There are a lot of factors affecting gas fees. It’s imperative that crypto owners stay alerted to current network fees to understand the best time to send, receive, and trade.
Network congestion (meaning a high volume and velocity of trades) has a large impact on fees. This congestion is mostly caused by price fluctuations. Big drops and big spikes means a lot of people are buying and selling. When it comes to DEX trades, since it is working with smart contracts, it is more expensive than centralized trading. A few things to remember:
- Fees are paid to the network, not ShapeShift.
- Trading or transacting in small amounts is not a good idea when fees are high.
- You can see average network fees for BTC here: https://btc.com/stats/unconfirmed-tx
- You can see average network fees for ETH here: https://ycharts.com/indicators/ethereum_average_transaction_fee (note: sending ETH in a transaction is cheaper than ERC20 sends and DEX trades)
- Learn more about DEX fees here: https://docs.thorchain.org/how-it-works/fees.
Fees can be incredibly frustrating when high. We want to make sure you keep as much crypto as you can, alas network fees are inevitable. Check out some assets that are much cheaper to transact with at this time like LTC, BCH, ATOM, DOGE, and ETC. Do your own research on fees before each transaction to stay up to date. ShapeShift will always display fees before you send crypto.