The cryptocurrency exchange Hit BTC has notified its clients that they need to pay a new fee to deposit bitcoin into the platform. This move might be replicated by more exchanges in time as they try to find ways to cope with the high fees on the network other than not accepting new clients or advising their existing ones to use litecoin or bitcoin cash instead.
Also Read: Bitcoin Network Fees Are Irritating Cryptocurrency Proponents
Hit BTC Fees
Hit BTC has announced that starting from Friday December 22, users are now charged a fixed fee for all bitcoin deposits. This new deposit fee will be deducted from the amount of any incoming transaction to Hit BTC, and will constitute 0.0003 BTC. The company warns that if a deposit is lower than or equal to the fee, the whole amount will be used up as commission and will not be refunded.
High fees are currently a major concern for all businesses that deal with bitcoin, especially those with higher volume of transactions. Bitpay recently explained that high fees make BTC invoice payments under $100 impractical and uneconomical. The global payments service provider even stopped allowing those sub $100 transactions, enacting a minimum, before hastily restoring them under pressure from the bitcoin community.
Difficult Times
Hit BTC explained the move to its clients by saying that the bitcoin network has been experiencing difficult times “in the last weeks.” The company said that due to highly increased demand, a large number of transactions go through BTC network these days. “It leads to a significant amount of transactions waiting in the mempool, longer processing time and unprecedented fees,” the exchange said while avoiding mentioning any potentially sensitive topic such as small vs big block sizes.
The company also claims that this measure was introduced in order to “strengthen” all bitcoin processes and provide stability in the functioning of the major cryptocurrency. “It would help facilitate processing of incoming transactions and maintain the liquidity and security of bitcoin on Hit BTC at a level we deem worthy of our traders.”
How have the high fees affected your trading? Let us know in the comments section below.
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