Topic: What are reasonable fees when buying small sums of bitcoin in the UK? (Read 132 times)

Spending 2% of your funds in order to buy Bitcoin is outrageous. Thanks for bringing this exchange to my attention so I will not bother considering them as an option as I do see their advert on youtube and other platforms. Nevertheless, if Coinbase is accepted in the UK, then I will advice you use Coinbase for buying and Withdrawal to another wallet where you have control. It is not a good practice to save your funds in centralized exchanges so always put this in consideration when managing your digital assets.

I recommend Coinbase because it has one of the lowest withdrawal fees for Bitcoin, just around $0.12. According to this article, there are also cryptocurrencies with zero withdrawal fees such as Stellar (XLM) and others. Since you are considering Bitcoin a lone, the fee is good and highly competitive.

Most of the exchages charge less on bitcoin transaction because I've also been using some lately and i often make use of lesser transaction fee in making my transaction, exchanges don't charge that much that will affect, before sending your transaction, they would have shown you the amount going out for the transaction which you would have seen before making the transaction and there's no much difference between those exchange that makes one more preferable than the other.


For your exchange of fiat to bitcoin, there will not be a transaction fee included, the rate you're buying is what they will give and and once you buy and wanted to send to your own wallet, that is when the transaction fee comes in which is not what you can't afford as well which is lesser than $1 as well, you could also get much cheaper fee if the mempool is less congested.

I know Binance still offers the lower trading fee which is 0.1% maker fee and 0.1% taker fee https://epiccarry.com/wow/ .

Not your keys, not your coins. Understand it and choose good Bitcoin wallet to use for storing your coins. It is a first step to start with but it's not enough. You need to secure your device, use good password, back up your wallet safely and more. Some topics on security to protect your devices, computer, mobile and your Bitcoin wallets.

Reminder: do not keep your money in online accounts
WARNING when using mobile device wallets (Android, iOS)
The paranoid user's security guide for using Electrum safely.
Bitcoin security and resources
Security checklist
[GUIDE] How to Create a Strong/Secure Password

There is one thing I like about crypto exchanges, you can create an account on them and pretend like you want to withdraw while having 0 balance just to know how much you will be charged, I use Binance for Bitcoin purchases and the withdrawal fee is not up to 2$, even if I but up to 20,000 dollars worth of Bitcoin, the withdrawal fee still remains the same.

If buying very small amount of Bitcoin is what you plan to do, why not store that money up to a certain amount before buying Bitcoin? Paying $1.5 to $1.7 per withdrawal of $50 may feel like a lot to you, then save the money up to $150 maybe or $200 before buying Bitcoin, for me, using 2$ on every Bitcoin purchases isn't much, very affordable for me.

No matter where you are in the world, the withdrawal fee remains the same, they don't charge you than when you plan to withdraw, I believe this charges already included with the services fee, if you deposit 100$ on the exchange, you can use all the 100$ to buy Bitcoin, and withdraw 98$ successfully, the remaining morning is withdrawal fee, probably with the services they provide.

First of all the fee exchanges charge is not for "bitcoin transactions", it is for the service they offer you. And the only service you should use is their trading services. In other words never store your coins in an exchange.
Secondly, more than the fee you should concern yourself with the legitimacy of the exchange and the risks involved in using them. For example the Etoro exchange you mentioned seems like a very risky and somewhat shady service with complaints against it. So even if it were free of charge, you should not have used it.

Exchanges usually charge only 2 fees:
1. Trading fee which is where you buy or sell bitcoin on their platform and usually it is around 0.2%. Some exchanges have extra options to "reduce" this fee depending on your activity in long term, or if you buy and bag-hold a shittoken they've created and stuff like that.
2. Withdrawal fee which is a fixed but high amount they charge you each time you want to pull out your coins. This is almost always fixed regardless of the tx size, your activity or even the network state.

If you are new to crypto space then first try to learn about Bitcoin in detail and once you have learned enough about it then you should purchase some of it but since you already purchased your Bitcoin from Etoro then it's better to learn about personal wallet and its safety. I would recommend you to use a software wallet for storing your coins and the best option currently is Electrum. When it comes to fees then every exchange have their own set of fees.

I personally use Binance for purchasing of Bitcoin because I have found their fees better than other platforms but I won't really promote it because it's a centralized exchange and it requires KYC in order for someone to use its p2p trading feature. I often convert my Bitcoin to USDT and USDT to Bitcoin at Binance platform and there is no fee for conversion. The withdrawing fees are high at that platform and you can't set your own fees at Binance during withdrawal.

What you are talking is trading fee not the transaction fee which varies from one exchange to another, as far as I know Binance still offers the lower trading fee which is 0.1% maker fee and 0.1% taker fee. So it is the best if you are trading more often but as other said exchanges are not meant for storing crypto so you need to withdraw after every purchase which also will be a chunk comparing with your $200.

Since you intend to hold it for a long time, just avoid storing your cryptocurrency on any exchange. For better security, just buy a hardware wallet from official sources. I believe you can afford to buy a hardware wallet. Regarding buying Bitcoin, just find a p2p exchange that supports your country so you can save on transaction fees. If Binance is banned in the UK, then find a similar exchange that supports p2p exchanges. So you have to pay only withdrawal fees, which won't be a big amount.

