huge electrum fees

[bandissimo]

Good morning,
I ran into disproportionate bitcoin transfer fees.

For several years I have been keeping a few hundred satoshi mined years ago, first on bitcoin wallets and then on electrum to avoid the problems of downloading the blockchain.

Now I intend to switch to Coinbase to avoid problems with HD hardware and the like, but for each transaction I try to do I have a minimum cost of 6-11 mBTC, both for transfers of 100 mBTC and for transfers of 0.001 - commissions and fees that at today's value is like 250-450 euros in value...
What I do worng?

Thanks to those who want to answer me.
Greetings,
C.

** Modified to Correct satoshi to mBTC mu **

[Charles-Tim]

Now I intend to switch to Coinbase to avoid problems with HD hardware and the like

You mean Coinbase.com? A wallet you can not have control over, Coinbase company have the private keys and have the full control. Although, your opinion left to you, but not a good suggestion because non custodial HD wallet is the best, because you have the private key and the full control. Only the task is to protect it and protect any other thing related to you wallet. I will advise you to hold on to the wallet.

but for each transaction I try to do I have a minimum cost of 6-11 satoshi, both for transfers of 100 satoshi and for transfers of 0.001 - commissions and fees that at today's value is like 250-450 euros in value...
What I do worng?

6 to 11 satoshi are cheap fees, it means you are paying around 0.00000006 - 0.00000011 BTC which is very small amount and not possible, but according to your comment, I believe you mean 6 - 11 mBTC, which means 0.006 - 0.011 BTC, that will amount to around 250-450 euro, and it is a very high fee.

With your explanation above, you have several input on your wallet, and you need to consolidate the input. I will advice you to send the bitcoin back to your electrum wallet in a way the replace-by-fee is enabled. Sending the whole bitcoin to one address on your same electrum wallet with a very low fee (edit the fee to like 5-10 sat/vbyte) will solve the problem, but it will take long time because the mempool is congested, but likely will be less congested on Sunday.

[bandissimo]

I believe you mean 6 - 11 mBTC, which means 0.006 - 0.011 BTC, that will amount to around 250-450 euro, and it is a very high fee

Exactly, those in electrum are in mBTC, sorry, and electrum itself awares me about the very high fee, so I did not confirm the sending.

I will advice you to send the bitcoin back to your electrum wallet in a way the replace-by-fee is enabled.

How to do that "replace-by-fee" thing and what does it mean? And after this, will I able to get normal fees for sending bitcoins?
Now I have multiple incoming little "coins" from very old mining transiction.

Many thanks for your time!

[BitMaxz]

Can you share your TXID here so that we can analyze your TXID and find what is the cause of paying a huge fee?

If your transaction has many inputs well that's your problem that's why it asks for a large fee. Since you mention that you are mining before there is a chance that you have many inputs that may cause this issue.

Take note if you are going to replace the fee I suggest you analyze your transaction first because reducing the fee will make your transaction might stuck or slow to confirm.

How to do that "replace-by-fee" thing and what does it mean?

It means "replace by fee" or increasing the transaction fee of your recent transaction. You can only use this feature if your transaction is RBF enabled

Check your transaction from this explorer below if it's RBF enabled.

- https://blockchair.com/

[The Sceptical Chymist]

Now I intend to switch to Coinbase to avoid problems with HD hardware and the like

Eh, are you sure you want to do that?  Having control of your private keys is probably a lot better than having a company like Coinbase control them for you.  You could create a paper wallet easily enough using Electrum.

In any case, you're not doing anything wrong nor are you hallucinating--fees for sending bitcoin right now are through the roof, and there's no way you're going to be able to send just a few hundred satoshi at a time like this.  It's not even worth it to send 0.001BTC right now unless you want to pay a very small fee and wait a long-ass time for confirmation.

Can you share your TXID here so that we can analyze your TXID and find what is the cause of paying a huge fee?

That might help you, but I'm pretty sure it's not going to help OP.  As far as I can tell, fees are really high across the board at the moment.  OP might want to wait until the network is a little less congested before trying to send whatever amount of bitcoin he's looking to send (and it sounds like a small amount).

[NeuroticFish]

a few hundred satoshi mined years ago

It may worth mentioning that the fee you pay is related to the size of the transaction and not the amount you are sending.
That's why people are asking about how many inputs you have (how many times did your address receive coins to gather the current amount), since they increase the size of the transaction and the fee.

You'll have to also pay attention if you talk about BTC, mBTC or sat/vByte.

And as advice, beware of 3rd party services, whether it's Coinbase or others.
1. They do also pay the transaction fees and also add their own margin on top.
2. They will pay bigger fee to make sure the funds are sent quick, and, after learning this and that, will be able to send your funds cheaper, especially if you are not in a hurry to get them sent.
So Coinbase may make sense only if you trade/want to sell those coins. (Of course, it's your money and your decision.)
3. As others said: not your keys, not your coins, hence they can do whatever they want.

[bandissimo]

You all are precious, thankyou.

Can you share your TXID here so that we can analyze your TXID and find what is the cause of paying a huge fee?

I think I have not a TXID because I did not confirm the transaction, due to the fee I saw.

