Small Wallets, large withdrawal fees - help !

[Lazy_pete]

Hi,

I'm dabbling with BTC, and a few others, but low volumes - £20 here and there, total value about £1200. Started on Gemini exchange, but the purchase fees are exorbitant for small trades, so switched to Binance, thinking I'd be more likely to purchase little and often without that barrier.

My issue is, everyone says not to leave crypto on the exchange (I'm more I tending to DCA invest, than actively trade - no time / expertise) but the withdrawal fees are really high, in proportion to my holdings, on Binance. Withdrawal from Gemini was free for low volumes. I'm wondering whether I can transfer from my Binance wallet to my Gemini one, then withdraw from there. Would the Gemini 'free deposits' effectively pay the network fee from Binance, or am I stuck with that, in which case I'll just have to leave it on Binance until I need to cash out (Sterling withdrawal is free).

Any hints for how to get around this would be welcome.

Cheers,

P

[stompix]

I'm wondering whether I can transfer from my Binance wallet to my Gemini one, then withdraw from there. Would the Gemini 'free deposits' effectively pay the network fee from Binance, or am I stuck with that

No, it will still count as a withdraw from Binance, no matter to where you want those coins transferred and Binance will still charge you their withdrawal fee. Looking at the trading fees and judging by the sum you wanted to play with I think that Gemini comes on top if you're not an active daily trader, and you've said it yourself that you don't have the time for it.

[Bitfort]

How about converting into currency with low withdrawal fee, moving to gemini and buying back your original holdings?
It will cost you cca 2x0.1% trading fee plus withdraw fee (if  same trading pair is listed on both exchanges).

I'm doing this quite offten (also with amounts under 1k USD).

for ex. USDT can be used. Withdraw from binance over Tron network (TRC20) is quite cheap (1 USD at the monent ... used to be 0.1 few months ago)... at some exchanges even without fee.
Usualy I'm using LTC as the transfer asset (cos I also don't mind to keep holding). Or XRP has really low fee, but it's more risky due to quick price swings.


Note there is risk this middle coin falls durig that time which can cost you more than regular transafer fees (but to be fair the opposite can happen as well).

[Lazy_pete]

Thanks both. Useful to understand.

That solution sounds like a hassle, but workable. I maybe just need tomleave it put as I grow the lump to the point where the withdrawal fee seems less ridiculous, though I'll look into the alternative currencies / buy back at other end.

Thanks again,

P

[Charles-Tim]

You do not need to send anything from Binance to Gemini, so far you want to withdraw to your noncustododial wallet to have the full control of your wallet and to hold, there are ways to still avoid such high fee. I will recommend Monero withdrawal on Binance because the fee is very low which will be around $0.039 at the current $390 Monero price. Convert the bitcoin to monero, send at $0.039 as fee to a noncustodial wallet like Coinomi that support third-party exchanges, exchange it back to bitcoin which will require only the fee paid to miners, you can even customize (edit) the fee. Then send from the bitcoin from Coinomi to the wallet of your choice using low fee amount.

This may not be the best time for this, try to wait 2 weeks after the mining difficulty is adjusted, and do the whole process on Sunday if the mempool is very much not congested. All that will cost you may not take up to $6. I would have even recommended you to leave it on Coinomi, but Coinomi is a close source wallet, better moving it to a hardware wallet like Trezor is better for safety. Online wallets are not safe comparing to offline wallets, but the most recommended online wallet is electrum.

[hulla]

First, it not that people can't keep their coins on exchange but they are advise not to keep their big holding on exchange
Second,  I am not use to the Gemini exchange but no crypto exchange site on earth will provide withdrawal for his user for free because they are not the miners and miners fee must be pay by the senders. Or are you relating to crypto to fiat currency withdrawal?

If you are going to make the withdrawal from Binance to Gemini you will have to pay the transaction fee

[stompix]

Convert the bitcoin to monero, send at $0.039 as fee to a noncustodial wallet like Coinomi that support third-party exchanges, exchange it back to bitcoin which will require only the fee paid to miners, you can even customize (edit) the fee Then send from the bitcoin from Coinomi to the wallet of your choice using low fee amount.

It's not that simple, he will still be hit by the fee from Changelly which is a minimum of exactly the same 0.0005 that Binance has for withdraws.
He is going to pay the fee for withdrawing Monero, the fee 1-2% Chagelly charge, the minimum 0.0005, the monero for sending those coins out, and then he will still have to pay the BTC fee from coinomi to his wallet of choice.



It would be better for him to simply move his altcoin of choice back to Gemini and do the reverse exchange there as Bitfort suggested.

[Charles-Tim]

It's not that simple, he will still be hit by the fee from Changelly which is a minimum of exactly the same 0.0005 that Binance has for withdraws.
He is going to pay the fee for withdrawing Monero, the fee 1-2% Chagelly charge, the minimum 0.0005, the monero for sending those coins out, and then he will still have to pay the BTC fee from coinomi to his wallet of choice.

I think if he transfer altcoin to Gemini, convert the altcoin to bitcoin, won't he later send to noncustododial wallet as he implied having coins on exchanges is not advisable?

