Too high transaction fees?

[alamanjani]

Through several faucets I managed to gather 0.0005 BTC (Yay!) 

These 'funds' are on Core Bitcoin wallet (updated to the latest version, block chain current)
I just created Electrum wallet.
Now I'm trying to transfer that fortune <g> from core wallet to electrum wallet, just playing around to see how this sending/receiving works.

I tried to send 0.004 btc to electrum wallet. I get error msg that 0.003 transaction fees exceed total amout - which is correct. Problem is, I have set transaction fees to 0.00000001 BTC on both wallets. This setting is being ignored.

Questions:

Why is my 0.00000001 transaction fee being ignored?
What is the minimum transaction fee I can set?
Can I send for free, no transaction fees included? How? (tried to set fee to 0.0 but it is also ignored)
What am I doing wrong, what should I do next?

I mean, I was getting much smaller amounts from faucets. I doubt they are paying 0.0003 BTC fee to send me 0.00001 BTC or less?!?

[notlist3d]

Have you thought about keeping address and importing private key?

With faucets being so low you don't really want to pay a fee.   Without fee it's hard to tell how long to confirm.   If you can import private key that would save any fees.  Also treat the key as gold as it can control your BTC.

[LOBSTER]

The fee is so low that the transaction gets no confirmation. Send it with more.

[alamanjani]

Have you thought about keeping address and importing private key?

Since I'm new to all this crypto currency thing, I would have to first learn how to do it...

Also reading Electrum FAQ it is suggested to send money rather than import the key. Send funds would be the recoverable through the Electrum seed if something goes wrong, say if I have to set/install electrum wallet again or on another computer. I would like to have all in one place and Electrum fit the bill (linux, etc...) I just can't figure out, how to send 0.0005 BTC without losing half of it to transaction fee.

What is lowest acceptable transaction fee for sending this amount?

[alamanjani]

The fee is so low that the transaction gets no Konfirmation. Send it with more.

OK I understand this, I set fee too low.
What I don't understand is, why is transaction simple not being rejected due to too low set transaction fee?
What is really happening is, wallet is automatically setting transaction fee randomly at around half of my funds or more.
Shouldn't transaction fee I set stay intact? Then there is or is not transaction executed. But why is my settings being ignored?

[LOBSTER]

The fee is so low that the transaction gets no Konfirmation. Send it with more.

OK I understand this, I set fee too low.
What I don't understand is, why is transaction simple not being rejected due to too low set transaction fee?
What is really happening is, wallet is automatically setting transaction fee randomly at around half of my funds or more.
Shouldn't transaction fee I set stay intact? Then there is or is not transaction executed. But why is my settings being ignored?

See here

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees#Relaying

[jbrnt]

Is your small fortune made up of hundreds of tiny amounts (known as "dust")? If it is, you need to pay a high transaction fee due to the size (in kilobytes) of the transactions.

Do you mind telling us your address? We can tell you the minimum fee to pay to have it confirmed in reasonable time.

[alamanjani]

Is your small fortune made up of hundreds of tiny amounts (known as "dust")? If it is, you need to pay a high transaction fee due to the size (in kilobytes) of the transactions.

Do you mind telling us your address? We can tell you the minimum fee to pay to have it confirmed in reasonable time.

A-ha I see, yes my fortune (lol) is made out of about 30 smaller transactions and about 6-7 different receiving addresses. And transactions were done some two years ago.
Sure I will give you address. And thank you for the help you are offering. I have a question, which exactly address I should post here so you can calculate minimum still acceptable sending fee? Address I'm trying to send to (into Electrum wallet?) That one would be:

1NZxGTz4WaxojJo3QG8NT8bVLUYisPS9Kt

I'm trying to send from Core Bitcoin wallet. Do you need address from that one? If so which one? Sorry for maybe silly questions but I'm new to the whole thing....

[alamanjani]

The fee is so low that the transaction gets no Konfirmation. Send it with more.

OK I understand this, I set fee too low.
What I don't understand is, why is transaction simple not being rejected due to too low set transaction fee?
What is really happening is, wallet is automatically setting transaction fee randomly at around half of my funds or more.
Shouldn't transaction fee I set stay intact? Then there is or is not transaction executed. But why is my settings being ignored?

See here

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees#Relaying

Reading, thank you! I see depends of amount and other conditions, there can be free sanding and in other cases sending fee is automatically assigned if I understand everything correctly. Too bad things has to be so complicated. I was going to set one wallet on my wife's computer and send he half of what I have to start her into this crypto currency thing. Looks like I will not be able to send without losing about half to fees...

[jbrnt]

A-ha I see, yes my fortune (lol) is made out of about 30 smaller transactions and about 6-7 different receiving addresses.
which exactly address I should post here so you can calculate minimum still acceptable sending fee?

The fee is depends on the "inputs" of the transactions. In your case, 6-7 addresses with funds in them. A transaction with 30 inputs typically needs a fee of 0.0005btc (which is all of your coins).

