Minimizing fees

[WestDogg]

If I want to transfer BTC between my own wallets at different exchanges, do I still have to pay a fee? What if it's between two wallets held by the same exchange (e.g. Blockchain.info)? What if I want to transfer BTC between two wallets stored on my own computer?

If the answer to all of the above is yes (which would be disappointing), how do I minimize the amount of the fee? There is no urgency if I am just transferring money to myself. If I can reduce the fee to 1 penny by allowing the transfer to take several days, I would be OK with that.

Related question: does the amount of the fee depend on the amount transferred? So guys with fat wallets always pay higher fees? If that's the case, then Bitcoin has serious drawbacks compared to conventional banking.

 

[AdrianX]

@WestDogg some wallets let you set the fee you are willing to pay.

Almost all exchanges have a set fee - you pay it in fiat and btc - some exchanges allow you to transfer from one user to another with their tokens - some even user sidechains to go from exchange to exchange. The BTC is only yours if it's held in a wallet with an address to which only you have assess to the private key. (think of a wallet as a way to manage private and public keys.)

Blockchain.info wallet allows you to set a fee - when sending click the advanced option - set whatever fee you want. 0 is an option - a transaction with 0 fee may never confirm, or it can confirm in a week I have had mixed results. - there is no risk of loss so you can keep trying. not all wallets allow you to set a fee - chose one that does.

The fee is relative to the amount of data in KB, not the value. multi sig transactions, old format public keys can be more expensive because they use more data. Very small transactions also have low priority. The older the coins the higher the probability they will confirm with no fee.

The concept of limiting transactions is problematic - bitcoin has not failed, but to your point if you are interacting with someone you need to use a competitive fee if it takes hours or days to confirm, you are at risk the coins sent to you will be double spent, and you will find out days later.

 

[Erdogan]

If you pay to someone on the same exchange, it is sometimes immediate, and free. Localbitcoins is an example.

 

[WestDogg]

I am not talking about paying someone. I'm talking about shuffling my own bitcoins between different wallets. For example, Blockchain.info allows you to generate different wallets that you can use for different purposes. It seems insane that you would have to pay a fee to transfer money between your own accounts.