Wallets such as Green Wallet, offer automatic commission calculation tools, as well as customization of the commission to be paid. Source: Green.
Has it happened to you that your Bitcoin transaction lasts too long, or that you have paid extra fees? If you are in this tutorial, you have surely experienced some of those situations. Knowing what fees to pay seems like something only Bitcoin experts can do, but not at all. Mempool.space is a block explorer, with graphical tools, that helps you know what commission to pay depending on how urgent you are.
In the next tutorial we are going to show you how to use mempool.space to calculate much more precise commissions. However, there is something you must do before starting: you must verify that your Bitcoin wallet allows modifying the network commission in a personalized way . Without that, this tutorial is useless. Come on, here we wait for you.
in Bitcoin
To explain it in a practical way, let’s imagine that you are in a highly valued restaurant that we will call Mempool Restaurant. There are a lot of waiters who are in charge of taking and carrying your order (transaction), although, they deliver a certain amount of orders each 10 minutes approximately.
There you are, ready to order that pasta dish that you like so much. You order the order (send the transaction) and a waiter places it in the waiting line along with the others. However, there is a way that allows your order to be taken faster; Give a tip. If you pay a substantial tip in advance, the waiter will place your order for the next batch (block).
In this scenario something particular happens: the rest of the guests are also willing to pay tips. Now you must compete and pay a better tip to make your pasta come out faster, or wait for the servers to vacate and accept your order with a lower tip.
At times, the restaurant is usually saturated with people, many orders entering at the same time, and making the people start paying more and more expensive tips. This makes you not sure what the fair tip to pay is. That’s what this tutorial is for, to help you pay the proper tip for that pasta (Bitcoin transaction).
If you want to delve into the whole issue of commissions, before starting we recommend you go through this article from the CriptoNoticias Criptopedia, which talks about everything related to commissions in Bitcoin.
What is mempool.space
Mempool.space is basically a block explorer of the Bitcoin blockchain. However, it offers very powerful yet simple graphical analysis tools that allow you to see the status of the network, along with commission costs.
Mempool .space offers a commission calculation system based on priority. Source: mempool.space.
How the value of commissions is expressed in Bitcoin
Within Bitcoin, the commissions are expressed in the unit sat / vB, which means the amount of satoshis (less decimal than Bitcoin, or what which is the same 0.00000001 BTC=1 sat) that you will pay for each Byte of the weight of the transaction. The higher the weight, the higher the pay. Transactions tend to be heavier if they have more inputs and outputs, along with other types of parameters. You can learn more about how Bitcoin works on a technical level here.
Some wallets have, by default, an internal calculator that estimates the commission you must pay according to the priority you have for it to be confirmed payment. Although this process is automatic within your wallet, it is not usually optimized, since it does not consider many factors that can determine the best commission to pay.
In general, these payment calculators take estimates from the average number of payments per block, regardless of whether the network is saturated or not, or if it is saturated just because a block is taking too long to mine, or for any other reason. These factors, although infrequent, affect the commission to be paid.
The estimate of the mempool.space calculator, although it is quite useful, sometimes it does not usually give the most prices. Source: mempool.space.
Calculate commissions with mempool.space
If this is the first time you use mempool.space you may wonder: where do I find each tool that they show me inside of the tutorial? You will find each graphic or tool that we display directly on the main page of the portal.
Now, the explanation for the manual calculation of commissions has been divided according to a series of factors that could affect the commission to be paid, among them, the urgency you have to payment is confirmed, network saturation, among others.
How urgent do you want your payment to be confirmed ? In general, with a high priority it is estimated that the transaction is confirmed in less than 20 minutes or less, even training in the first block to be mined taking 10 minutes. A medium priority establishes a wait time greater than 30 minutes, and low, above the hour. These times are calculated taking into account that a block is confirmed on average every 10 minutes.
Lowest commission of the last block to be mined
When the blocks on the left are green, it means that the network saturation it is low. The arrow indicates the lowest amount paid for commission in that block. Source: mempool.space
In mempool.space, the lane of the displayed blocks is divided into two: the blocks on the left are those that have not yet been mined, while those on the right are those already mined.
The number indicated in the previous image corresponds to the minimum commission. In the case of those on the left, corresponds to the approximate minimum commission to be paid for the transaction to be confirmed in said block , while the one on the right indicates the minimum commission paid within that block.
To know what is the minimum amount that can be paid for commission, you can take as it refers to the minimum value of the block to be mined, but always taking into account the time in which the last block was mined, which in the example in the previous image marks “1 minute ago”. If the time is very short, less than 3 minutes, the minimum commission may vary.
In this scenario, it is best to pay a commission above the minimum amount shown by the last block about to be mined. In the example in the image above it would be 3 sat / vB, as indicated by the red arrow on the left. However, the minimum amount paid in the last mined block must be taken into account, and the waiting time between both blocks.
For the case of the example, the penultimate block was mined 4 minutes ago, and the last one just 1 minutes ago, with a time difference of 3 minutes. This difference is marked in the minimum commission amounts, where it varies from 26 sat / vB to 9 sat / vB due to the fact that they were mined in a very short period of time.
