Why does it cost me a dollar to send 1 Bitcoin?

BombaUcigasa

legendary

Activity: 1442

Merit: 1005

You can transfer that Bitcoin without using a fee. There are several methods and they include time, collateral money or both:
- Send it with 0 fee and wait 4-40 hours until it is prioritized high enough and some pool or miner agrees to accept it
- Send to yourself or the destination only some of the inputs such that the fee is 0, repeat until you spend it all
- Send to yourself the inputs grouped in such a way that the fee is 0, wait a few hours until the spent coins can be merged again and repeat until you spend it all
- Send the inputs along with a bigger sum of dormant Bitcoin (something like 1+ BTC) and ferry the inputs one by one grouped with this bigger lump until you merge them all
- Ask a miner nicely to include your transaction without a fee and send it to him

I am eager to wait for your reply as to the method used to spend nothing to send that 1 Bitcoin, while wasting several hours of your precious time that apparently is less than 1$/hour

Cryptopher

legendary

Activity: 1789

Merit: 1008

Keep it dense, yeah?

Quote from: BittBurger on January 25, 2014, 10:12:39 AM

Disclaimer: Failed every math class I ever took. Be gentle.

When I tried to send 0.77 BTC from my QT wallet to my online wallet today, I was told I had to pay a 0.001 fee. (it was either that or 0.01)

That's nearly $0.83 USD now that BTC is around $830. (Even if im completely doing my math wrong and its $0.08 USD that's still ridiculous). If I had sent a whole Bitcoin I assume I would be pushing $1.00.

1) I believe this is a leftover price from the early days, when 0.001 was nearly nothing. Shouldn't that fee be getting progressively smaller?

2) I thought Bitcoin was supposed to be "virtually" free? At the very least, why am I paying more than CHASE charges me to transfer to myself (completely free). I realize the blockchain doesn't know both addresses are me, but hey, that's not my fault.

You can change the settings in the QT client such that you pay no fee (or you can choose to pay more). By paying no fee you can expect your transaction to take longer, how much longer is anybody's guess, we don't know. But if your transaction doesn't isn't time sensitive, then you can set it to a zero fee.

dissident

sr. member

Activity: 280

Merit: 250

there's some hypocrisy here from people who tout crypto currencies as a way to avoid fees from credit card companies and the like and then start screaming about people not wanting to pay their bitcoin fees.... if I have to pay a 1% fee I may as well have fraud protection, universal acceptance, and the ability to reverse my transactions if I'm ripped off. Just saying. Wink

(Actually it's the merchant that pays the fee, the credit card user does not.. at worst the price of the fee is factored into the price of the item being purchased) I can handle 8 cents though if that's all the fee is... but I'm not paying 1 to 2 percent.

Cyberdyne

hero member

Activity: 630

Merit: 500

Quote from: U1TRA_L0RD on January 26, 2014, 08:51:45 AM

Quote from: howzar on January 26, 2014, 08:48:23 AM

Well 0.001 is certainly expensive Huh

. I usually send with 0.0001 fee only and it goes without much delay. the no-fee ones take a long time to pass since they aren't offering the miners anything.

So, Its like the IRS in the blockchain haha, I would send with smaller fees if its a smaller transaction, But if its over 50 I would spare 1 dollar I guess.

The more you're sending, the lower the fee you can get away with. If you're sending 50 XBT, it's highly likely that you could still do that for free with very little delay.

My most recent free transaction was for 0.025 and even that got included almost immediately.

http://bitcoinfees.com

Nova!

full member

Activity: 140

Merit: 101

Quote from: keithers on January 25, 2014, 01:51:59 PM

It is a super tiny fee that is paid to the miners for their work in veryifying your transaction. I believe you can do it for no fee, but then there is no incentive to the miner, and therefore your transaction can take a super long time. From what I have seen, people who send with no fees are frequently back on this forum saying "the money i sent never arrived and it has been like 10 hours... Etc"

Ultimately you are supporting the community and its growth. Go take $20 out of an atm and see how much you are charged. Typically you are charged $2-$3 by the atm company itself, and then again by your own bank for using an outside network. This price is doubled if you are at a strip club or casino lol.

Overall the fee is so tiny, that you shouldnt even really notice or worry about it

Of course there is an incentive for the miner. The incentive is in finding the block.
Finding the block pays them 25BTC. Now including the tx in a block based on the fee is a good idea to keep the miners in business, it's extra money. Eventually when we run low/out of new BTC then the mining fee will be strictly nessecary. Nevertheless please don't spout out that a fee is nessecary to keep the miners in business, it's false. It helps them turn a bigger profit, that's all.

I say this as someone who has 5MH/s of scrypt and 10GH/s of SHA256 mining away right now.

