Bitcoin transaction fees explained: why yours was high and how to pay less
Bitcoin fees are priced per byte of block space, not per amount sent. Understanding that explains almost every surprising fee.
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Convert between bitcoin, satoshis and US dollars at live rates. One bitcoin is 100,000,000 satoshis.
One bitcoin is 100,000,000 satoshis. Type into any field and the other two follow.
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A satoshi is the smallest unit bitcoin can be divided into: one hundred-millionth of a bitcoin. As the price per coin has risen, quoting everyday amounts in whole bitcoin has become awkward, and sats give a unit that behaves like ordinary money.
Lightning payments, tipping and most small transfers are denominated in sats for exactly this reason.
The second figure in the result is worth watching: how many satoshis one dollar buys. It moves inversely to price, and some people find accumulation easier to reason about in those terms than in fractions of a coin.
Rates come from our own price proxy, cached for a minute. They are indicative mid-market figures — see how to read an order book for why the price you see and the price you get differ.
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