Bitcoin wallet.dat, transaction fees and exchange

[fayk2022]

Cryptocurrency newbie here.

Received a wallet.dat from my uncle with BTC1.00 in it according to Bitcoin Core.

If I want to trade the BTC, I guess I'll have to transfer the BTC1.00 to an exchange and trade it there. How much fee do I have to put in for the transaction to get confirmation? Also, any exchange out there that will pay for the transaction fees? I saw on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1847.0 that transaction will finally be confirm even without fees; but, any idea how long it might be? With the current prices, I'm not in the hurry to trade.
Will taxes be withheld? Or do I just file end of April?

Is it any different if I want to trade the BTC1.00 to ethereum, perhaps? Any fees? Which exchange will allow me to do that trade without first trading it for USD then buying ethereum with the USD? Any tax obligations if I do it this way?

Why trading Bitcoin for Ethereum? From the recent price crash, the prices for Ethereum, at least to me, did not drop as much. At the time of this thread, Bitcoin drops about 28% (from 68k to 49k) whereas Ethereum drops about 13% (4800 to 4200).

Thank you.

[BlackHatCoiner]

How much fee do I have to put in for the transaction to get confirmation?

Here's a nice site to see fees by priority: https://mempool.space/

I saw on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1847.0 that transaction will finally be confirm even without fees; but, any idea how long it might be?

This post was made more than a decade ago. At those days, yeah, you could have your transactions confirmed for free. However, times have changed and due to the rise of bitcoin as a currency, there are much more transactions in the memory pool; so many, that the miners choose the transactions based on the best reward:size ratio. So you'll have to pay them, even a slight amount.

Why trading Bitcoin for Ethereum? From the recent price crash, the prices for Ethereum, at least to me, did not drop as much. At the time of this thread, Bitcoin drops about 28% (from 68k to 49k) whereas Ethereum drops about 13% (4800 to 4200).

I don't understand. Do you expect us to give you an investment advice?

[o_e_l_e_o]

How much fee do I have to put in for the transaction to get confirmation?

The minimum fee rate you can pay is 1 satoshi per virtual byte of transaction size, common called sat/vbyte. The exact fee then will depend on the virtual size of the transaction you are making. The mempool is relatively empty at the moment so the minimum possible fee is fine. You can pay more if you want a quicker confirmation, but that is not necessarily right now.

Also, any exchange out there that will pay for the transaction fees?

Some exchanges will cover your withdrawal transaction fee, but there are none which will reimburse you your deposit transaction fee.

I saw on https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1847.0 that transaction will finally be confirm even without fee

This is outdated. Your transaction must now include a fee, or it will not be broadcast through the network and will not be mined.

Will taxes be withheld? Or do I just file end of April?

This varies greatly depending on your country and the volume of your trades.

Is it any different if I want to trade the BTC1.00 to ethereum, perhaps? Any fees?

Deposit transaction fee, exchange fee, withdrawal transaction fee. Note that transaction fees on Ethereum recently have been astronomical.

Which exchange will allow me to do that trade without first trading it for USD then buying ethereum with the USD?

Most exchanges have BTC/ETH pairs.

Any tax obligations if I do it this way?

As above. Depends on your country and your trading activities.

[jackg]

You have to pay at least 1 sat per byte in fees now to get a transaction confirmed.

1 sat per byte will probably confirm within a few hours. 4 sats per byte will probably confirm within an hour (from what my wallet says).

Exchanges won't pay your fees for you either.
You can use coinbase to convert cryptos without fees - although I'm not sure if there are any hidden ones like slippage.
You can use most notable exchanges to sell bitcoin for fiat too.

[The Cryptovator]

Hope OP got your answer. Above all replies are enough to solve your issues. Just want to remind you that trading isn't the easy task that you are thinking about. Since you don't even have to idea how transaction fees works and exchange, so just be careful choosing an exchange. It's quite important to choose a perfect and secure cryptocurrency exchange for trading. I am not mentioning any but do your own research. You can trade your desired trading pair. Doesn't mean you have to trade for ETH or USDT only. Just learn how to trade and start with the little fund. Trading is a thing where you may become a millionaire or may lose everything.

[fayk2022]

First of, thank you for viewing and replying.

BlackHatCoiner: No, not expecting investment advice.   Just stating my thoughts just in case anyone is wondering. Thank you for the URL and explanation.

o_e_l_e_o: Thank you. I'll check out btc / eth pair exchange then.

jackg: Thanks for the duration information. That is very helpful.

COOLCRYPTOVATOR: Yes, the replies are very helpful. Thank you for the cautions. I really appreciate it.

