Topic: How can I avoid paying these crazy transaction fees? (Read 368 times)

Contact the vendor and complain to them. Maybe they will give you a discount.

currently the gas fees on the Bitcoin network is gradualy beoming anoying. I don't see why a transaction will cost anything more than cents but ofcourse we understand the TPS is very low and this has birthed the high cost of fees based on priority.

If you however must pay your vendor with fees in cents, you must consider paying via other altcoins that charges way lesser.

Sadly Bitcoin and Ethereum are horrible when it comes to making small purchases during bull markets. I think ETH is not as bad and you can get away with $1-2 transactions but lately BTC due it Ordinals clogging the chain are resulting in fees closer to $10 for a single transaction, that is with a 100 sat/byte. So paying less than $0.20 is just not possible.

Maybe wait until Christmas day when we have no activity and maybe the fee will be cheaper then but who knows. There might be a Santa rally and the fees might still be high. Just need to bite the bullet and the first time accept that you fee will be high. Use lightning or some other Layer 2 chain such as Arbitrium which is very low in fees.

Can't deny that transaction fees have really increased quite significantly recently. Maybe because the network is busy and also because the price of Bitcoin has risen quite significantly recently. However, when you want to make a transaction like that and what's more it is a one-time purchase, of course this might be a little difficult to carry out according to expectations. Usually the fees will change. but not necessarily significantly in a fairly close time span. The Lightning network, which is usually the solution, is currently still quite ineffective. So, yes, that's the fee that has to be paid now. So, if you don't choose altcoins, that means you might need to rest the purchase time again to get a lower fee. but this may be difficult to do.

With Bitcoin, you've very limited options when it comes to transaction fees. At least on ethereum, you can just bolt away to the cheapest EVM chain whether it's L2 or side chain as long as it gets the job done. My current workaround to evade high fees on Bitcoin to simply to set a transaction fee that meets the minimum requirement for ViaBTC's tx accelerator and hit send. Then I try to time the hourly tx submission to their free transaction accelerator. As long as your tx hit the minimum criteria, you should be good to go even if your tx fee is 50% less than the recommended fee based on the mempool.

https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator

An investor will wait for a bull run in 2024 after Bitcoin halving to find chance to take profit. Take profit now, in 2023 is not a smart investment idea. I don't see need to pay expensive transaction fee now and in return I might lose my bitcoin by selling cheap, cheaper than 2024 and 2025.

I believe from December to April 2024, I will have opportunity to move my bitcoin with cheaper transaction fee. At this time, I agree with you that waiting is the best choice.

Some people want to move their bitcoin, are ready to pay expensive fee because they have different needs like have to sell coins to have cash to use, sell coins to buy shit coins.

For the first reason, it is serious and an experienced investor will always have some amount of cash to use, without need to sell bitcoin at not good price.

Nothing and wait until the market congested getting into a normal wave, previously people kept making a lot of transactions with the BTC somehow on its pair and also newly released coins, if you don't hurry too much with the transaction just couple of hours or days it could be lead back to normal state. If you encounter the same scenratio as that with your transaction better to tell to them with the transaction fee is too much high or use the P2p by the binance if you have some so you don't need to pay higher tx fees. Always check too the

Lolz.. I thought I was the only one waiting for unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction, but not knowing we were many, because I also initiated a transaction on the 5th December of 0.002 BTC worth $84 at the time the transaction was made, whose initial fee was $17, but had reduce it to $2.5, and could you imagine it took it good 4days before it got confirmed, because I just woke up this morning and found out transaction done since on the 5th December just go confirmed today on the 9th December with an extra $4 due to the recent increase in the price of BTC. (i.e value of 0.002 BTC instead of $84 now $88)



So, I'm sure yours is likely to get confirmed by tomorrow.

Worst experience of reducing transaction fee. Few day age I transfer $68 in someone's wallet by reducing the transaction fee. The fee showing for transfer $68 is $13 it's a lot of amount for me. That's why I reduced my fee to $13 to $2. Something. I know it will take a lot of time how much time it will take 4 hours, 5 hours, maximum one day. But  what tye luck I have 3 days spend but it still pending.

Ethereum's gas fees are still quite high at the moment, to swap tokens on a DEX around $31 and of course still very expensive.


