How to calculate Bitcoin transaction fees? The rapid growth of transaction fees on the Bitcoin (BTC) network

In recent days, transaction fees on the Bitcoin network have increased sharply. Last week they reached $26 and eventually dropped to an average level of $20 (despite the fact that they were previously $6).

The reason is simple: the Bitcoin blockchain has a strict block size limit of one megabyte. With a typical transaction size of 500 bytes, a block until recently averaged fewer than 2,000 transactions. Taking into account the fact that a block is created once every 10 minutes, on average up to 3.3 transactions were processed per second.

The September update to Segregated Witness allowed the cryptographic signatures associated with each transaction to be stored separately from the rest of the information. Signatures no longer eat away at the volume of the block, which should have increased throughput networks approximately doubled. However, only a small number of transactions switched to this scheme, so the average network throughput remained below 2,500 transactions per block - about four transactions per second.

How are fees calculated for Bitcoin transactions?

The Bitcoin transaction fee system is designed to cope with situations where demand for use of the network exceeds its capacity. Whenever someone sends a transaction to the network, they have the opportunity to assign a fee for it, which will go to the miner who contributes the transaction to the block. If there are more transactions than free space in the current block, then miners begin to choose those with a higher commission rate. Thus, the higher the fee you “attach”, the more likely it is that your transaction will end up in the next block.

Of course, demand fluctuates throughout the day. Therefore, if you have a non-urgent transaction, you can send it with a lower-than-average fee and let it hang around unconfirmed for several hours. At some point, demand may decrease and you will transfer funds at a favorable price.

This means that not every Bitcoin transaction during this period was accompanied by an average commission of $20. Some users paid significantly more than this figure, others - less. So, at one point, one website said that you had to pay $16.31 for the transaction to get into the next block, and the fee for one of the next six blocks (that is, within the next hour) was already $13.46.

This is of course a big headache for people trying to use Bitcoin as an everyday payment system. While early Bitcoin users praised it for its fast payments and near-zero fees, now they have to choose between a $20+ fee and hours, if not days, of waiting.

The debate over how to cope with the growing demand has divided the Bitcoin community into two camps. In one of them - supporters of " big block” who argue that the network should simply raise the one-megabyte limit. After two years of debate, big block supporters created Bitcoin Cash, a fork of the main block. software Bitcoin, which allows blocks of up to 8 megabytes.

Representatives of the second camp, including the main developers of the standard Bitcoin client, fear that larger blocks will make participation more difficult ordinary users in peer processes when verifying transactions. Instead, they are pinning their hopes on the Lightning Network, an experimental payment network that routes payments using payment channel chains. If Lightning works as its proponents hope, it will allow the majority of Bitcoin transactions to take place off the main network. As a result, it will be possible to make many more transactions without increasing block sizes.

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The Bitcoin transaction fee can confuse novice users who do not understand what laws of logic govern such dynamic and often high fees for successful intra-system transactions. Bitcoin is a big loser in this regard. banking systems, in which the payment for transfers rarely exceeds 1%. To understand the reason for the high fees of Bitcoin, it is necessary to delve deeper into the principle of the blockchain.

What factors does the Bitcoin commission depend on?

Bitcoin transaction size in bytes

For example, if Alexey receives 2 BTC from Victor, 1 BTC from Maxim, and then sends all 3 received BTC to Konstantin, 4 addresses will take part in the transaction.

Minimum Bitcoin transaction fee

1. Transaction size is less than 1000 bytes.
2. Each output is not less than 0.01 BTC.
3. High priority.

Rules for calculating Bitcoin transaction fees

Home page of the Bitaps platform

Let's take the green number as an example. Divide 400 satoshi by 100,000, we get 0.004 BTC.

Commission for withdrawing Bitcoins into rubles

Transferring Bitcoins to a ruble QIWI wallet

1. If Bitcoin falls in price and is actively sold, the rate of exchange services will be significantly lower than that presented on the exchange.
2. The growth of cryptocurrency stimulates the reverse process; services begin to increase purchase rates and reduce sales in areas.

Withdrawing Bitcoin to WebMoney simplifies the task somewhat. Owners of a formal certificate can create a WMX wallet with an individual address. 1 BTC = 1000 WMX. Reset the wallet address to the sender and wait for the funds to arrive. The funds received can be withdrawn to:

1. Bank card - 2%.
2. Yandex.Money - 3.7%.
3. QIWI - 2.2%.
4. PayPal.
5. In cash through dealerships - from 1%.

At first glance, the reasons for the high Bitcoin transaction fee are extremely transparent. The rapidly growing value of cryptocurrency generates corresponding demand. In an attempt to reduce the load, the decentralized system goes to extreme measures - increasing the cost of transactions.

You should not think that such conditions reduce the attractiveness of the new financial technology and somehow complicate the work of its users. On the contrary, many convenient solutions are being developed for calculating the minimum commission for a Bitcoin transaction, and there are ways to reduce the recommended values. Each of you can easily exchange cash for BTC or vice versa. Many services work in automatic mode and offer a good exchange rate. WebMoney users get even more interesting opportunities to simplify work with Bitcoin wallets and minimal withdrawal fees in various directions. Based on the experience of past years, the progress in conducting mutual settlements with cryptocurrency is impressive. As practice shows, the Bitcoin commission is a relative value and largely depends on the users themselves.

