Bitcoin exchange Luno has announced the switch to a new scheme whereby a dynamic fee will be charged when sending to a Bitcoin address as of May 26th, 2017. The fee will vary depending on the Bitcoin network traffic and will be displayed before a user confirms the transaction.
These fees go directly towards paying the Bitcoin network fees – Luno doesn’t make any profit from them. Implementing dynamic fees will also help to reduce the likelihood of Bitcoin sends being delayed. Other exchanges such as HitBTC have introduced the same sort of dynamic fee schedule in recent months.
The Bitcoin network traffic varies from day to day, and sometimes the necessary fee is larger or smaller (e.g. it’s often lower on weekends). Luno users are still offered a free alternative whereby sending to an email address or mobile number is instant and free.
The company also informed it is working on new “layer 2” solutions for processing off-chain transactions faster and with lower fees such as Moonbeam.
Earlier this year Luno began charging fees for Bitcoin send and receive transactions, since then, fees on the Bitcoin network have continued to rise substantially prompting this new dynamic send fee.
Discussion about this post