Is Blockchain.info a scam?

[hassenpfeffer]

Many years ago I accumulated a few Satoshi, which was worth a tiny fraction of a dollar, and I stored it in Blockchain.info.
Recently I wanted to transfer those Satoshi to a private wallet, but their website informed me that the fee for doing so was over 15000 Satoshi, which is currently US $15.
Are all online wallets charging exorbitant fees like this?

[hosseinimr93]

First of all note that the fee you pay for your transaction is paid to miners, not blockhain.com wallet (formerly known as blockchain.info) and that depends on number of inputs and outputs, the network state, your address(es) type and how fast you want your tranaction to be confirmed.

I guess you have received a lot of transactions to your wallet and now you want to spend the whole balance. Am I right?
The more inputs you have, the more fee you have to pay to miners.

By the way, 15,000 satoshi is worth around 4.5 dollars, not 15 dollars.

[BitMaxz]

Blockchain.info is the old domain of blockchain.com so you might be talking about the wallet on blockchain.com?

Well about their wallet I think you can customize the network fee do you mind checking if there is an option to customize the fee under network fee.
Does it look like they remove this option?

If I were you if the wallet you generated from the blockchain wallet has a seed phrase import the seed into the Electrum wallet because you have more options there to reduce the fee.

Check this guide on how to import it to Electrum here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5324302.0

[leonair]

Many years ago I accumulated a few Satoshi, which was worth a tiny fraction of a dollar, and I stored it in Blockchain.info.
Recently I wanted to transfer those Satoshi to a private wallet, but their website informed me that the fee for doing so was over 15000 Satoshi, which is currently US $15.
Are all online wallets charging exorbitant fees like this?

blockchain.info is no longer used directly.  It is linked directly to blockchain.com. And it is a popular and trusted bitcoin wallet.  So there is no opportunity to say scam. Bitcoin transaction fees are not determined by any wallet.  It is determined by the minor.  And the more transactions it tries to complete in a single moment, the higher the fee.  And if you have selected the fast transfer option, then the fee will be slightly higher. Because the transaction with higher fee is given fast priority to get block confirmation. I think you tried a quick transfer which is why your fee is comparatively higher. Waller cannot be held responsible for this

[Charles-Tim]

I guess you have received a lot of transactions to your wallet and now you want to spend the whole balance. Am I right?
The more inputs you have, the more fee you have to pay to miners.

I also guess this is what happened, a transaction with many inputs.

Well about their wallet I think you can customize the network fee do you mind checking if there is an option to customize the fee under network fee.
Does it look like they remove this option?

The last time I tested how the fee work on Blockchain.com wallet, it has something related to low, medium and high priority, although called different name or something.

Importing the seed phrase on a wallet like Electrum or Bluewallet which he can customize the fee is better. But setting it to 4 sat/vbyte would be better this time around. Although even if he set the fee to 1 sat/vbyte, the opt-in RBF is by default on both Electrum and Bluewallet.

[hassenpfeffer]

I guess you have received a lot of transactions to your wallet and now you want to spend the whole balance. Am I right?
The more inputs you have, the more fee you have to pay to miners.

I also guess this is what happened, a transaction with many inputs.

Yes, there were many inputs.

I was under the impression that the miner fees are solely 6.25 BTC for solving a block.

So do you mean that pools like CKpool are also making money by processing transactions
without ever solving blocks?

If so, how does one become such a "miner" which doesn't solve blocks?

I'm not clear on how entering the list of keywords would allow for a cheaper transaction.

[Nwada001]

Many years ago I accumulated a few Satoshi, which was worth a tiny fraction of a dollar, and I stored it in Blockchain.info.
Recently I wanted to transfer those Satoshi to a private wallet, but their website informed me that the fee for doing so was over 15000 Satoshi, which is currently US $15.
Are all online wallets charging exorbitant fees like this?