Gabi

legendary

Activity: 1148

Merit: 1008

If you want to walk on water, get out of the boat

a 10cent fee on a 10$ transaction is a 1% fee. Not high, but not exactly low. Definitely not "0 fee"

U1TRA_L0RD

full member

Activity: 126

Merit: 100

CAUTION: Angry Man with Attitude.

Quote from: howzar on January 26, 2014, 08:48:23 AM

Well 0.001 is certainly expensive Huh

. I usually send with 0.0001 fee only and it goes without much delay. the no-fee ones take a long time to pass since they aren't offering the miners anything.

So, Its like the IRS in the blockchain haha, I would send with smaller fees if its a smaller transaction, But if its over 50 I would spare 1 dollar I guess.

howzar

hero member

Activity: 574

Merit: 500

Well 0.001 is certainly expensive Huh

. I usually send with 0.0001 fee only and it goes without much delay. the no-fee ones take a long time to pass since they aren't offering the miners anything.

QuantumQrack

sr. member

Activity: 337

Merit: 250

Quote from: franky1 on January 26, 2014, 04:41:56 AM

Quote from: keithers on January 25, 2014, 01:51:59 PM

It is a super tiny fee that is paid to the miners for their work in veryifying your transaction.

NO!

the reward for solving the block is their payment. the transaction fee is simply a bonus, and a greedy bonus at that. transaction fees are not "required" as the block reward is adequate. only when the block reward halves a few more times, would it then be required. which is definetly not any time soon.

i find the transaction fee's becoming the biggest deterrent to bitcoin adoption.
no longer do we need to worry about silk road bad press.
no longer do we need to worry about many other things. but the transaction fee is just like bankers bonus... ridiculous and greedy.

a note to all pool miners:
if you did not realise it already but most pool owners keep the transaction fee total and only share out the block reward with you all. ontop of this they normally charge you a fee for using their pool too. so please to not defend transaction fee's as if it pays your bills. because infact it in the majority only pays for pool owners, whom already get a nice cut of your earnings anyways.

I'm with this guy on this, fees should be zero right now. Miners are already getting compensated 25 btc per block.

Rannasha

hero member

Activity: 728

Merit: 500

Quote from: thdvmgbgjn on January 26, 2014, 04:04:30 AM

Quote from: Foxpup on January 26, 2014, 03:38:42 AM

Quote from: BittBurger on January 25, 2014, 01:22:51 PM

With the evil, inferior, (soon to be destroyed by Bitcoin?) CHASE bank, I can transfer an unlimited dollar amount between my own bank accounts for free.

So? You can do that with Bitcoin-Qt too. Create multiple accounts (not to be confused with addresses) and you can transfer as many bitcoins from one to other as often as you like for free. The reason it's free is that in neither case are you creating an actual transaction. This may come as a surprise to you, but CHASE does not, in fact, initiate a wire transfer when you transfer your money from one of your own accounts to another. Why would they? You're not actually moving your money anywhere. But that's not what you're doing here. What you're doing is the equivalent of transferring money from your CHASE account to another account at another bank. It doesn't matter that you own both accounts, you still have to pay the usual fee.

And I fund my Ally account easily with my Chase or Bank of America account. I can easily fund my eTrade money market account through any of my bank accounts for free. Look, no one's trying to say fiat is better or whatever, and we're all Bitcoin fans here, but the fact is in its current state, Bitcoin is just not as consumer friendly as it should be. You're right, we shouldn't expect all these good things for free, but at the same time, when you can I can painlessly transfer my friends money using Paypal or and expect to cash out just as painlessly, I don't think it's unfair to expect the same for the Bitcoin network considering we're spending all our time sunshine pumping it to all our friends.

Just because you don't see the costs associated with your bank transactions, doesn't mean they're not there. Most banks charge a periodic account-fee for example. Additionally, banks use fractional reserves to lend out most of your money, sometimes to shady investments that go belly up and either cause you to lose your deposit or for the government to bail the bank out with tax-money.

Either way, these services cost money and you pay the money. Either through direct payments per transaction, a periodic fee or simply the fact that your money isn't fully secured.

Bitcoin at least is transparant in its price. You pay a small fee for a regular transaction and that's it. There's no monthly account fee and any coins in your wallet are truely yours.

The-Real-Link

hero member

Activity: 533

Merit: 500

Sorry still never saw what the final number is but usually with QT I've managed 0.0001 fees plenty of times and have no problem with that. I've set it to 0 and many times (not all) it's gone through fine; just takes forever to confirm. Just my two bitcents.

franky1

legendary

Activity: 4410

Merit: 4788

Quote from: keithers on January 25, 2014, 01:51:59 PM

It is a super tiny fee that is paid to the miners for their work in veryifying your transaction.

