Bitcoin Stays Cheap — Whale Transfers 49,922 BTC ($458M) for Less Than 60 Cent Fee

Is Bitcoin too expensive? It seems clear from today’s transaction, that the leading cryptocurrency is still far cheaper than retail banking, especially if you are moving large amounts. One large player in the market today demonstrated this in full by managing to move some $458 million worth of BTC for a fee of just 60 cents.

Only Possible With Bitcoin

The massive $458M transfer was picked up by Whale Alert (@whale_alert) earlier today:

🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 🚨 49,922 #BTC (458,100,287 USD) transferred from unknown wallet to unknown wallet

Tx: https://t.co/wVbVlBMchp

— Whale Alert (@whale_alert) February 4, 2020

The total fee for the transaction was just 0.00006280 BTC which comes out to about $0.58. Retail banking would have likely caused this transfer to incur thousands of dollars in fees in most cases. The transfer showcases how cheap Bitcoin still is despite the critics. Thus, these massive-but-cheap transfers are common on the network. As BeInCrypto has reported on last month, one whale managed to move $450M worth of Bitcoin for a fee of just $0.25. Such minuscule fees would be unthinkable in the banking world and make a strong case for Bitcoin as a store of value and reserve currency.

Retail Banks Can’t Compete

With such low fees, it seems clear that banks simply cannot compete. If they offered such fees, they would effectively go bankrupt because most of them make their profits off wire transfers, withdrawal fees, and other dues from its customers. Yet, Bitcoin is able to provide extremely low costs without sacrificing speed or decentralization. This continues to be the strongest selling point for most cryptocurrencies — a point that is strengthened each time a whale moves a large amount of BTC for close to nothing in fees. It’s currently unclear how the upcoming Bitcoin halving will affect the fee structure for the network. However, miners will certainly be making less profit as the leading cryptocurrency becomes more scarce. Overall, the momentum seems to be on Bitcoin’s side for 2020.