As the above members have mentioned earlier, if you are finding it difficult to import your seed phrase using Electrum, you can also download Trust Wallet from either the Play Store or the App Store and import your seed phrase using it. It's much more simple using Trust Wallet, and the fee can also be customized, but note that the lower the fee you are willing to pay the longer it might take for the transaction to be executed. I guess miners go for a transaction that has a higher fee first; it's always the person who is willing to pay the highest fee who gets their transaction the fastest. 

[Charles-Tim]

I was under the impression that the miner fees are solely 62.5 BTC for solving a block.
So do you mean that pools like CKpool are also making money by processing transactions
without ever solving blocks?

This is not related to your question, this is another question entirely.

Miners are mining 6.25 BTC in each block mined, but they also include transaction fee into candidate block which is later the mined block for a miner that mine the next block.

I'm not clear on how entering the list of keywords would allow for a cheaper transaction.

Import the seed phrase into Electrum or Bluewallet and customize the fee to 4 sat/vbyte or less. If less, you can pump the fee anytime that you like.

As the above members have mentioned earlier, if you are finding it difficult to import your seed phrase using Electrum, you can also download Trust Wallet

Trustwallet is close source. It does not also support RBF. Any bitcoin wallet that do not have these two features, I can not recommend. It is not difficult to import BIP39 seed phrase on Electrum, all he needs is to check BIP39 while importing it. Also he can use Bluewallet which is BIP39 wallet.

[hassenpfeffer]

As the above members have mentioned earlier, if you are finding it difficult to import your seed phrase using Electrum, you can also download Trust Wallet from either the Play Store or the App Store and import your seed phrase using it. It's much more simple using Trust Wallet, and the fee can also be customized, but note that the lower the fee you are willing to pay the longer it might take for the transaction to be executed. I guess miners go for a transaction that has a higher fee first; it's always the person who is willing to pay the highest fee who gets their transaction the fastest.

So are you saying that in addition to the 6.25 BTC that a miner wins for solving a block,
there are also transaction fees added?

If the miner can add a transaction for the fee later, how does that prevent them
from taking more Satoshi for the fee than was agreed?

[hosseinimr93]

you can also download Trust Wallet from either the Play Store or the App Store and import your seed phrase using it.

Please don't suggest a close-source wallet like trustwallet for bitcoin while there are many better alternatives.

So are you saying that in addition to the 6.25 BTC that a miner wins for solving a block,
there are also transaction fees added?

Miners get the newly generated coins and transaction fees.

If the miner can add a transaction for the fee later, how does that prevent them
from taking more Satoshi for the fee than was agreed?

The fee is determined by the one who makes the transaction. It's not that miners can charge you any amount they want.
Whenever you make a bitcoin transaction, you set a fee rate and miners prioritize transactions based on their fee rate.

[hassenpfeffer]

The fee is determined by the one who makes the transaction. It's not that miners can charge you any amount they want.
Whenever you make a bitcoin transaction, you set a fee rate and miners prioritize transactions based on their fee rate.

That makes sense, thanks.

Now I wonder how the default rate was set. It appears they were asking 50 to 70 sat per transaction.

By the way I'm using bitcoin-qt, not a wallet-only program.

[hZti]

The fee is not really determined by anything. Often there is a standard fee that is high enough that the transaction will be in every situation confirmed in the next block. If you want to archive that you will need very high fees. If you look on mempool.space you will see that many people don’t care or know and send with way to high fees.

[hosseinimr93]

Now I wonder how the default rate was set. It appears they were asking 50 sat per transaction.

Miners are free even to include transaction paying zero fee, but nodes consider any transaction paying less than 1 sat/vbyte as non-standard and reject them. So, the minimum fee rate you can set for your transaction is 1 sat/vbyte.
Note that the transaction fee equals to the fee rate multiplied by (virtual) size of transaction and miners prioritize transactions based on their fee rate, not their absolute fee.

There is no such thing as 50 sat per transaction.

