Paying $15 to Send $25 Has Bitcoin Users Rethinking Practicality
- Rising popularity of digital currency is pushing fees higher
- Users are migrating to other cryptocurrencies for lower fees
Five Reasons 'Bitcoin Jesus' Loves the Currency
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Ryan Charles recently switched his business, the social platform Yours Inc., from using bitcoin -- simply because he couldn’t afford it.
Fees for sending money over the distributed-ledger network have risen nearly 19-fold, from 13 cents per average transaction in the second quarter of 2016 to $2.40 in the same quarter of this year, according to researcher CoinDesk. While they’ve moderated somewhat since, the fees still undermine the San Francisco-based company’s business model, which is built around writers receiving small payments from readers of their posts.