For Gas Fees, withdrawals of Exchanges such as Binance are charged 0.0032 ETH with a minimum withdrawal of 0.01ETH.


For Bitcoin, Gas Fee has now dropped by 105.66 sat/vB around $6.68 with a confirmation of about 20 minutes.


All those gas fees are updated as I write this comment.
Ethereum is still high but for other networks such as zksync, Optimism, BSC, Polygon, TRX is still quite cheap and the best choice besides ERC20 networks.

For Bitcoin, it is quite normal after yesterday experienced a surge in transactions and a significant increase in the price of Bitcoin so that gas fees will be more expensive.

Yes, unfortunately, our hands are tied are far as transactions goes, you can manually set the fees though depends on the user. Or just monitor the mempool when the fees is down or at least not 100 sat/vB++.

In my case though, transaction accelerators are very effective.

https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator

You just really have to check it if there is a available open free slots as they usually filled in very fast.

This is just about the most you could do. Apparently, these fees are the one means to sustenance for the bitcoin blockchain, it’s one means in which miners get the little or most they do and in times like this, we just have to bare with the trend. It’s a trend and it does goes out.
You might just pay the fees or perhaps, sort other means outside cryptos or Bitcoin payment. Perhaps you could even buy some altcoins (Stablecoins) preferably and use that to make your transactions. You would still arrive at the same means of paying without having high fees levied on your transaction. Only cause for worry would be the rate at which you would be offered the stablecoin or altcoins for sale. Nothing is real free my friend.
Bitcoin accelerators might be able to help as well.

I was going to suggest you to use the Lightning network but you can't use that because the first time you still have to pay the fee which will exceed the 20 cents limit. If your vendor accepts several cryptocurrencies then simply don't use BTC to pay the amount. Use another token like BNB or Matic they have the lowest transaction fee. I mostly prefer them whenever I have to avoid transaction fees.

See if your vendor accepts Matic, or BNB for payment method, if yes then check if the transaction fee is lower than your limit of 20 cents or not. Because the fees might exceed in rare cases so make sure to check that before making any transaction. And if you already have your funds in BTC and to get Matic or BNB you have to swap them into any of these two coins.
And this will cost you too So it might be possible that if we combined all the fees made, it would cross your 20-cent limit. So, I don't think there is any other way for you to make this happen but to wait for the transaction fee to drop, but in any case, the fees are not going to drop below 2$ maximum so expecting it to drop below 20 cents will be idiotic.

I myself am shocked by such commissions, and I don’t see any solutions to reduce commissions. The rate of commissions was declining, but yesterday they increased by 270 percent.
All my earnings come to Trust Wallet, and once upon a time it was possible to make a swap on it for other tokens, but now this cannot be done - and there is only Bitcoin.
Reducing the commission is a bad option, because in the past my transaction with a reduced commission was stuck for five days, after which I still didn’t understand whether it went further or returned.
Someone may suggest Transaction accelerators do not provide any guarantees, but my friends told me that they could not get any effect from these services.

According to etherscan, the required gas price for getting confirmation is now 45 Gwei.
As for a normal ethereum transaction 21,000 units of gas is required, the required fee is now around 0.0009 ETH which is worth around 2.2 dollars.

The required fee would be higher if you want to send tokens and note that you would have to pay much higher fees for withdrawal from exchanges.

Based on preference, it seems OP just wants to make payments in cryptocurrency, which is not necessary if the shop accepts fiat payments. Perhaps if I happen to be in OPs situation and I have two options of payment, even if Bitcoin is my most preferred means of payment, I will rather consider paying with fiat since the transaction fee for Bitcoin is too high.

There is no alternative to this right now than to pay the fees because the bitcoin network has become high even in weekends due to the FOMO and the ETF anticipations of speculators, but if you want to forgone decentralization and privacy, then here are some options that I know you can use to purchase an item from online vendors:

Most vendors that I know used Binance pay or internal transaction to received bitcoin transaction, so I think you can ask him if he want the payment through that route, simply request for his Binance Pay ID and move your coins from spot wallet to funding and send him the bitcoin and then you can share him the transaction ID which is always an internal transaction and it cost zero fees but you have to make sure you are dealing with a legit and trust worthy vendor, if you don't trust and can't verify then don't send. Other exchanges has this features, Kucoin is there as well to use.

