On June 13, localbitcoins informed that they will be charging a deposit fee actually. My last deposit there was 2 days ago but I wasn't charged anything so I assume it has begun implementation today as it indicates 19-21 in the email. Outgoing fees are supposed to be less though. Could you share the % of the fee you paid?
Personally, I feel this is a bad move, since we already pay the fees when we deposit, now we are charged on both ends. I don't mind paying fees for withdrawals but I guess they are thinking "hey, we don't get anything from sellers".
This was the first part of the email I received:
Dear LocalBitcoins customer,
Due to the rising Bitcoin network fees we feel there is a need to revisit the LocalBitcoins transaction fee system. In order divide the costs of handling Bitcoin transactions in a fair manner we are introducing deposit fees for incoming transactions. At the same we will lower Bitcoin sending fees for all customers. The new fee system will be put in to effect around 19th-21st June.
With our old transaction fee system you pay a transaction fee when you send Bitcoins out from LocalBitcoins to a different Bitcoin wallet. This fee covers the cost for us to send your transaction and the costs for us to manage the deposit(s) that we used to send your transaction.
In the Bitcoin network managing deposits uses up a lot of blockchain space while handling a withdrawal uses up much less space. This means that a large part of the old Bitcoin transaction fee was for covering costs related to deposits. This means that customers who make many small deposits to their LocalBitcoins wallet causes the sending transaction fees to rise, and these costs were paid by customers who were sending Bitcoins.
We want to spread these costs more fairly between our customers. By introducing deposit fees customers who make many small deposits will pay a larger share of the overall transaction costs and customers who send out transactions will enjoy lower fees.
All fees will be adjusted dynamically based on how congested the bitcoin network is.
Hmm, I was not aware of such an email but makes sense I guess. I do agree with you that it is a bad move since it makes localbitcoins less attractive from here on out. I'd expect them to earn enough for this to not be needed.
About %: I deposited 0.2
BTC and the fee was 0.0005xxx
BTC. That seems a bit excessive if they do go by %. Can't imagine anyone would be willing to deposit several bitcoins and have to pay for the ability to sell other than the fee's LB already takes from the sale.
Ohwell, not much to do I guess.