Anyway my wallet has been imported in electrum from the btc one, and it consist of 33 transaction spacing from 2013 to 2014.
What about the fees if I transfer the whole ammount (a few hundred of mBTC) to another address in the same electrum wallet?
Or should I wait for more decongestionated BTC network?

I understand the security implications of a web wallet, the fact it is I am scared to loose those mBTC by some hardware failure.

cheers,
C.

[NeuroticFish]

What about the fees if I transfer the whole ammount (a few hundred of mBTC) to another address in the same electrum wallet?
Or should I wait for more decongestionated BTC network?

I understand the security implications of a web wallet, the fact it is I am scared to loose those mBTC by some hardware failure.

It doesn't matter where you transfer. As long as it's a transaction, it has to be confirmed and the miners' fee has to be paid.
So yes, if you can wait, please do. And keep an eye onto websites like https://mempool.space/ to see the current fees. Last week-end the fees have fallen under 10 sat/vbyte, which is much better than the current ~120.

About hardware failures, since you have Electrum (I assume that you imported one or more private keys) and want to transfer, you can generate a new wallet and this one will have a 24-words seed you can write onto paper and you're good (as long as the paper is not lost). And you'll send the coins to an address of this new wallet, obviously.
Just you have to do all this carefully and safely, since nowadays everybody tries to steal BTC.

[Charles-Tim]

You can wait until the mempools are congested, we are in weekend now, mempool are mostly less congested on Sundays, it can be up to 5 satoshi/vbyte, although last week was different as it was around 10 satoshi/vbyte, but which is still very okay. You can decide to wait or not, this depend on you. But, for you not to panic, it will be good for you to wait for the mempool to be less congested.

You are the owner of the receiver address, which means even turning on the replace-by-fee can not be used to scam yourself, because setting it on can be used to cancel the transaction with higher fee back into the sender another wallet address, or be used in some occasions to divert the fund into another address of another wallet with higher fee. But, because you are sending from your wallet address to your wallet address, it is safe as you can not scam yourself. It will be good to set ON the replace-by-fee because if the fee used is not enough, it will be good for you to just pump the fee for faster confirmation.

You can decide to send the transaction now, if you want, but it can take days before confirmation, but take chances on Sunday because the mempools will be least congested at the time. Assuming you set the fee to 5 sat/vbyte and the mempool on Sunday is at 10 sat/vbyte, you can decide to pump the fee to get the transaction confirmed. Even, also 15 sat/vbyte can be used if need be.

You can also wait until Sunday or whenever the mempool is very less congested for the feerate the be automatically low in accordance to mempools, you can at the time decide to consolidate. Which means, the time for confirmation will be faster because you consolidate the input when the mempools are less congested.

So, it depends on what you want.

[nc50lc]

Anyway my wallet has been imported in electrum from the btc one, and it consist of 33 transaction spacing from 2013 to 2014.
What about the fees if I transfer the whole ammount (a few hundred of mBTC) to another address in the same electrum wallet?
Or should I wait for more decongestionated BTC network?
-snip-

That's the one, you have too many inputs (unspent transaction outputs) making your transaction's size too large for a 6-11sat/vB fee rate;
you see, it's in satoshi per (virtual) byte means that the total fee will be based from the size of your transaction.
Each input will be added to your transaction's size.

Sending it all to the same wallet will consolidate all of those inputs to a single unspent txn output but will still require the same transaction fee as sending it all to your desired wallet.
You can use "coin control" (tutorial) for now and select only 1-5 large value inputs, then leave the "hundred satoshi inputs" to be consolidated (by you) later when the mempools are low.

What I do worng?

What you did wrong was to set your mining withdrawals in "frequent-low-amounts" rather than "fewer-high-amounts", the latter should produce less number of inputs.

[tranthidung]

You can wait until the mempools are congested, we are in weekend now, mempool are mostly less congested on Sundays

You can also wait until Sunday or whenever the mempool is very less congested for the feerate the be automatically low in accordance to mempools, you can at the time decide to consolidate. Which means, the time for confirmation will be faster because you consolidate the input when the mempools are less congested.

Weekend or working hour effects. You can have same waiting time for your transactions but with lower fee rates. It means you can have some good savings for fee reduction.

• Good days in descending orders: Monday, Saturday, Sunday. Weekend effects prolong to Monday.
• Best hours each day: 23 UTC to 11 UTC.
• Note that the saving (in %) here are for medians. In reality, you can have bigger % saving if you choose good fee rates

Check details at that post and also pay attention on the time BitMEX broadcast their transactions every day around 13 UTC.

[bandissimo]

Thanks for all the Answers.
I tried today, monday on 09 UTC, and it asks me 59 satoshi/byte as minimun fee

Will it increase over weeks, or will it get better?

BR

[NeuroticFish]

Will it increase over weeks, or will it get better?

We cannot know for sure what will happen over multiple weeks.
I do expect, however, that it will reach much higher levels in certain days or periods of time.
And I do expect, especially if Bitcoin price doesn't make big jumps or in the week-ends, to get to lower values (8-9 days ago I've seen under 10 sat/vbyte; last night I've seen under 30 sat vbyte).
But again, the fee depends on how many transactions are made and how much impatient are the senders to get the transactions confirmed (and keep in mind that exchanges and other services are usually "impatient" with the withdrawals).