You can also request if the vendor accept other coins, many of them accept stable coin such as USDT, you can swap your BTC to stablecoin and utilized tron blockchain for the time being because this are the only alternatives that you can use for now and if you insist on bitcoin for such, then you have to be ready to pay the fees to get your transaction to the vendor.

No Ethereum has its fees and it is called gas fee, the Ethereum network is the most expensive network In terms of fees, so if you’re going to consider that network I will advice you not use it because it is expensive than even bitcoin. If you’re considering using Altcoins then I will say you should go for tron network it is fast and cheap.

Ethereum has its own block explorer as etherescan

Buying new coins is a bigger headache than purchasing the hat. If it was as simple as going to the convenience store and buying whatever coins you want as simple as it is buying gift cards (marked up reasonably) then this post wouldn't have existed.

Does Ethereum have the same transaction fees? Is there a mempool.space type of site to check the current trend on Ethereum ?

The exchange option you’re suggesting would also not be a right idea, it can only work if the seller or buyer actually uses that same exchange with each other than the sender can do an internal transfer which doesn’t attract any fee. But if the recipient is not using that same exchange which is mostly common since merchants do not use exchanges to receive payment then on chain transaction is required which is mostly expensive on exchanges due to their fix charges.

 
Last weekend I tried to wait till Saturday midnight to see maybe there will be changes but there wasn’t, so I think this particular option is no longer viable again.


A good idea but it will just be best if he pays the shop in their legal tender direct except if they do not accept fiat payment which is rare, spending in fiat will be better than going in circle of buying this Altcoins

Going by what the first comment has said, you have different options, which is either to pay the high fee, create a channel on the Lightening Network, or wait for the transaction fee to drop. But I have a suggestion for you, and before then, there's a question you have to answer. Is the bitcoin in your wallet the only fund you have in your name right now? Don't you have some cash at hand—in your safe or in the bank? If you have some money on you, then you can as well convert some fiat into any cryptocurrency that the shop is accepting apart from Bitcoin. For example, if the online shop is accepting doge coins, convert some of your local currency to doge, then go ahead and buy your hat.

Sad to say that these transaction fees are way out of your control depending on the network that you are using. In BTC from segwit to segwit, expect that the fees are not that cheap even if you set it to low but longer waiting times.

However, if you are in a rush, then you have no choice but to pay the higher gas.

Some networks that have lower transaction fees are XRP, TRX, MATIC, etc., which are probably your best bet to save in terms of gas fees. For BTC? No can do especially about expecting the confirmation in a couple of hours.

There is no way to avoid paying transaction fees because it has become a technological system. Transaction fees always change at any time, even within minutes. The only thing you can do to avoid transaction fees is wait and monitor until the transaction fees are low. High or low transaction fees are part of the technology and cannot be changed manually by you.

Well first of all, I think you have the wrong mindset. Is it really going to be the first, last and only time that you will be using Bitcoin for a transaction? Bitcoin is the future and the BTC adoption will continue growing. So if you want to make a long term decision then you should reconsider lightning. It will save you money in the future if you continue using it.

Otherwise I do not see any other option (other than perhaps sending Bitcoin between CEX accounts since crypto exchanges have a different internal system and on many exchanges it costs nothing to send Bitcoin to another account.

But trusting a third party with your money is not really the purpose of Bitcoin.

And since you said its on your Electrum wallet, I see no other choice than to pay the high fee.

You're actually right, but when things like this happens, what should then now be the fate of every bitcoiners intending to make transactions, are we to conclude on no remedy than to embrace the fate or there is any other means to circumvent this huge pill up on transactions fee, you can remember it's getting more worse than expected and same also it's getting to last longer than expected.

Don't make it complicated, Bitcoin is simple, if you find a good thing or advantage in Bitcoin, use it, if not then why you need force yourself to use? it's not like fiat where every citizen must to use fiat to pay anything in their country.

Since you have an option, you can use shitcoins because most of them have a cheap fees, some of them even free.

Not many choices here, I'm afraid.  You can just send the bitcoin straight from your wallet to the seller's address.  That's the most basic option, but might not be the fastest or most affordable.  Bitcoin transaction fees can vary depending on the current network congestion, but generally youre looking at a few bucks at least and  or you might want to try some other cryptocoins that are faster and less expensive than bitcoin like litecoin, dogecoin or stablecoins like USDT.  But then you'd have to get your hands on those first, so that's not really doable unless you just happen to have some funds already parked in a crypto exchange account (and that comes with its own problems if you leave money there long-term).


That's right. For a single transaction, just paying directly with BTC is cheaper than using Lightning.  LN is better if you're gonna make a bunch of little payments.

It's not possible considering the current mempool situation, you may still consider the ViaBTC free transaction method but its still going to cost you around $1+ for one input and one output transaction.

You can consider paying in an altcoin or need to wait for the things to be back to normal.

It is something you can not avoid. Currently transaction fee is on the high side and would take a little time to be stable. It would not be making any sense to be paying a high transaction fee for a little amount so therefore it would be nice you look into the time when the fee would be minimal to transact. Like my friend told me that he noticed that at midnight, in his country transaction fees are basically at the minimum so that is when he does transfer to make the fee very cheap for him to pay immediately and convert to stable coin. That is how he does his transaction to escape the high fee charges.

1) Just how you bought your bitcoins, you buy doge or ltc or usdt or whatever that shops accepts and you're paying with it.
2) You wait till the fees are down, but maybe the hat will be out of stock

Other than that it's the option mocacinno advised, try to make a tx was small as possible so best use one input with coin control, pay over 10sat/b so double it for sat/vb to be safe, and try to get it into Viabtc accelerator , there are 66 spots left as I speak so no rush to be in the first minute after xx:00.
Theoretically ViaBtc should mine a block every two hours so it matches your other condition.


Now imagine everyone would take this advice, how will things end?  



None of these works if there is a wave of high paying incoming transactions, none!
Using RBF doesn't make you pay less money, it helps you pay the minimum required, but if that is 300sat/b what's the point of calling it cheaper?

If you really needed to avoid making high transaction fees then try and follow these few steps and advise to spend less on your transactions.

1. Make weekend transactions often
2. Always check the mempool congestion and the transaction fee for each category of priority.
3. Make use of a wallet like electrum which support RBF in case you need to pump your fee.
4. Use viabtc mining pool to boost your transaction

Remember when you're making use of the mempool, it gives you the accurate rate you will be charged as transaction fee before making anyone, if it's ok by you, then you can proceed or keep the track on till you finds it less busy.

You can't avoid paying transaction fees. It's already part of the technology. What you can only do is to wait for the right time. Timing your transaction and wait for off-peak hours. This way, you will have a lower fee compared to having transactions during peak hours and editing the transaction fee to the lowest fee which will take longer.

Nothing i'm afraid... If you don't have an already open lightning channel and you don't have any altcoins you can use, the only "real" sollution is to pay the large fee.

But if you do pay the fee, it might be a good idear to use it to make a swap to some altcoins or to invest in opening a lightning channel, so at least the next time you can enjoy a cheap fee (by paying with a sidechain or altcoin). Bitcoin isn't economical to make small purchases at the moment, the people moving/investing in ordinals are spamming us with transactions paying larger fees, and we have to outbid them in order to get our transactions in a block.

The only other thing you could do is use a free tx accelerator, but those are severely limited and offer no guarantee whatsoever. ViaBTC offers a free service, but your tx can have a maximum size of 500 bytes, a minimum fee of 10 sat/byte, cannot have unconfirmed parents,... Only 100 free accelerations/hour are accepted, and there's no guarantee whatsoever.
That's the only 'trick' i know to get a cheaper transaction. There are no other shortcuts or special tricks. Miners optimze their income by selecting transactions with the highest fee per vbyte of transaction data. Mining is a business, and there's little to nothing you can do to make a miner put a suboptimal transaction (feewise) in the block they're trying to solve.

There are tricks to get unconfirmed transactions confirmed, but they're allmost allways more expensive than paying the expensive fee in the first place, so they're not applicable to your case at the moment i'm afraid.

I have btc on Electrum mobile wallet.
I want to buy a hat using crypto from an online vendor.
Vendor accepts several crypto currencies.
It's a one time purchase.
I don't want to spent more than 20 cents in transaction fees.
I want the transaction confirmed within a couple of hours.

What are my options?

I thought of Lightning but that is still going to cost me a lot in transaction fees when opening a channel. And since this is a one time purchase, it defeats its purpose because, well, might as well just directly purchase using btc.

So...what can I do?