For a better reference, look at the last 4 or 5 blocks already mined to make yourself an idea of the average commission to pay.
Each block usually occupies between 1500 and 2000 transactions approximately. When the block is not all colored it means that it can still occupy more transactions. Source: mempool.space
However, among these calculations, we must take into account the network saturation. In the example, as seen in the image above, there are only 3 blocks to be mined with very low commissions. In these scenarios, it is best to send transactions with minimal commissions , up to 3 sat / vB or up to 1 sat / vB, depending on how you and observe the network status.
Otherwise, with more than 10 blocks waiting, it is advisable to apply the analysis that we already showed you.
Time it took for the last block to be mined
Sometimes, due to network problems, a block can take a long time to be mined, like the one experienced last July that lasted 2 hours and 19 minutes. This is vital that you take into account.
In this case, it took 26 minutes for a block to be mined, producing a saturation in commissions, even though the mempool was empty. Source: Mempool.space.
If a block takes a long time to mine, there may be a brief increase in commissions. This you must take into account. If there is not much priority in making a payment, it is advisable to pay the average of the last 3 or 4 blocks that are about to be mined.
When the blocks begin to turn red, it may be a sign of possible network congestion. The arrows indicate the average value to be paid in commission. Source: mempool.space
The number at the top of each block indicates the approximate average of commissions to be paid. If the next block to be mined is stuck , and the priority is normal or low, you can pay the average of the 4 or up to 6 previous blocks, which in the example in the previous image would be 11 sat / vB.
In high priorities, it is advisable to pay the average amount of commission indicated by the first block that is waiting to be mined. In the case of the image above, as indicated, the average is approximately 14 sat / vB.
Network saturation refers to two things: the number of incoming transactions and those that are unconfirmed. For this, mempool.space offers a series of graphical tools that allow knowing the status of the network.
The last block on the left shows the number of blocks, possible, on the waiting list. Source: mempool.space
The first is the number of blocks waiting, as seen in the image above. This corresponds to the last block on the left. The number of blocks that are on hold is shown in parentheses, in this case 91, along with the number of transactions.
If transactions without confirm they are less than 2000, you can pay a commission of 1sat / Byte, with complete peace of mind. Source: mempool.space
Another option to know the network congestion, is from the box Unconfirmed , which accurately shows the number of pending transactions.
An unsaturated network hovers between 0 and 15,000 waiting transactions. Maybe even a little more. In these situations, the commissions usually hover, in low priorities, around 1 sat / vB, the lowest commission amount accepted.
When there is a lot of network saturation, meaning many blocks waiting, the blocks on the left are stained in a russet. Source: mempool.space.
In the previous image a network with very little saturation is shown where there is only 1 block at the wait, and the mined blocks do not come out to their maximum capacity, an average size of 1.5 MB. In this area, you can afford to pay the lowest commission of 1 sat / vB, and your transaction will be confirmed immediately.
In a network with a lot of saturation, with transactions waiting above of the 30,000, it is best to calculate the average payment, as we showed you above.
Pay at your discretion
The objective of this tutorial or guide is to show you the aspects to take into account when sending a transaction in Bitcoin. With practice everything is done more visually and faster. Following these steps, in less than a minute you can establish what commission you must pay according to the urgency you have to confirm your transaction.
However, the final payment is entirely your responsibility. Always consider what the priority of the payment is. Given that, if you are buying a coffee with BTC, we do not believe that the local is willing to wait 5 hours for the transaction to be confirmed. Although, in these scenarios that require immediate payments, it is better that you learn to use the Bitcoin Lightning network, which allows sending bitcoin immediately.
Avoid stuck transactions
wanting to save a few satoshis in commissions, consider not always paying extremely low commissions.
If you pay 1 sat / vB, in a moderately saturated network, there may be the possibility that said saturation does not go down, and your funds are stuck, until, or the transaction is confirmed many days later, or is expelled of the mempool. This process can take up to 14 days. In these cases, when the transaction is purged from the mempool, the BTCs are available in your wallet again, and you must create a new transaction, which we hope will not be with the same low commission.
Methods to unlock transactions
In Bitcoin, there are two methods that allow you to unlock stuck transactions: commission replacement (RBF) and “child pays for parent” (CPFP). . These methods are based on creating a new transaction using the same funds as the original transaction, but this time with a higher commission, which cancels the previously created one. You can learn more about these methods here.
So what commission is fair?
The Bitcoin network may be saturated or decongest for multiple reasons. The main criterion is priority. Take into account how long you are willing to wait for the transaction to be confirmed. Second, consider congestion. If it is not urgent, you can wait a few hours to see if the congestion goes down, before sending the transaction.
To find out if you have paid fair commissions, mempool.space has developed a tool that shows you how much you have overpaid in your transaction.
The tool shows how many times they have paid a transaction above the average. Source: mempool.space.
When entering the details of a transaction, placing the TXID in the search engine, you will be able to see if you have overpaid in commission when sending the BTC.
Sandra is the Reporter working for World Weekly News. She loves to learn about the latest news from all around the world and share it with our readers.