We will not be able to provide you with useful information unless you mention the name of your country and the nature of the data that you are prepared to provide, i.e. verification up to level 1 or 2.
There are decentralized or P2P solutions, where the fees are guaranteed to be zero, but the liquidity is less, and transactions may be delayed, while in centralized platforms it is faster and has high liquidity.

You pay a lot of transaction fees on Etoro. I am a Binance user, and there are no fixed or variable fees on withdrawals or deposits like there are on Etoro. But unfortunately, Binance is banned in your country. If it were unbanned, you would be able to make transactions at a lower transaction fee.

I'm not familiar with any other type of exchange that deducts lesser fees, but after doing some research, I can recommend Bitstamp. I don't know the reputation of this exchange, so take it as a disclaimer, and please try to do your own research too before using it. I hope you won't mind my words.
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And welcome to your new journey towards BTC and I hope you will find your way here that would lead you towards financial freedom. If you are looking for long term investment then you should avoid to use centralized exchanges.

I have never heard of this trading platform before, how did you find out about them. You may have bought your first BTC's there, but there are better places you can buy and sell BTC and you should probably use one of them when buying subsequently.
No, let's say the exchange charges 2% fixed trading fees, for $100 it would be $2, but for $100,000 it would be $2000, it doesn't mean they are charging different fees in these two situations, it is just 2% of whatever amount you are trading. As for withdrawal fees for BTC, it will depend on the price of BTC when making the withdrawal, because exchanges usually have fixed BTC withdrawal fee, for example on Binance, withdrawal fee for Segwit is 0.0005BTC, and with the current BTC price that is around $13.2. Take note that all of this is off-chain transactions, when making on-chain tx's, the amount you are sending doesn't affect the fees, but the size of you tx, network congestion and the BTC address you use.

DO NOT USE ETORO
Many complaints like this one:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/etoro-wallet-pending-transaction-28days-5466037

As for fees, keep in mind it's not just the fees....check the spread.
I can sell you BTC all day long for no fee and no TX fee, but instead of (at this moment) 1BTC = $26,541  I am going to sell it to you at 1BTC = $26,850 and buy it from you at 1BTC = $26,350
Easy to charge low fees that way.....

Things like that have been an issue with some exchanges for a while.

-Dave

2% is a reasonable fee to be paid for most exchanges in the U.K and around the world. Remember that this is the fee paid on conversion from £ to Bitcoin. You will pay transaction fees to transfer the Bitcoin out of the exchange and into your wallet which you have custody of.
And for the amount you are buying you need to use a non custodian wallet.

Yes. Percentage means the fees paid can be higher or lower depending on the total amount being bought or sold.

I would try Kraken or Bitstamp. They both operate in Europe, and I believe you can create and use an account there.

Kraken has 0.16% - 026% trading fee
https://www.kraken.com/features/fee-schedule

Bitstamp has lower fees
https://www.bitstamp.net/fee-schedule/


The withdrawal fee is probably where you should look at.
Bitstamp 0.0005 BTC*, which is by now.

and Kraken 0.00005 BTC
https://support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000767986-Cryptocurrency-withdrawal-fees-and-minimums

I'm also new to Bitcoin and haven't had much experience with exchanges. I believe your question is too generic. Every exchange can have varying fees and commissions. It's best to look for such information directly in the terms of use of the exchange or ask their customer support.

Exchange is always more risky but fees are lower on exchange. It is up to everyone, which risk we are willing to take.
Exchange can freeze your coins, get hacked or hold your coins hostage. Funds on centralized exchanges are not your fund, it is always owned by exchange and exchange can freeze it any time, as stated in TERMS OF SERCIVE from exchange. Many exchanges don't have government license and no government will bring your funds back. I don't know for etoro, it's from Spain but has it license in your country?
Even, exchange can be hacked. It's difficult to trust exchange.

Maybe pay higher fee, do it P2P or BISQ (it’s what many professionals advise), is better because it is still higher fee BUT you won’t suffer any disadvantages from centralized exchange, where your loss can be bigger. In P2P, it will be YOUR coins because storing it on your own private key is recommended.

Not your keys, not your coins.

Hello

I am new to bitcoin, and I'm interested in Bitcoin as a longterm investment.

My question is: what are reasonable transaction fees that I could expect a crypto exchange to charge me for bitcoin transactions?

Note that I expect that the amount of bitcoin I would purchase at any one time would range from a minimum of $200 to a maximum of approx $2000.

Also note that my first purchase of bitcoin has been on the etoro trading platform. My understanding is that etoro charges an initial 1% transaction fee when you open a bitcoin position, and then another 1% transaction fee when you close that position or alternatively transfer that bitcoin to another wallet that is not on the etoro platform.

So this means that in total I will be paying a total transaction fee of 1% + 1% = 2%.

Can someone please advise if 2% transaction fees are competitive for purchasing bitcoin for someone living in the UK? Or perhaps there are trading platforms / exchanges that I could use other than etoro that would have lower fees?

I would also be interested to know if some platforms/exchanges would adjust their transaction fee as a percentage depending on the size of the position that is being taken. For example, if someone were to buy $100 of BTC, should they expect to pay higher transaction fees as a percentage when compared to someone who purchases say $100,000 ?

Any and all advice/feedback on the above would be greatly appreciated as I am still very new to the crypto space and am keen to learn the basics.