For high-speed cryptocurrency transfers and exchanges, each transaction requires a blockchain fee. The fee is usually low, however sometimes higher fees are needed to complete your transfer or exchange. This article will explain why this happens and how you can avoid high blockchain fees.
Q. Why is the blockchain fee so high?
A. Blockchain fees depend on several factors including network congestion, transaction confirmation times (affected by liquidity providers), and transaction size (as measured in kilobytes; affected when converting crypto from multiple inputs such as faucet earnings or other micro-transactions).
In other words, you may need to pay higher blockchain fees if:
There might be other causes of higher blockchain fees, but we've listed the most common ones.
Q. Is there anything Wirex can do about that?
A. Yes. While we cannot influence the blockchain network's blockchain capacity and average transaction fees in the network, we still want to support small exchange amounts for the sake of our customers in countries where $10 transfers are popular.
We are working to increase the number of liquidity providers so that we can process small exchange amounts 'off-chain' (outside of the blockchain network). This solution will not incur any blockchain fee at all for smaller exchange amounts.
This update to move small exchange amounts off-chain will take some time due to third-party integration requirements throughout our global liquidity network. Users will be notified via app updates and other announcements.
Q. What can I do to reduce the blockchain fee in the meantime?
A. The general advice to reduce your blockchain fee would be: