<p>The details about bitcoin fees are explained <a href="http://bitcoinfees.com" rel="nofollow">here</a>. In short: If you don't pay fees for small amounts, it takes longer until your transactions are included in a block and thus confirmed (to avoid "dust" spam). For blockchain.info you can click on "Send Money" and then "custom" to specify 0 BTC for "Miners Fee". I don't see a problem with this, because they get 25 BTC anyway for mining a block.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-19T22:26:45.427Z
2014-01-19T22:26:45.427Z
Frank Buss
<p>That's the recommended fee, the recommended fee is like the minimum amount to get your transaction included in a block ASAP. You should be able to set fees, but for small amounts like that a fee that large is common, remember, miners can only include so many transactions a block every 10 minutes, so they pick the transactions with the largest fee and smallest txn size.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-19T19:02:14.940Z
2014-01-19T19:02:14.940Z
John T
<p>I tried sending 0.0001 BTC from my blockchain.info wallet.  It deducted 0.0009 BTC from my account, including a 0.0008 BTC is transaction fee.</p>

<p>Is it correct that the transaction fee is 8 times larger than the amount sent?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-19T19:10:56.470Z
Bitcoin transaction fees are based mainly on the number of *bytes* in the transaction; they're not a percentage of the amount transacted.  If you had sent BTC 1000, you'd still have paid BTC 0.0008.  Bitcoin is not really intended for lots of very small transactions.
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-20T01:51:51.637Z
@NateEldredge: Then why is "cheap micropayments" explicitly listed as a feature?  (See http://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-for-developers)
cHao
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-20T02:06:32.240Z
@cHao: "Micro" is a relative term.  They qualify it with "as low as a few dollars".  The proposed transaction of 0.0001 BTC is only about 0.08 USD at today's prices.
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-20T02:13:34.110Z
@NateEldredge: And $.08 falls well within the realm of any meaningful use of the term in the real world.  If "as low as a few dollars" is the cutoff for a "micropayment" in BTC, then clearly someone over there doesn't quite get what a micropayment actually *is*.
cHao
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-20T02:19:13.407Z
@cHao: The whole site is on Github; if you have better language in mind, why not submit a pull request?  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/blob/master/_translations/en.yml
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-20T02:28:52.843Z
@NateEldredge: Because it's not my job.  I don't care about Bitcoin or its success yet.  I have no BTC, and haven't decided yet whether it's even worth the time and trouble to invest.  And from my POV, misinformation isn't a bug to fix -- it's a red flag.
cHao
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-20T05:38:20.787Z
let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/12567/discussion-between-nate-eldredge-and-chao)
Nate Eldredge
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-01-21T01:58:05.233Z
There are plenty other crypto-coins that are worth less than Bitcoin and/or with lower transaction fees. As of late a lot of people are sending dogecoins as tips for "good deeds" or to compensate writers of interesting articles. With dogecoins about 100 satoshis and bitcoin around USD $830, sending 250 doges would give receiver around 20 cents of dollar, transaction fees of just 1 doge - now THAT is a very cheap micro payment by all accounts.
Joe Pineda
<transaction-fees><blockchain.info>
Why is the transaction fee a multiple of the amount I want to send?
mmm
# Why is the transaction fee a multiple of the amount I want to send?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-01-19)

I tried sending 0.0001 BTC from my blockchain.info wallet. It deducted 0.0009 BTC from my account, including a 0.0008 BTC is transaction fee.

Is it correct that the transaction fee is 8 times larger than the amount sent?

**Tags:** transaction-fees, blockchain.info

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Bitcoin transaction fees are based mainly on the number of *bytes* in the transaction; they're not a percentage of the amount transacted.  If you had sent BTC 1000, you'd still have paid BTC 0.0008.  Bitcoin is not really intended for lots of very small transactions.  
> **username_2**: @NateEldredge: Then why is "cheap micropayments" explicitly listed as a feature?  (See http://bitcoin.org/en/bitcoin-for-developers)  
> **username_1**: @username_2: "Micro" is a relative term.  They qualify it with "as low as a few dollars".  The proposed transaction of 0.0001 BTC is only about 0.08 USD at today's prices.  
> **username_2**: @NateEldredge: And $.08 falls well within the realm of any meaningful use of the term in the real world.  If "as low as a few dollars" is the cutoff for a "micropayment" in BTC, then clearly someone over there doesn't quite get what a micropayment actually *is*.  
> **username_1**: @username_2: The whole site is on Github; if you have better language in mind, why not submit a pull request?  https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin.org/blob/master/_translations/en.yml  
> **username_2**: @NateEldredge: Because it's not my job.  I don't care about Bitcoin or its success yet.  I have no BTC, and haven't decided yet whether it's even worth the time and trouble to invest.  And from my POV, misinformation isn't a bug to fix -- it's a red flag.  
> **username_1**: let us [continue this discussion in chat](http://chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/12567/discussion-between-nate-eldredge-and-chao)  
> **username_3**: There are plenty other crypto-coins that are worth less than Bitcoin and/or with lower transaction fees. As of late a lot of people are sending dogecoins as tips for "good deeds" or to compensate writers of interesting articles. With dogecoins about 100 satoshis and bitcoin around USD $830, sending 250 doges would give receiver around 20 cents of dollar, transaction fees of just 1 doge - now THAT is a very cheap micro payment by all accounts.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2014-01-19. Score: 1

The details about bitcoin fees are explained [here](http://bitcoinfees.com). In short: If you don't pay fees for small amounts, it takes longer until your transactions are included in a block and thus confirmed (to avoid "dust" spam). For blockchain.info you can click on "Send Money" and then "custom" to specify 0 BTC for "Miners Fee". I don't see a problem with this, because they get 25 BTC anyway for mining a block.


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### Answer by username_5 on 2014-01-19. Score: 1

That's the recommended fee, the recommended fee is like the minimum amount to get your transaction included in a block ASAP. You should be able to set fees, but for small amounts like that a fee that large is common, remember, miners can only include so many transactions a block every 10 minutes, so they pick the transactions with the largest fee and smallest txn size.


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