Withdrawing bitcoin: the check comes before the network

Anyone triggering a withdrawal meets the verification clause first in most cashiers. It stands in the terms and says when documents are demanded — at every withdrawal, from an amount, or «whenever the operator considers it necessary». Those three wordings lead to completely different evenings, and in this site's arithmetic they therefore cost three points, one point or none.

The references for the clauses stand with every entry in the cashier overview.

This is exactly why a clause with a figure weighs as much in this table as the length of the cashier. Fifteen settlement coins do not help if the withdrawal hangs on a check whose moment nobody knows in advance.

Once the withdrawal is released, the network decides the rest. On the bitcoin main network the fee hangs on congestion: the same transfer costs different amounts at different hours, and does so independently of the sum. Some cashiers deduct a fixed fee and absorb the swing themselves; others pass the actual network fee through.

The difference is not only a question of price but of prediction. A fixed fee is too dear when the network is quiet and a gift when it is busy; a passed-through fee is always fair and never plannable. Both stand in the terms, and both rarely stand there prominently.

On the way back you give your own address, and the same two traps apply as on the way in: the network has to match, and the address has to come from your own wallet rather than a note from last week. Anyone who has set the wallet up again in the meantime may well have different addresses, even though the app is the same.

In goes over an address, out over a form plus a check. That asymmetry is no oversight: the deposit carries no risk for the operator, the withdrawal does. Anyone who knows that in advance plans differently — and has the documents ready before the balance is big enough to trigger a check.

The way back to a Swiss account then runs further: from your own wallet over an exchange and back into francs. That second half costs again, and at a place many calculations leave out.

What this page says about withdrawals holds for the procedure and not for a particular operator. Which cashier carries which route stands in the cashier overview, and only where the cashier was actually opened.