bitcoin transfer fees?

[bitkilo]

First of all I'm no computer wizz so maybe its something I'm doing wrong but I always read articles that say it only costs a tiny percentage to send bitcoins, today I sent $0.05 from my blockchain wallet to a different wallet I have just as a test and it cost me $0.11 in fees, WTF, and I thought banks were ripping me off.

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

You probably sent a lot of tiny coins. Bitcoin transaction fees are calculated based on the storage space taken by your transaction on the blockchain.

Bitcoin transaction fees are based on how many bits it takes up, NOT based on the amount. If you send $10 billion and the size of the transaction is the same, the fee will still be your $0.11.

[Foxpup]

Bitcoin transaction fees are not "a tiny percentage", as they're not a percentage of anything. The fee is independent of the amount transacted. Also remember that Bitcoin is a global payment network that does not distinguish between domestic and international transactions. I guarantee that your bank will not let you send $0.05 by international wire for less than $0.11 in fees.

[bitkilo]

OK thanks for the tip, but how can I reduce the storage space my transaction takes up on the blockchain and therefore reduce the fees I pay?
I just did the transaction using the send coins menu in my wallet as I thought the cheapest way would b pre set if possible for not so smart people like myself.

Bitcoin transaction fees are not "a tiny percentage", as they're not a percentage of anything. The fee is independent of the amount transacted. Also remember that Bitcoin is a global payment network that does not distinguish between domestic and international transactions. I guarantee that your bank will not let you send $0.05 by international wire for less than $0.11 in fees.

. Your right if I wanted to send $0.05 from my bank they would probably charge me $5

[BunsenBurner]

OK thanks for the tip, but how can I reduce the storage space my transaction takes up on the blockchain and therefore reduce the fees I pay?

The tx size (in KB) depends on the number of inputs and outputs in the tx.
You would have a smaller tx size if you have less inputs (eg. don't fill your wallet with tens of dust inputs)

[🏰 TradeFortress 🏰]

You can try using an offchain wallet.

[PerrythePlatypus]

You can try using an offchain wallet.

Offchain wallet requires trust on the third party. Isn't recommended unless you trust the thirdparty. Bitcoin is meant to be decentralized. Look what happened to inputs.io  .

[Pobre]

If you want to reduce the transaction fee, you can simply set your transaction fee to 0, but this will result in the increase of time taken by the transaction to get confirmed, and sometimes the tx doesnt even gets confirmed without any tx fee. Its recommend that you pay the required tx fee for your transactions.

[Pobre]

You can try using an offchain wallet.

Please dont suggest newbies using the third party wallets like offchain, we all know how inputs.io took away 4100+ BTC of their users.

[PerrythePlatypus]

First of all I'm no computer wizz so maybe its something I'm doing wrong but I always read articles that say it only costs a tiny percentage to send bitcoins, today I sent $0.05 from my blockchain wallet to a different wallet I have just as a test and it cost me $0.11 in fees, WTF, and I thought banks were ripping me off.

If you got 0.001 bit coins, make coinbase your hot wallet(place small amount of bit coin) they do help you pay your transaction fees for sending 0.001 bitcoins and above.

[saddambitcoin]

First of all I'm no computer wizz so maybe its something I'm doing wrong but I always read articles that say it only costs a tiny percentage to send bitcoins, today I sent $0.05 from my blockchain wallet to a different wallet I have just as a test and it cost me $0.11 in fees, WTF, and I thought banks were ripping me off.

read up on http://bitcoinfees.com/

the default transaction fee is 0.0001 BTC (0.1 mBTC) so that's about 5 cents. if there are a lot of small inputs from many addresses, the size of the transaction will be larger, thus requiring a higher fee than usual.

yes this is a problem with bitcoin, it becomes difficult to send microtransactions.

[DeathAndTaxes]

First of all I'm no computer wizz so maybe its something I'm doing wrong but I always read articles that say it only costs a tiny percentage to send bitcoins, today I sent $0.05 from my blockchain wallet to a different wallet I have just as a test and it cost me $0.11 in fees, WTF, and I thought banks were ripping me off.

read up on http://bitcoinfees.com/

the default transaction fee is 0.0001 BTC (0.1 mBTC) so that's about 5 cents. if there are a lot of small inputs from many addresses, the size of the transaction will be larger, thus requiring a higher fee than usual.

yes this is a problem with bitcoin, it becomes difficult to send microtransactions.

The min fee to relay (there is no such thing as default fee) is 0.01 mBTC in v0.9 (that is 0.5 cents) for LOW PRIORITY TXS.  The min fee to relay high priority txs is zero.   The size of the transaction is what matters.   The OP most likely has a bunch of worthless dust spam he got from "free bitcoin" sites.

[Sonny]

The OP most likely has a bunch of worthless dust spam he got from "free bitcoin" sites.

Very likely. And many people spending time on faucets don't consider that at all.
Not only faucets pay very little bitcoin, the cost to spend those dust inputs are very high.

[horstman]

faucets are nice for starting/testing, but you wont get any good amount of coins out of it

[fatguyyyyy]

Its why most transactions I do, I try to send a large amount, so I dont have to pay the fee.

The fees actually kill you in the long run, if you are sending micro payments

Eg: 0.001 or below

But there are a few that dont charge anything.. so if anyone knows a few.. list them?

[scarsbergholden]

This is why BTC is not good for micro transactions. Fee is not based on % of what you transact. So it is actually extremely cheap to send large amounts of money.

[drugo]

Actually bitcoin isn't good for micro transaction, especially if your inputs are considered dust (lower than 5640 satoshis)

[bryant.coleman]

I have no problem in paying small amounts as the transaction fee. But what will happen when transaction fee sometimes gets to more than 100% of the original amount? And there is no way to find out how much will be the transaction fee, before we sends the coins.

[krishatnet]

he default transaction fee is 0.0001 BTC

[Pobre]

he default transaction fee is 0.0001 BTC

Well the default transaction fee is not 0.0001btc, its just an amount that is generally sufficient for making tx, but sometimes to prioritize your tx the blockchain.info sometimes automatically cuts 0.0002btc or more as a tx fee.