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Ethereum fees and speeding up

Every transaction on Ethereum pays a network fee in ETH, whatever it sends. Sending USDT or USDC too: the fee comes from the ETH on the same address.

Sending 25 USDT: the fee in dollars and in ETH, gwei, and a red line because the wallet has no ETH — The fee before you send, and a warning when there isn’t enough ETH for it

Keep a little ETH

To send USDT or USDC, your Ethereum address needs some ETH. A send usually costs a few cents, more when the network is busy, so a few dollars of ETH cover many sends. If there isn’t enough, the Send tab says so in red before you try. You can get ETH from another wallet, or with a swap.

Receiving costs nothing: the sender pays.

What the Send tab shows

About: what the send will most likely cost, in your currency and in ETH.
At most: the most it can cost, if fees rise before it is in a block. You only pay what is used, usually about the first figure. Hover the line for the exact amounts.
The gas price, in gwei: grey when the network is calm, orange when it is busy, red when it is very busy. On most days Ethereum stays under 1 gwei; when it is busy, fees can be ten times higher for a few hours, and waiting is often cheaper.

A USDT or USDC send costs two to three times more than an ETH send: it goes through the token’s contract.

Max sends all your ETH but a small reserve for the fee, kept as low as it safely can be, so almost nothing stays behind. If the network gets busier in the meantime, the payment waits a little; you can speed it up.

Speeding up a payment

If one of your payments stays Pending in History, the fee was probably too low for a sudden rise. Right-click it and choose Speed up (raise the fee). Biscuit sends the same payment again with a higher fee; it replaces the waiting one, and only one of the two can ever go through.