Newbie Mistake?

Question

I'm new to crypto. Well, I bought some back in 2017, but just forgot about it.

I just opened a Wirex account and transferred some btc to Prime XBT. I thought it would be cheaper than using Coinbase, but ended up paying a fee of 0.000513 btc on about £100 worth of btc.

Isn't that expensive? Or has something gone wrong? Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Regards,

Marc

Answer 1

How to avoid paying high fees or use bitcoin in a better way:

1. Use bech32 addresses starting with bc1
2. Use RBF for all transactions
3. Use batching whenever possible
4. Consolidate UTXOs with 1-5 sat/vByte if you have lot of small inputs in wallet
5. Use open source wallets with active development: https://bitcoinwallet.guide
6. Check mempool and fee estimates on different sources before broadcasting a transaction. Few examples: https://mempool.observer https://mempool.space
7. Use LN when possible and prefer exchanges that support LN. Few are mentioned in this list: https://ln.guide/docs/EXCHANGES.html
8. Use L-BTC if you are okay with trade-offs using a federated bitcoin sidechain and exchange supports Liquid : https://docs.blockstream.com/liquid/liquid-integrations.html

Answer 2

High fees are normal if there's congestion (yes there is currently). Against that, you may use wallets instead of exchanges that provide good fee estimations, and use Bech32 "bc1.." receive addresses.