Bitcoin fees are an essential part of the network game theory and an integral part of the sustainability of the entire project. As Bitcoin is on a bullish streak and more users are joining the digital currency, transaction fees are increasing again. To understand how to calculate Bitcoin transaction fees, it is important to understand what feerate is and how it works. Feerate is measured in Satoshis per byte, which means how many Satoshis (the smallest unit of account in Bitcoin) you are willing to pay for each byte (unit of size) of your transaction.
Bitcoin fees are determined by the amount of data used by the transaction and not by the value being sent. You can use an online calculator to determine the cost of any transaction for any amount. At the time when Bitcoin was not worth much, it was important that the mempool network (the memory pool that stores unconfirmed transactions until they are collected by miners) was not flooded. Transactions that take up more space, on the other hand, need more work for validation, so they must carry a higher fee to be included in the next block.
You can use an online rate estimator to do the calculations and leave the minutiae of the satoshi calculations by byte to the experts or to your wallet's built-in estimator. Adding a higher fee to your transaction will likely make it go faster because miners have more incentive to include more profitable transactions in the blocks they mine. This is the total commission you pay on a transaction, such as 10,000 satoshis or 0,0001 bitcoins. Keep in mind that for this strategy to work, you'll need to choose a wallet that allows users to set custom transaction fees. If you are afraid that the mempool will feel when you least expect it and that your transaction will lose priority, you can also choose to use the “Replace by Fee (RBF)” option.
While there is technically no obligation to attach fees to a transaction, there is also no obligation for the miner to include any transactions in the block he is confirming.
