<p>I don’t think you are conceptually doing anything wrong, it’s simply that the feerate estimate you are requesting is updated less frequently than mempool.space.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Here I get rate btc/kw but I need to convert this to sat/vbyte, so I do <code>0.00254405 * 1e8 / 1000 / 4 = ~64</code>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I think that you are mistaken about the unit of the value you retrieve. The Electrum protocol specification for <a href="https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#blockchain-estimatefee" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><code>blockchain.estimatefee</code></a> says that this endpoint returns the &quot;transaction fee per kilobyte&quot;. I would therefore interpret the value as <code>[₿/kvB]</code> rather than <code>[₿/kWU]</code> which would mean that your conversion were off by a factor 4.</p>
<p>I suspect that most Electrum Servers use the Bitcoin Core full node they rely on for blockchain data as their source for the feerate estimate. Feerate estimates of Bitcoin Core are less responsive than mempool.space.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-02T16:53:35.947Z
So dividing by 4 was superfluous. But 250 sat/vbyte seems to be a very large number, while at the moment the effective fee rate is 80 sat/vbyte
Fernader
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-01-02T15:28:37.953Z
2024-01-02T15:28:37.953Z
Murch
<p>For example, I make this request to the Electrum server:</p>
<pre><code>{ &quot;id&quot;: 0, &quot;method&quot;: &quot;blockchain.estimatefee&quot;, &quot;params&quot;: [ 1 ] }
</code></pre>
<p>and get response:</p>
<pre><code>0.00254405
</code></pre>
<p>Here I get rate btc/kw but I need to convert this to sat/vbyte, so I do <code>0.00254405 * 1e8 / 1000 / 4 = ~64</code>.</p>
<p>But in fact, this value does not change over time, while mempool.space shows other values. What am I doing wrong?</p>

<transaction-fees><electrum-server>
Getting a feerate estimate via the Electrum protocol
Fernader
# Getting a feerate estimate via the Electrum protocol

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-01-02)

For example, I make this request to the Electrum server:

```
{ "id": 0, "method": "blockchain.estimatefee", "params": [ 1 ] }

```

and get response:

```
0.00254405

```

Here I get rate btc/kw but I need to convert this to sat/vbyte, so I do `0.00254405 * 1e8 / 1000 / 4 = ~64`.

But in fact, this value does not change over time, while mempool.space shows other values. What am I doing wrong?

**Tags:** transaction-fees, electrum-server


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2024-01-02. Score: 0 | Accepted answer

I don’t think you are conceptually doing anything wrong, it’s simply that the feerate estimate you are requesting is updated less frequently than mempool.space.

> Here I get rate btc/kw but I need to convert this to sat/vbyte, so I do `0.00254405 * 1e8 / 1000 / 4 = ~64`.

I think that you are mistaken about the unit of the value you retrieve. The Electrum protocol specification for [`blockchain.estimatefee`](https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/protocol.html#blockchain-estimatefee) says that this endpoint returns the "transaction fee per kilobyte". I would therefore interpret the value as `[₿/kvB]` rather than `[₿/kWU]` which would mean that your conversion were off by a factor 4.

I suspect that most Electrum Servers use the Bitcoin Core full node they rely on for blockchain data as their source for the feerate estimate. Feerate estimates of Bitcoin Core are less responsive than mempool.space.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: So dividing by 4 was superfluous. But 250 sat/vbyte seems to be a very large number, while at the moment the effective fee rate is 80 sat/vbyte  

---

