Send And Fees

A Bitcoin transaction spends one or more existing outputs and creates new outputs. One output pays the recipient. Another may return change to your wallet.

Fees

Fees are paid to miners for block space. The fee is based on transaction weight, not on the dollar value sent. Sending 0.01 BTC and 10 BTC can cost the same if the transactions have the same structure.

Wallets usually estimate fees for you. When the mempool is busy, faster confirmation costs more. When activity is low, patient users can pay less.

Confirmations

A transaction is unconfirmed until it is included in a block. Each block after that adds another confirmation.

For small payments, one confirmation may be enough. For large payments, wait longer. The right number depends on the risk of reversal and your tolerance for delay.

Change Outputs

Bitcoin uses a UTXO model. If you spend from a larger output, the transaction usually creates a change output back to you. This is normal, but it can reveal relationships between coins if you are careless.

Good wallets manage change automatically. Advanced users use coin control to decide which outputs to spend together.

Stuck Transactions

Replace-by-fee lets the sender rebroadcast a transaction with a higher fee if the original opted in. Child-pays-for-parent lets a later transaction pay enough fee to pull an earlier transaction into a block.

Do not panic when a low-fee transaction is slow. If it is valid, it is usually either confirmed later or becomes replaceable/spendable again after mempool eviction.