1 satoshi is 0.00000001, correct? When you say 1 satoshi / byte, how do I know how many bytes is my transaction? How many bytes is needed to transfer 1.0 bitcoin to an exchange?

[BlackHatCoiner]

1 satoshi is 0.00000001, correct?

Yep.

[hosseinimr93]

When you say 1 satoshi / byte, how do I know how many bytes is my transaction? How many bytes is needed to transfer 1.0 bitcoin to an exchange?

First of all, note that the size of a transaction doesn't depend on the amount you send. The size depends on number of inputs and outputs and that should be displayed before broadcasting the transaction.  
Also, what matters is the size in vbyte, not byte.

Let me explain inputs and outputs with an example.
Assume that you have received the 1 bitcoin in 10 transactions and you want to spend all the 1 bitcoin. Now you have 10 inputs.

Number of outputs equals to number of recipients. Assuming you want to send the 1 bitcoin to 5 different addresses in a single transaction, you have 5 outputs.
In the case you send all the fund to a single address, you have 1 output.

If you are interested to know how number of inputs and outputs can affect the size of a transaction, I recommend you to  click here and use the tool created by a forum user, bitmover to calculate the size of your transaction.

Set the address format to P2PKH if your address(es) start with 1.
Set the address format to P2SH, if your address(es) start with 3. *
Set the address format to Bech32, if your address(es) start with bc1.


*Multi-signature addresses can start with 3 as well. But I don't think that's your case here.

[fayk2022]

BlackHatCoiner: Thank you.
hosseinimr93: Thank you for the explanation. As well as the url to calculate. That's very helpful.

[RickDeckard]

Let me be the first to tell you that you have a really nice uncle! It's not every day that someone gives away 1 BTC, considering the current value of it. Be sure to give your uncle a "pat in the back" for that, it's a really generous gift.
Since most of your questions have been answered, my only fear is that you end up using exchanges that might look "real" on the outside but if you start investigating them they'll shatter to pieces considering the amount of "lies" that they were built on. If you really want to sell the coin (or part of it) in an exchange - and you're not worried about KYC procedures or such - you'll find that most well known services being discussed around are either Coinbase, Kraken or Binance.

Whatever you end up choosing, if you feel unsure in any step of the way, do post here your question since it's better to have someone to help you in this stage - especially considering that you're a newbie to this world - and prevent you from falling into "traps". Believe me, the crypto world is full of them. Also, if you're unsure what 1 satoshi represents, or any other value regarding BTC, you can also check this[1] neat feature within the already mentioned website made by bitmover and your question shall be answered.
[1]https://bitcoindata.science/bitcoin-units-converter.html

[pooya87]

Why trading Bitcoin for Ethereum? From the recent price crash, the prices for Ethereum, at least to me, did not drop as much. At the time of this thread, Bitcoin drops about 28% (from 68k to 49k) whereas Ethereum drops about 13% (4800 to 4200).

Actually ETH wend down as low as $3600 which is a 25% dump but you should know that the long term exchange rate is important not what these shitcoins do in short term. For example in the past 4 years from 2018 to 2021 bitcoin dropped from $20k then recovered to $60k+ but shitcoins like ethereum dropped from 0.15BTC and remained down with little recovery currently at 0.08BTC.

[hd49728]

Check mempool with this website https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#BTC%20(default%20mempool),24h,weight
Check withdrawal fee on exchanges with https://withdrawalfees.com/coins/bitcoin
Check Unit converter with https://bitcoindata.science/bitcoin-units-converter.html
Check your transaction size and where your transaction is in mempool: https://bitcoindata.science/plot-your-transaction-in-mempool.html

[bitmover]

Why trading Bitcoin for Ethereum? From the recent price crash, the prices for Ethereum, at least to me, did not drop as much. At the time of this thread, Bitcoin drops about 28% (from 68k to 49k) whereas Ethereum drops about 13% (4800 to 4200).

According to what you are saying, it would make more sense to trade Ethereum for bitcoin.

Ethereum is worth 0.08528 BTC now, which is quite a spike considering the past:
This is ETH/BTC chart from coinmarketcap.com

Is it any different if I want to trade the BTC1.00 to ethereum, perhaps? Any fees? Which exchange will allow me to do that trade without first trading it for USD then buying ethereum with the USD? Any tax obligations if I do it this way?

I would trade in a big bitcoin exchange such as Coinbase or Binance.

If you are using Binance or Coinbase, I would send first a small amount (such as 0.1 BTC). After a successful withdrawal from your bank account I would send a bigger amount (0,2 BTC) and so on. Do not send all your coins at once, because you don't know if you will have problems with the exchange. THey might ask for additional documents and freeze your account until you send them.