[digaran]

Why the need to use an online wallet? Maybe it was good back in the days where we could play around with some faucets and send them to our online wallet, but it's not safe to use them for more than a few k sats. Easiest way to have an address without downloading a wallet is using bitaddress.org using a browser in guest mode and disconnecting the net, generating keys, saving then, closing the browser. Then you could reconnect, but this is still for small amounts, for large amounts produce your keys on a system that never connects to the net and don't print or save the keys on flash drives, just carefully write them down, this is the best way.

You should also use electrum instead.

[hassenpfeffer]

Why the need to use an online wallet?

You should also use electrum instead.

This was many years ago. I don't believe Electrum existed at the time.
I tried using bitcoind back then but it caused my Mac to dangerously overheat (as did many things).

For the present, it seems that bitcoin-qt is pretty reliable.
As for security, all my backups are encrypted and my hard drive is encrypted.

[avikz]

Many years ago I accumulated a few Satoshi, which was worth a tiny fraction of a dollar, and I stored it in Blockchain.info.
Recently I wanted to transfer those Satoshi to a private wallet, but their website informed me that the fee for doing so was over 15000 Satoshi, which is currently US $15.
Are all online wallets charging exorbitant fees like this?

Blockchain.info is not available anymore. It has now moved to .com domain. Also the fees that they charge, goes towards the network fees. So not sure what's the issue here.

If you want to ensure that you are paying the right fees, you will find hundreds of bitcoin fees calculator online. Just check there to be certain about your fees. You can use Mempool for this purpose.

https://mempool.space/

Hope this helps!

[BitMaxz]

For the present, it seems that bitcoin-qt is pretty reliable.
As for security, all my backups are encrypted and my hard drive is encrypted.

Are you sure that you are using Bitcoin-QT? Its an old version of Bitcoin core I suggest download the latest one and update your wallet. You can find the bitcoin this page top left  under news it should be the right link where you can download the latest version.

If your problem from the first post is in this wallet the latest version of Bitcoin core will allow you to choose or manually customized the transaction fee.
I don't know what exactly your problem is and I don't see some progress about your case so what exactly your problem is? bitcoin.info transaction fee or Bitcoin-qt?

[tabas]

It isn't a scam but it is not a recommended wallet to use and a wallet to keep your bitcoins. When I was still using it, the network was clog-free and there's no problem about the fees but then it's still an online wallet that has brought problem to many users. So, from .info domain to .com and still nothing has changed from its service although they are also upgrading some of its features but it has never enticed me to be back using it. While the fee is being determined by the network if it's empty or not, if it's empty then the fees won't be that much and you have to take note that these wallets are also taking some little commission for the fees that they ask. You can set priorities and increase the fee for the speed or adjust it a little back if you're patient enough to wait until your transaction is confirmed. Your problem is much better and solvable than of those that they can longer recover their wallets there even if they've got the recovery phrases because the retrieval process has changed for them.

[hosseinimr93]

.......you have to take note that these wallets are also taking some little commission for the fees that they ask. ...............

Due to obvious reasons, I don't like blockchain.com and I would never recommend anyone to use it, but you are wrong here.
Blockchain.com is a non-custodial wallet and it doesn't charge you any extra fee. All the fee you pay go to miners. You have to pay fee to blockchain.com, only if you use their exchange.

[SamReomo]

Like other respected members clarified that the blockchian.info is moved to .com domain name and that's blockchain.com. That wallet offers a user the option to select low fees or high fees. In your case the wallet might have automatically prioritized the faster transaction route by setting higher fee, but that will help the transaction to be confirmed quicker.

The option of selecting a customizable fees is also available in that wallet. If you want your transaction to be confirmed not too fast then select a transaction fee that would be 4 sat/vbyte or higher for smooth transaction. I hope this will be helpful to clear your doubt about blockchain.com because that is not a scam wallet.

You should also visit the link below.

https://support.blockchain.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000939903-Transaction-fees