NO!

the reward for solving the block is their payment. the transaction fee is simply a bonus, and a greedy bonus at that. transaction fees are not "required" as the block reward is adequate. only when the block reward halves a few more times, would it then be required. which is definetly not any time soon.

i find the transaction fee's becoming the biggest deterrent to bitcoin adoption.
no longer do we need to worry about silk road bad press.
no longer do we need to worry about many other things. but the transaction fee is just like bankers bonus... ridiculous and greedy.

a note to all pool miners:
if you did not realise it already but most pool owners keep the transaction fee total and only share out the block reward with you all. ontop of this they normally charge you a fee for using their pool too. so please to not defend transaction fee's as if it pays your bills. because infact it in the majority only pays for pool owners, whom already get a nice cut of your earnings anyways.

thdvmgbgjn

newbie

Activity: 42

Merit: 0

Quote from: Foxpup on January 26, 2014, 03:38:42 AM

Quote from: BittBurger on January 25, 2014, 01:22:51 PM

With the evil, inferior, (soon to be destroyed by Bitcoin?) CHASE bank, I can transfer an unlimited dollar amount between my own bank accounts for free.

So? You can do that with Bitcoin-Qt too. Create multiple accounts (not to be confused with addresses) and you can transfer as many bitcoins from one to other as often as you like for free. The reason it's free is that in neither case are you creating an actual transaction. This may come as a surprise to you, but CHASE does not, in fact, initiate a wire transfer when you transfer your money from one of your own accounts to another. Why would they? You're not actually moving your money anywhere. But that's not what you're doing here. What you're doing is the equivalent of transferring money from your CHASE account to another account at another bank. It doesn't matter that you own both accounts, you still have to pay the usual fee.

And I fund my Ally account easily with my Chase or Bank of America account. I can easily fund my eTrade money market account through any of my bank accounts for free. Look, no one's trying to say fiat is better or whatever, and we're all Bitcoin fans here, but the fact is in its current state, Bitcoin is just not as consumer friendly as it should be. You're right, we shouldn't expect all these good things for free, but at the same time, when you can I can painlessly transfer my friends money using Paypal or and expect to cash out just as painlessly, I don't think it's unfair to expect the same for the Bitcoin network considering we're spending all our time sunshine pumping it to all our friends.

Foxpup

legendary

Activity: 4542

Merit: 3393

Vile Vixen and Miss Bitcointalk 2021-2023

Quote from: BittBurger on January 25, 2014, 01:22:51 PM

With the evil, inferior, (soon to be destroyed by Bitcoin?) CHASE bank, I can transfer an unlimited dollar amount between my own bank accounts for free.

So? You can do that with Bitcoin-Qt too. Create multiple accounts (not to be confused with addresses) and you can transfer as many bitcoins from one to other as often as you like for free. The reason it's free is that in neither case are you creating an actual transaction. This may come as a surprise to you, but CHASE does not, in fact, initiate a wire transfer when you transfer your money from one of your own accounts to another. Why would they? You're not actually moving your money anywhere. But that's not what you're doing here. What you're doing is the equivalent of transferring money from your CHASE account to another account at another bank. It doesn't matter that you own both accounts, you still have to pay the usual fee.

U1TRA_L0RD

full member

Activity: 126

Merit: 100

CAUTION: Angry Man with Attitude.

That wouldnt be nice if you sent it without a fee, Because there is no guarantee. Wink

5thStreetResearch

full member

Activity: 126

Merit: 100

You could always use Western Union

Nagle

legendary

Activity: 1204

Merit: 1002

It depends on the backlog of unconfirmed transactions. The whole Bitcoin system has a limit of about 7 transactions a second. Usually the queue is short (under 1000 or so), but during periods of heavy activity, the backlog can increase. Miners take the transactions with the highest reward first, so, during busy periods, it costs more to get a transaction confirmed in a reasonable time. Most free transactions still eventually get processed.

Whether this will change is up to the big mining pools.

KGambler

full member

Activity: 236

Merit: 100

The people saying it is needed to support the miners are not taking into account that we are still in the phase where the miners are being issued BTC rewards. The fees are really a bonus. 10 cents should be plenty at this point in time.

travel-trousers

newbie

Activity: 56

Merit: 0

Thats incredibly cheap....

BTCisthefuture

sr. member

Activity: 364

Merit: 250

0.0001 is the default fee i've alway used. Which is about 8cents for 1btc at current prices. While it's true the price of fee's have gone up, thats still a fraction of a % .

It's alo true though that developers are working on trying to make sure the fees stay low as bitcoin's price goes up.

Topic: Why does it cost me a dollar to send 1 Bitcoin? (Read 3299 times)