For more information on calculating Bitcoin transaction fees, see the video below:

In recent days, transaction fees on the Bitcoin network have increased sharply. Last week they reached $26 and eventually dropped to an average level of $20 (despite the fact that they were previously $6).

The reason is simple: the Bitcoin blockchain has a strict block size limit of one megabyte. With a typical transaction size of 500 bytes, a block until recently averaged fewer than 2,000 transactions. Taking into account the fact that a block is created once every 10 minutes, on average up to 3.3 transactions were processed per second.

The September update to Segregated Witness allowed the cryptographic signatures associated with each transaction to be stored separately from the rest of the information. Signatures no longer “eat away” the volume of the block, which should have approximately doubled the network throughput.

However, only a small number of transactions switched to this scheme, so the average network throughput remained below 2,500 transactions per block - about four transactions per second.

How are fees calculated for Bitcoin transactions?

The system is designed to cope with situations where demand for network use exceeds its capacity. Whenever someone sends a transaction to the network, they have the opportunity to assign a fee for it, which will go to the miner who contributes the transaction to the block.

If there are more transactions than there is free space in the current block, then miners begin to select those with a higher commission rate. Thus, the higher the fee you “attach”, the more likely it is that your transaction will end up in the next block.

Of course, demand fluctuates throughout the day. Therefore, if you have a non-urgent transaction, you can send it with a lower-than-average fee and let it hang around unconfirmed for several hours. At some point, demand may decrease and you will transfer funds at a favorable price.

This means that not every Bitcoin transaction during this period was accompanied by an average commission of $20. Some users paid significantly more than this figure, others - less. So, at one point, one website said that you had to pay $16.31 for the transaction to get into the next block, and the fee for one of the next six blocks (that is, within the next hour) was already $13.46.

This is, of course, a big headache for people trying to use Bitcoin as an everyday payment system. While early Bitcoin users praised it for its fast payments and near-zero fees, they are now forced to choose between over $20 fees and hours, if not days, of waiting.

The debate over how to cope with the growing demand has divided the Bitcoin community into two camps. One includes "big block" advocates who argue that the network should simply raise the one-megabyte limit.

After two years of debate, big block proponents created Bitcoin Cash, a fork of the main Bitcoin software that allows blocks of up to 8 megabytes.

Representatives of the second camp, including the main developers of the standard Bitcoin client, fear that larger blocks will make it more difficult for ordinary users to participate in peer-to-peer processes when validating transactions.

Instead, they are pinning their hopes on the Lightning Network, an experimental payment network that routes payments using payment channel chains. If Lightning works as its proponents hope, it will allow the majority of Bitcoin transactions to take place off the main network. As a result, it will be possible to make many more transactions without increasing block sizes.

Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that, over the years of its existence, has managed to maintain a leading position in terms of unit value and turnover volume. In this article we will look at the most important point, which can unpleasantly surprise novice Bitcoin users - transfer fees. Here the network loses to bank payments, in which such a fee rarely exceeds 1% of the amount.

What does the Bitcoin commission depend on?

The Bitcoin network is based on open register- blockchain. It stores all transaction records since the project was recorded. Each of the operations is described program code, which, in addition to the number of coins, contains the addresses of the Bitcoin wallets of the payer and recipient.

The load on the network does not depend on the amount of transfers, but on the number of transactions. Each block of information about operations is signed with a hash - a code that takes a lot of time to calculate. computing power. Therefore, in the Bitcoin network, the commission performs two functions:

• reward for miners (network participants involved in calculating hashes);
• system overload protection.

The minimum block size for a single transaction record is approximately 150 bytes. Each participant in the translation increases it by 150 bytes. Moreover, every additional 1000 bytes increases the minimum transaction cost by 0.0001 BTC.

Example. If Anton and Konstantin send Oleg 1 BTC each, and he transfers the received 2 BTC to Ilya, then a record of transactions with four participants will appear in the register.

The commission on the Bitcoin network does not have a fixed value. Each user, when sending a payment, can independently set the amount of remuneration for the transfer. There are two points to consider here:

• The BTC network is heavily loaded;
• The priority of transaction processing depends on the proposed commission amount.

As a result, transfers with a small proposed commission may not be processed for days or may not even make it into the general queue at all. To successfully complete a payment, you need to understand what commission to charge when making a transfer.

Minimum Bitcoin transaction fee

Theoretically, the cost of a transaction on the Bitcoin network could be 0 satoshi. For this to happen, three conditions must match:

• record size is less than 1000 bytes;
• payment amounts - more than 0.01 BTC;
• the priority of the operation is high.

However, this is only possible with low network load, which was only at the beginning of Bitcoin. The actual value of transactions already exceeds the recommended minimum of 0.0001 BTC. With such a reward size, the operation may not be processed by miners for several days or even weeks.

The minimum commission increases as network load increases. To successfully process a payment, you need to calculate the optimal commission, which will ensure sufficient processing priority.

