the amount I want to send and it doesn't change when I enter the ammount I want to send.

Sounds familiar ?

Thanks

[mocacinno]

I haven't used this wallet, but the few reviews/threads i did for this wallet are not painting a very positive image.
For example:

--snip--
Recently there is, some sort of backdoor issue and seems it's still not yet resolve.
--snip--

--snip--
Jaxx liberty wallet does not accept adresses beginning with bc1.............. to send bitcoins; somebody does it knows how to do
--snip--

You should consider stop using jaxx.

There is a vulnerability in jaxx which allows anyone with a few seconds of access to your computer with your users privileges to extract the seed of your wallet.
The developers are aware of the vulnerability but refuse to fix it, because "security relies on your device". This is partially true, but a completely retarded statement to make. Especially in the crypto scene.
This wallet offers the same level of security as storing your seed and private keys on a text file on your desktop called "privatekey.txt".

Just stop using jaxx. If you want to use a lightweight wallet, switch to electrum or wasabi.
Both are way more secure than jaxx.

Maybe it's a good idear to read HCP's post here, and follow his advice?:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5234706.msg54120894#msg54120894

For your exact problem... Fees are not calculated based on the value you transfer, but: on the type of wallet, the number of unspent outputs used as an input for your transaction, the number of new unspent outputs being created by your transaction and the current average feerate.

It's very well possible that if you only have one unspent output funding your address, the proposed fee does not change, since this one unspent output will be used as an input no matter the value you want to transfer, and you always have an address you want to fund and a change address that'll both be funded when you create the tx. So, the tx will always have more or less the same size, and more or less the same fee will be needed.
That being said, i have no idear if this is the case, or if it's a bug, or if this wallet really has a fixed fee...

Do note that the average fee (in sat/vbyte) is rather high at the moment. You'll need a fee of >120 sat/byte to have a decent shot of getting your transaction confirmed in the next couple of blocks. This does result in a rather high fee... Especially if you're going to use several unspent outputs as an input...

[karboaz]

Thanks a lot for this detailed reply!!!

I'll give it a try 

[HCP]

Trying to send BTC from my JaxxLiberty wallet, when I go to send page, a transaction fee of 50+$ appears, even before I sign in the amount I want to send and it doesn't change when I enter the ammount I want to send.

$50 seems like an awful lot of money for a transaction fee... even for a wallet like JaxxLiberty!!?!

That's like ~0.0045 BTC!!?! Even if the wallet was using 120 sats/vbyte, that transaction would need to be like 3750 bytes, which is around 10-15 times larger than a "standard" transaction...

Have you been previously been receiving a lot of "tiny" payments to your wallet? Say from a mining pool or faucets or something like that?

[karboaz]

Yes, I'm recieving small payments from faucets.

I've sent money before from Jax couple of times in the last 6 months, with normal acceptable fees. This giant fee appeared only this time.

[dkbit98]

I would not suggest anyone to use JaxxLiberty wallet, and I heard many people complaining about it for various reasons.
If you want to adjust fees manually maybe you should use Electrum wallet.

[JeromeTash]

Changing the miner fees on Jaxx is not as flexible as you would do on a wallet like electrum. You can change the miner fees through settings but the fee levels are still fixed under 3 levels. So you won't be able to chose which exact fee you want such as 1 sat/byte like you can do in electrum.
1. Higher (Fast)
2. Typical (Average)
3. Lower (slow)

To change set the fee level you would love;
- Open your Jaxx Liberty App
- Click on the Menu button (The one with 3 horizontal lines on the top right of the app)
- Select Customization and then select Mining fees
- There you will be able to select the fee level of your preference.

[mocacinno]

Yes, I'm recieving small payments from faucets.

I've sent money before from Jax couple of times in the last 6 months, with normal acceptable fees. This giant fee appeared only this time.

This does solve part of the mistery of the big fee
However, i'm still not sure why your wallet would stick with a fee of ~$50 no matter the amount you want to send.

I'd expect the fee to be really high when you're spending multiple unspent outputs, however, the amount of unspent outputs you use should be different if you try to send different amounts, unless the algorithm used by jaxxliberty that chooses the unspent outputs to spend when creating a new transaction tries to consolidate those unspent outputs with a very small value...

Collecting dust outputs (for example from faucets) will always lead to relatively large transactions when spending. However, the average feerate (in sat/vbyte) fluctuates quite heavily. This is probably why, in the past, you haven't noticed the exuberant fee: if you have a 5000 vbyte tx, and the average fee is 1 sat/vbyte, you'll only end up with a 0.00005 BTC fee, however, when you created this thread, the average fee was > 100 sat/vbyte. So for the same 5000 vbyte tx, you'd have to pay a > 0.005 BTC fee to have a decent chance of getting your tx in the next couple of blocks. Exactly the same value being transferred, exactly the same wallet, wallet funded with exactly the same unspent outputs, but a fee that's 100x higher just because the average feerate was high at the moment you tried to create a transaction.

In the future, i'd give you the following tips:

• Try not to collect dust (very small valued unspent outputs). I know this can be a problem if you're really into micro tasks...
• Try to consolidate dust at times when the average feerate is as low as possible
• Switch to a wallet with better coin controll. For example electrum
• A native segwit wallet (a wallet from wich the addresses start with bc1) also saves quite a bit fee-wise

PS: consolidating basically means creating one transaction sending all funds in your wallet to yourself... It sounds like a strange thing to do, but it can actually save you a lot of fees.

Let's say you have collected 100 unspent outputs with a small value (the faucet payed you 100 times, the value of each payment was ~$5 in fiat value).
You now have a fiat value of $500 in your wallet.
You'll pay 5 people $10 each in the future.
At this moment, the fee is 1 sat/vbyte (always consolidate at times of low average fees). But when you pay those 5 people, the feerate is 150 sat/vbyte.

Scenario 1: paying them from an unconsolidated wallet at a high feerate, doing nothing at a time of a low average feerate:
You'll need ~9 inputs to pay each person, since a lot of your funds will be used for the fee
A transaction with 9 inputs and 2 outputs will be ~1000 bytes in size
1000 bytes * 150 sat/byte = 150.000 sat (0.0015 BTC)

You'll pay 5 people, so in the end you've lost 5*0.0015 = 0.0075 BTC in fees (about $77 at current preev rate)

Scenario 2: consolidating your wallet when the feerate is low (1 sat/vbyte), paying 5 people when the feerate is 150 sat/vbyte):
Your transaction will use all 100 inputs and only have 1 output.
The size of a tx with 100 inputs and 1 output is ~10100 bytes.
10100 bytes * 1 sat/byte = 101.000 sat (0.00101 BTC)

Now, you'll pay 5 people, each tx uses one unspent output as input and creates 2 new unspent outputs.
The size of a tx with 1 input and 2 outputs is: ~200 bytes
200 bytes * 150 sat/byte * 5 payments = 150.000 sat's.

150.000 sats (fees from payments) + 101.000 sats (fees from the consolidation) = 251.000 sats (0.00251 BTC =~ $26)

Conclusion

By consolidating, you saved $77-$26 = $51 in fees (at current preev rate). Sounds a little bit contra-intuitive, but as my fictional example showed, it's still a good idear

[karboaz]

Big THANKYOU everybody for all these detailed answers and explanations, I really appreciate the effort!!!

I switched to Electrum and managed to send the tx with I believe a very low fee - I sent 0.00474 BTC  with a 0.0000407 BTC fee

Thanks again, you were all very helpful!