What it costs — by speed
| Speed | Fee rate | Cost (USD) | % of amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Loading live data… | |||
Based on a standard ~140-vByte transfer. Sending 0.01 BTC or 100 BTC costs the same fee — size in bytes sets the price, not the amount. The last column shows the fee as a share of what you send: painful on tiny transfers, nothing on big ones. Live mempool data, refreshed every 30s.
Why Bitcoin fees jump around
Bitcoin charges by transaction size in bytes, not by the amount you send — moving 0.01 BTC or 100 BTC costs the same if the transaction is the same size. The price per byte (sat/vByte) is set by competition for limited block space. When the mempool is quiet it's a few cents; during a bull-run frenzy or an ordinals wave it has spiked past $30–50 per simple send. That's the trap: people who don't check overpay massively on a busy block, or get stuck for hours by underpaying.
Comparing chains? See the same idea for Ethereum and Layer-2s. Trading leverage instead of moving coins? Your real risk is liquidation — check it with the liquidation calculator.