Bitcoin transaction fees are also known as “miner fees”, which give Bitcoin miners an incentive to process transactions in the blocks, provide sufficient hashing power and secure the Bitcoin network.

As the size of each block is limited and can only store a limited number of transactions, miners will prioritize the validation of transactions sent with a higher fee. Therefore, users usually need to pay for miners to get their transactions completed over the Bitcoin network. Although fees may rise over time, normal fees cost a tiny amount, which is around 0.0001-0.0015 Bitcoin.

Banks usually charge a transaction fee based on a percentage of the transfer amount users are sending. For cryptocurrencies, transaction fees are based on the size of the transaction in bytes rather than the amount transferred.

Transaction fees not only serve as a protection against users sending transactions to overload the network but also a good way to ensure miners have the incentive to maintain the Bitcoin network even after all the Bitcoins are mined.