Commission calculation

To calculate the recommended commission, you should use the online service at bitaps.com. Thanks to the presence of a Russian interface, working with it will not be difficult even for beginners cryptocurrency world. The drop-down menu for switching languages ​​is located in the upper right corner of the site.

The payment amount is presented in satoshi per record byte. This is one hundred millionth of a Bitcoin. To convert the amount to BTC, divide it by 100,000 (divide by 100 million and multiply by a thousand).

To save on transfers, you can reduce the commission amount by setting it 5-6 times lower than the recommended one. Before doing this, you need to make sure that the number in the queue does not exceed 10,000. In such conditions, the probability of a payment being processed with an underestimated reward amount is 99%.

Commission for withdrawal from the exchange

Cryptocurrency exchanges set their own commission for transferring bitcoins from a trader’s deposit to a BTC wallet. For example, Bitfinex charges 0.005 BTC per transaction. However, a large payment amount does not guarantee high speed processing. You can wait 12 hours or more for the cryptocurrency from your exchange account to reach your wallet.

This is explained by the fact that crypto exchanges make money on withdrawals and spend only part of the money received from the user on payment. Therefore, an exchange account should only be used to store and exchange bitcoins.

Commission for transferring bitcoins to rubles

When withdrawing bitcoins to fiat through exchange sites, there is no separate commission payment. You indicate the number of bitcoins to exchange and the system automatically calculates the amount in rubles (or other selected currency) in accordance with the current exchange rate on the site. You can find the most favorable exchange conditions by using the aggregator site bestchange.ru.

A simpler one is the webmoney system. With a “formal certificate”, system users can open a WMX Bitcoin wallet. It has its own bitcoin network address, available for cryptocurrency transfers. For ease of calculations, 1 BTC = 1000 WMX.

Commission for transferring WMX to rubles in Webmoney system depends on the chosen method of receipt:

• in cash at Webmoney dealerships - 1%;
• linked bank card - 2%;
• QIWI - 2.2%;
• Yandex.Money - 3.7%.

A Webmoney Bitcoin account is no different from a regular BTC Wallet. It allows you to receive and send transfers on the Bitcoin network, work with crypto exchanges, and withdraw funds through exchanges.

Reasons for Bitcoin commission growth

The minimum payment for servicing transactions by miners is growing along with the increase in demand for bitcoins and the volume of settlements in this cryptocurrency. The high cost of on-network payments reduces the load on miners and ensures the uninterrupted functioning of the system. However, this situation repels users, who are forced to pay a large commission when transferring small amounts.

The situation is partially compensated by the work of exchange services and the introduction of Segregated Witness (SegWit) technology, which increases the throughput of the blockchain. As SegWit is implemented on crypto resources, the load on the network decreases, and the commission drops along with it.

Also, the size of the fee for intranet transfers is affected by the situation on the crypto market. A fall in the price of BTC and a decrease in interest in cryptocurrency reduces the commission, while reverse trends increase it.

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Space on the Bitcoin blockchain is a limited resource, and given the fairly low price, the demand for this space greatly exceeds the supply. If space in a block is free, people will find all sorts of uses for it. Decentralized gambling, downloading an entire copy of Bitcoin's original concept description, and timestamping individual documents are just a few examples we've seen in the past.

Why do commissions exist?

To ensure that limited block space is allocated to those who value it most and who are willing to pay the most for it, Bitcoin has a . Essentially, the mempool acts as a decentralized clearinghouse - users post their bids for a block space in the mempool (in the form of transactions with a fee attached), and miners will process the transactions and post them into the next block based on the fee attached. The higher your fee, the more likely it is that your transaction will win over competing transactions and that the miner will select your transaction to be included in the next block.

Why calculating commissions is a difficult problem

How does the user know what commission size is appropriate? This question is difficult to answer for several reasons:

• The supply [of a place] is unpredictable. If we consider a long period of time, then we can say that the supply [of a place] is predictable. That's roughly 2MB of space every 10 minutes (or, to be more precise, a 4MB block every 10 minutes). But, due to the Poisson distribution, over shorter periods of time, block detection is uneven and unpredictable. One in a hundred blocks is discovered within 7 seconds of the previous block, and another in a hundred will take more than 45 minutes to find. This means that a “lucky” generation can occur, where several blocks are discovered within a few minutes and all high-fee transactions are removed from the mempool. On the other hand, no block may be discovered for half an hour or more, in which case the mempool will slowly fill up with higher fee transactions.
• Demand is also unpredictable. We definitely see cyclicality in transaction flow - weekends tend to be quieter than weekdays, so the mempool is empty and the commissions are lower. However, like supply, demand is unpredictable in the short term. For example, even on weekends, demand increases rapidly during rapid changes Bitcoin prices.
• Different users have different requirements. As in any market, each participant has their own reasons for wanting to “buy” block space. I might have a really urgent transaction that needs to be confirmed in the next half hour, or maybe I need to close an expiring smart contract within the next 6 hours, or maybe I need to create a timestamp for something and I I can wait long time for now it will be confirmed next week. A single fee model cannot account for all these different use cases.