If I were you, I would force a lower fee than the standard fee, let's say around 0.0002btc and hope you get lucky and have it confirmed within 2 days.

[alamanjani]

A-ha I see, yes my fortune (lol) is made out of about 30 smaller transactions and about 6-7 different receiving addresses.
which exactly address I should post here so you can calculate minimum still acceptable sending fee?

The fee is depends on the "inputs" of the transactions. In your case, 6-7 addresses with funds in them. A transaction with 30 inputs typically needs a fee of 0.0005btc (which is all of your coins).

If I were you, I would force a lower fee than the standard fee, let's say around 0.0002btc and hope you get lucky and have it confirmed within 2 days.

Thank you again, now it makes all sense. Part of the problem is my 'fortune' is not quite big enough lol!

May I ask you (or anyone else) one more question. How do I force a lower fee? It seems to be ignored what I set in my options as a fee.

[scientific]

A-ha I see, yes my fortune (lol) is made out of about 30 smaller transactions and about 6-7 different receiving addresses.
which exactly address I should post here so you can calculate minimum still acceptable sending fee?

The fee is depends on the "inputs" of the transactions. In your case, 6-7 addresses with funds in them. A transaction with 30 inputs typically needs a fee of 0.0005btc (which is all of your coins).

If I were you, I would force a lower fee than the standard fee, let's say around 0.0002btc and hope you get lucky and have it confirmed within 2 days.

Thank you again, now it makes all sense. Part of the problem is my 'fortune' is not quite big enough lol!

May I ask you (or anyone else) one more question. How do I force a lower fee? It seems to be ignored what I set in my options as a fee after you import your wallet into it.

Core client (and some others) will enforce a minimum fee based on a calculation. So you can't do it. Look into blockchain.info wallet's "custom send" option. It may allow you to set 0 fee after you import your wallet into it, though I'm not sure.

[alamanjani]

Core client (and some others) will enforce a minimum fee based on a calculation. So you can't do it. Look into blockchain.info wallet's "custom send" option. It may allow you to set 0 fee after you import your wallet into it, though I'm not sure.

Ahh, gotcha! Thank you for your answer!

[galbros]

Is your small fortune made up of hundreds of tiny amounts (known as "dust")? If it is, you need to pay a high transaction fee due to the size (in kilobytes) of the transactions.

This is a nice summary.  It is a danger of using faucets.  Many faucets now let you delay your payments to avoid this problem.  When I started and was using faucets I usually tried to get the balance to at least .001 btc before moving the coins to somewhere else.  Even that is pushing it.

The "standard" transaction fee is .0001 bitcoin, but as others have noted, the core client enforces a fee based on the size of your transaction.

Good Luck!

[alamanjani]

The "standard" transaction fee is .0001 bitcoin, but as others have noted, the core client enforces a fee based on the size of your transaction.

Good Luck!

Yes, I understand now the whole thing much better. Thank you and everyone helping me :-)

[Buziss]

In fact, you don't need to switch to blockchain.info just to create the transaction with lower tx fee, as you can directly do it in Electrum.

Just click "Tools", "Create transaction", "From CSV text", and enter "destination address, amount".
The difference between inputs and outputs amount will be the tx fee you are going to pay, so if you have 0.004 btc and want to pay 0.0002 btc as tx fee, you should put 0.0038 there.

But your transaction may take a very long time or perhaps forever to be confirmed, when it has too little fee.

[activebiz]

u should try setting a smaller fee say 1000satoshi(0.00001)
as the TX depends on many inputs it might take a while to confirm.

[Q7]

Faucet is basically meant for somebody interested in bitcoin to try it out the feature and functionality. No way was it meant for someone to earn decent amount considering the amount of work/hours need to put in versus the resulting payoff. If you need to know more about transaction fee, the link should tells you everything you will need to know. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

[alamanjani]

In fact, you don't need to switch to blockchain.info just to create the transaction with lower tx fee, as you can directly do it in Electrum.

Just click "Tools", "Create transaction", "From CSV text", and enter "destination address, amount".
The difference between inputs and outputs amount will be the tx fee you are going to pay, so if you have 0.004 btc and want to pay 0.0002 btc as tx fee, you should put 0.0038 there.

But your transaction may take a very long time or perhaps forever to be confirmed, when it has too little fee.

Yes I understand all now.
One of the problem I have, 'funds' are on Core wallet that I can't set lower fee.
So I decided to start using Electrum, I like how you have better control over sending.
Well I like it overall anyway. Core wallet decided to reindex everything and here we go again with waiting on downloads lol

But bigger problem is, you just don't have enough funds when you only have 0.0000xxx lol, working on this now as well :-)
Thanks (everyone who responded) for help!

[sifter]

Although you don't have much,

I send most of my transactions with a fee of 0.00025 to be safe.