Tax obligations depends on your country legislation. In Brazil they are only due when you convert to fiat.

[James_R_Simth]

Why trading Bitcoin for Ethereum? From the recent price crash, the prices for Ethereum, at least to me, did not drop as much. At the time of this thread, Bitcoin drops about 28% (from 68k to 49k) whereas Ethereum drops about 13% (4800 to 4200).

According to what you are saying, it would make more sense to trade Ethereum for bitcoin.

Ethereum is worth 0.08528 BTC now, which is quite a spike considering the past:
This is ETH/BTC chart from coinmarketcap.com
https://i.imgur.com/NRsOp75.png

Is it any different if I want to trade the BTC1.00 to ethereum, perhaps? Any fees? Which exchange will allow me to do that trade without first trading it for USD then buying ethereum with the USD? Any tax obligations if I do it this way?

I would trade in a big bitcoin exchange such as Coinbase or Binance.

If you are using Binance or Coinbase, I would send first a small amount (such as 0.1 BTC). After a successful withdrawal from your bank account I would send a bigger amount (0,2 BTC) and so on. Do not send all your coins at once, because you don't know if you will have problems with the exchange. THey might ask for additional documents and freeze your account until you send them.

Tax obligations depends on your country legislation. In Brazil they are only due when you convert to fiat.

[JohnBitCo]

Cryptocurrency newbie here.

Received a wallet.dat from my uncle with BTC1.00 in it according to Bitcoin Core.

Thank you.

Did your uncle gift you 1 bitcoin? Thats a big amount of money to be gifted.
Why did he give you the wallet.dat file? He could have given you the private key and you would have been in control of the bitcoins.

Why trading Bitcoin for Ethereum? From the recent price crash, the prices for Ethereum, at least to me, did not drop as much. At the time of this thread, Bitcoin drops about 28% (from 68k to 49k) whereas Ethereum drops about 13% (4800 to 4200).

Thank you.

Ethereum is an altcoin along with many other alts If you need to cash out, you can convert in fiat money and do not need to enter in the tradig world. If you want to trade, I will suggest you learn trading first before investing any money in altcoins.

By the way, if you don't need that much cash all at once now, why do you need to convert your bitcoin in fiat?

[LoyceV]

Received a wallet.dat from my uncle with BTC1.00 in it according to Bitcoin Core.

1BTC or 1mBTC? You wouldn't be the first to confuse the units. Giving 1mBTC would make more sense as a gift.
If it's really 1BTC you should make sure your computer is safe and learn how to properly secure your wallet before doing anything else.

[fayk2022]

JohnBitCo & LoyceV  :
Bitcoin Core program shows 1.00000000. Is that 1mBTC or 1BTC? From this https://www.cryps.info/en/mBTC_to_USD/1/, looks like 1mBTC = USD47.86 at this time? If that's correct, won't Bitcoin Core show 0.001?

JohnBitCo
I don't know why in wallet.dat form - I'll try to remember to ask him the next time I talk to him. He's on a very different time zone, on the opposite side of the world.
I'm not planning to get into fiat (USD); I'm planning to move to Ethereum (which at this time seems more stable). I just thought I have to 1st convert bitcoin -> USD -> Ethereum. Didn't know I can go from bitcoin to ethereum

James_R_Simth: Thank you. I'll check Binance out. I was at coinbase yesterday looking at it, but, haven't sign up. I'm in USA but my uncle is in Australia. I don't know how it'll all work in taxes. I guess I'll find out when the prices are up and I actually sells it.

Thank you for viewing and all the suggestions. I'm learning alot.

Any pointers / suggestions on securing wallet.dat is welcome.

[LoyceV]

Bitcoin Core program shows 1.00000000. Is that 1mBTC or 1BTC?

If it has 8 decimals, it's BTC. And it probably shows this:

Code:

1.00000000 BTC

1BTC = USD47.86 at this time? If that's correct, won't Bitcoin Core show 0.001?

1mBTC is about $48. 1BTC is about $48000.

Any pointers / suggestions on securing wallet.dat is welcome.

Creating backups and setting a password is a start, but your computer should be secure too.

[fayk2022]

How do you set password to wallet on Bitcoin Core? Laptop is on Windows 10; very old laptop that I don't use for anything else except to run Bitcoin Core.

[LoyceV]

How do you set password to wallet on Bitcoin Core?

Settings > Encrypt.
It doesn't hurt to check the available options in Bitcoin Core.

Laptop is on Windows 10; very old laptop that I don't use for anything else except to run Bitcoin Core.

I wouldn't dare keep a Bitcoin on a Windows machine.