Why does Unchained charge me a bitcoin transaction fee?

Transaction fees are required for miners to process a transaction on the bitcoin network.

To send any transaction on the bitcoin network, you must include a transaction fee, which bitcoin miners collect for processing your transaction. Transaction fees are required when spending from any self-custody bitcoin wallet. Unchained does not collect any part of the transaction fee. 

How high should I set my fee?

Bitcoin miners prioritize processing transactions (adding them to the blockchain) based on which transactions include the highest fee rates. The more people trying to send bitcoin payments at any time, the higher the fees you will have to pay to get your transaction processed quickly.

To make things easy for you at Unchained, we estimate the required fees when you withdraw. You have three options:

  • High priority: estimated to be processed within half an hour
  • Low priority: estimated to be processed within a few hours
  • Custom: Set a custom fee rate. You can view current fee estimates on mempool.space.

Caution: Both high and low-priority time estimates are only estimates and your withdrawal could sometimes take much longer. Unchained's fee estimation is provided by mempool.space.

For a more in-depth understanding of how bitcoin transaction fees work, see our blog article from engineer Buck Perley.