Generally, bitcoin transaction fees depends on what's going on on bitcoin network. Whenever bitcoin network become more crowded and clogged up by more transactions waiting to be confirmed, transaction fees for miners will be boosted up. Fees will automatically become higher. However, transaction fees have its cycle, that highly correlated with bitcoin price.
Three best tools
Jochen-hoenicke.deWith this site, you can discover timezone impacts on transaction fees. Details below.
In general, if you are not hurry, please choose the timezones at which fees usually are low to move your funds.
You can compare the data from this study with the data generated at Johoe's Mempool Statistics page:
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,2w. Here's a random 2 week sample I took from last September (click for full size):
The dates along the bottom are at midnight (00:00) UTC. So you can see from this sample, there is a spike in fees on most days between around 10:00 and 18:00 (when Europe and then later America are awake), at which point they start reducing, and hit a low point around 01:00 - 04:00 UTC. This certainly ties in with the data from OP's study.
It's something I've casually noticed, but never given much though to. But considering it now, I wouldn't have expected such a constant and similar drop given that China has more people than Europe and North America combined.
has upgrades in their website graphics and more features. In the past, you can not hover mouse on the chart and see fee rate bands like with jochen-hoenicke.de chart.
[Telegram Bot] Bitcoin Fees - fees and tx tracker to get its notifications.
This bot: @BitcoinFeesAlert_bot
If you are not hurry, and can wait 1 to 3 days to see your transactions finished, you can apply those tricks below.Overview of network situation:Please visit this page to check total unconfirmed transactions:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/unconfirmed-transactionsTo have better overview, you can get the chart of unconfirmed transactions there:
https://www.blockchain.com/charts/mempool-count?timespan=60daysFrom the chart, it is clearly that we have been in good period to move bitcoins.
There is a better site,
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,8h (look at the third graph).
Thanks @o_e_l_e_o.
This a poor graph to use to visualize the mempool in the context of working out a fee. A better choice is the third graph on Johoe's site here (
https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#1,8h) entitled "Mempool Size in MB".
The reason for this is because the graph you linked to shows the number of unconfirmed transactions, whereas the graph I've linked to shows the size in MB of these unconfirmed transactions. Why is this important? I'll use two examples to illustrate my point. Lets say first of all that the mempool contains 10,000 transactions, but each transaction is less than 250 vbytes in size. This means the mempool is actually relatively empty at only 2.5 MB, and could completely empty in only 3 blocks. Conversely, lets now say the mempool contains only 1,000 transactions, but they are all huge consolidation transaction from various exchanges, and each one is 30,000 vbytes in size. Now the mempool is the fullest it has been in months at over 30 MB.
So using the graph you linked, if we see 1,000 or 10,000 transaction, we don't actually know how full the mempool is because we don't know the size of those transactions, which is what actually matters. Blocks are limited by size, not by number of transactions. A block could contain anywhere from 0 to over 4000 transactions.
Please check it there:
https://tradeblock.com/bitcoin/historical/1w-f-tfee_blk_avg-010511W fee-chart
1D fee-chart
Generally, as of writing, transaction fee has been on its upwards trend, as same as bitcoin. Fortunately, it is likely that fees have decreased dramatically since its latest peak around 4th - 5th June 2019 (you can see it in the 1D fee-chart.)
You can also check the average time to find blocks to get overview of network transactions:
https://www.blockchain.com/btc/blocksIf you don't want to join fee wars and unknowingly help miners to increase transaction fees for their benefits, you should use this page to get recommend fees:
https://coinb.in/#feesThis page will give you a guide on the lowest fee to use to get your transaction included within the next few blocks. It works by predicting the size of a transaction and comparing it to another transaction in a recent block to determine an appropriate fee.
There are some options for you, and you should choose appropriate one for your interests
As of writing, and for few coming blocks, recommended fee is at 2260 satoshis for a transaction of 260 bytes (1 input - 148 bytes, and 3 outputs - 102 bytes)
Fees depend on other factors, like numbers of inputs and outputs (please see the image below for more details).
Other sitesThere are other sites to check recommended fee:
https://btc.com/stats/unconfirmed-txYou can see that if you choose fee < 20 Satoshis/vbyte, your transactions might have to wait more than 12 hours to get confirmations. That is a hint for you to consolidate your small bitcoin with cheap fees (that presented in LoyceV's topic).
https://bitcoinfees.earn.com/ (the site gives predictions on delay time with specific fees. It means you can know how many blocks and minutes your transactions will be waited to get confirmations at a specific fee.)
There is a site: whatthefee.io, that gives you a detailed table in which you can find pairs of fees and waiting-time to get confirmation. The site dynamically updates their information corresponding to the bitcoin's network status.
In addition, applying guides of LoyceV to move your coins when network provides you great chance to move funds around with low fees.
[MAY 2019] Fees are low, use this opportunity to Consolidate your small inputs!I added some images to visually describe how to enable manually editing fees feature and how to manually set fees:
Choosing the address you want to send your bitcoin from that, for example, I have an address that have 0.00125
BTC in total; I click on Max button (only do this if you have small amount of bitcoin in that address); then type fee (at 1 satoshi/ byte); I can see total available bitcoin to send after subtracting fees is at 0.0012489
BTCNow, what if with the same address, same amount of bitcoin, how many bitcoin will be availble to send if I set fee at 100 satoshis/ byte. Only 0.00114
BTC will be left to send. Please look at it:
Blockchain explorers:https://blockchair.com/ (does not support Segwit addresses)
The following explorers support Segwit addresses:
https://blockstream.info/https://live.blockcypher.com/btc/https://blockchair.com/Other should-read sources:https://bitcoin.org/en/you-need-to-know#instanthttps://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/ConfirmationMake sure to avoid wasting BTC for too high fees – step by step guide (Electrum)List of Bitcoin Mempool Viewers Bitcoin transaction fees (in sats/kb). Sunday, Saturday are best to move BTCOne of the craziest period of crypto market, with all time highs of bitcoin price and bitcoin transaction fees.
@gentlemand, that $500 million spike looks really weird (around 1/1/18)... Must have been when a lot of people pulled out as their money hasn't returned to this market yet (since we aren't at $20k).
It's more likely it was caused by the very high fees at that time, 800 sat/byte was "normal", resulting in $25 or more in fees for a small transaction, and many thousands of dollars for a transaction with a lot of inputs and outputs.
Credit: fillippone