I am not using Gemini, but according to what I researched just not long ago, bitcoin withdrawal fee with the bitcoin current price is 0.001 btc ($56.89) on the exchange, while it is just less than 0.0005 btc ($24) on Binance. Correct me if wrong.

Why that might (my comment) not be recommended is that Changelly is centralized. But,  he can still try to take the fee down. Like I implied, not now because the reduced mining hashes in China caused mempool to be congested recently, where bitcoin transaction fee is very high unusual. The mining difficulty is adjusted every two weeks and may remain the solution in which things will become back to normal.

On Sundays (but not all Sundays), if the mining difficulty as been adjusted, possibly the mempool might get back to normal in a way 10-20 sat/vbyte transactions might be included in a block fast on Sundays. This is the time to make use of what I explained above. On Changelly (when I used it on Coinomi one time ago), there are four fee estimates (high, normal, low, and custom). You can customize the fee when the mempool is less congested on Sundays. The fee I used one time ago to exchange was 10 sat/vbyte, it confirmed on Sunday.

[stompix]

I am not using Gemini, but according to what I researched just not long ago, bitcoin withdrawal fee with the bitcoin current price is 0.001 btc ($56.89) on the exchange, while it is just 0.0005 btc on Binance. Correct me if wrong.

I took for granted what he said about no fees as I saw this on Gemini and I thought that indeed under 10 withdraws a month it is free of charge.:

COST (≤ 10 PER CALENDAR MONTH PER WITHDRAWAL)
Bitcoin  Free

On Changelly (when I used it on Coinomi one time ago), there are four fee estimates (high, normal, low, and custom). You can customize the fee when the mempool is less congested on Sundays. The fee I used one time ago to exchange was 10 sat/vbyte, it confirmed on Sunday.

I have no experience with Changelly other than reading how people are pissed off about the amount being reduced out of thin air, I don't know how you can set the fees in Coinomi as I currently don't have the minimum altcoins there to stimulate an exchange to BTC but I doubt they will not charge the minimum required they have on the website. Of course, I could be wrong so anyone that is reading this and has some altcoins in Coinomi could shed some light on it.

[mersal]

I have no experience with Changelly other than reading how people are pissed off about the amount being reduced out of thin air, I don't know how you can set the fees in Coinomi as I currently don't have the minimum altcoins there to stimulate an exchange to BTC but I doubt they will not charge the minimum required they have on the website. Of course, I could be wrong so anyone that is reading this and has some altcoins in Coinomi could shed some light on it.

If I am not wrong, their fee structure is something similar to what we see in the blockchain.com wallet, (priority, normal and low then we can customise the fee), so certainly there is no less fee that will be calculated than the actually required fee according to the mempool.

I used Coinomi a long way back but not using it anymore so I don't remember their swap fee but they have strict KYC for such swaps so I never used their swap service.

[Bitfort]

...
I maybe just need tomleave it put as I grow the lump to the point where the withdrawal fee seems less ridiculous
...

Yea, I say it's the simplest and probably the best thing to do now (assuming you're not in hurry to move the funds). Always can try again later when the fee situation gets better.
In addition binance is one of the exchanges where funds can be put to good use instead just laying around (lock\stake or savings for at least some small profit).

[SquirrelJulietGarden]

Withdrawal fees

Exchanges charge customers high transaction fees, always. They charge you the same withdrawal fee and don't care about how much (small or big in $ value) your withdrawal transaction is.

It can be explained from the basics for bitcoin transaction fee that depends on four things
- Number of inputs
- Number of outputs
- Transaction type: Legacy (1), Nested Segwit (3), Native Segwit (bech32 -  bc1)
- Rate of fee (per byte or per virtual byte) you use for your transaction
The first three things contribute to make the total size of your transaction.
- The less inputs and less outputs, the less total size
- With same inputs, outputs, your transaction size will be smallest with Native Segwit, then Nested Segwit and Legacy (largest) transaction types. Segwit and Native Segwit transaction types help to to have smaller size because of weight units and virtual size.

Exchanges do batch transactions (1 or 2 inputs and chunks of ouputs) to reduce transaction size and save transaction fees on their sides. They charge all related customers with high withdrawal fees. You can not avoid this cost if you use exchanges and withdraw your bitcoin from their platforms.

Highly trusted exchanges can be used to store your bitcoin like Binance. You can sell your bitcoin when price moves up too high and you won't have to pay multiple transaction fees: withdrawal after buying it, deposit back to exchange when you need to sell it.

Not your keys, not your coins but with small amount, I think it is the only choice for you.

Tutorial to take profit to fiat:
- Sell your bitcoin to Tether USD (USDT).
- Sell your Tether USD to your fiat, choose the chain is TRC20 or BSC to save fee. Fee of USDT transaction on ERC20 chain is very expensive.

[Lazy_pete]

Thanks again everyone.

Gemini did indeed have zero withdrawal fee for up to 10 withdrawals PCM - I moved out some BTC and ETH to a soft wallet and it all arrived at the other end.

The free withdrawals were rather hidden in the small print though, as you found !

Cheers,

P