The same transfer can cost a few cents or several dollars, with the same amount, the same wallet and the same addresses. Nothing is broken and nobody added a surcharge. Network fees are set by an open market that reprices continuously.
What the fee actually buys
Every block has a size limit, and at most times more transactions want in than will fit. The fee is a bid in an auction for that space: miners and validators pick the transactions paying the most per unit of weight and leave the rest waiting.
This produces a result that surprises newcomers — the fee barely depends on the amount being sent. Moving twenty dollars and moving twenty thousand occupy roughly the same space and cost roughly the same. What matters is how busy the chain is right now and how heavy your particular transaction is.
What makes a transaction heavy
On Bitcoin and other UTXO chains, weight is measured in virtual bytes and driven mainly by the number of inputs. A balance assembled from twenty small deposits forces the wallet to sign twenty inputs, and that transfer costs more than spending one large unspent output.
On Ethereum and EVM-compatible chains the unit is gas. A plain coin transfer costs a fixed 21,000 gas, while sending a token costs considerably more because it rewrites smart contract state. The total is gas used multiplied by gas price, and the price moves constantly.
Since EIP-1559 the Ethereum fee splits into a base fee that is burned and rises automatically when blocks fill up, plus a priority tip for the validator. The fast, normal and slow options in your wallet are simply three different tips.
Why the hour of the day matters
Chain activity is not evenly distributed. Congestion peaks when the European and American working days overlap, and the calmest windows tend to be early UTC nights and weekends. On busy chains the gap between peak and quiet is routinely several times over.
On top of that daily rhythm sit spikes: a popular token launch, a sharp price move triggering mass liquidations, a large airdrop or mint. The queue of unconfirmed transactions fills within minutes, and a fee that looked generous yesterday can leave a transfer pending for hours.
Chains price fees differently
| Chain type | Unit of pricing | Biggest driver |
|---|---|---|
| Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin | Satoshis per virtual byte | Input count, network backlog |
| Ethereum and EVM chains | Gas used times gas price | Operation type, demand for block space |
| TRON | Energy and bandwidth | Staked TRX, transfer type |
| TON, Solana | Small per-operation fee | Load, but with milder swings |
That is why network choice is the main decision when moving a multi-chain token such as USDT: the same balance costs far less on TRC-20 or TON than on ERC-20 during a busy hour.
Network fees are not withdrawal fees
When you send a deposit from your own wallet, you pay the miners directly and the casino has no influence over that number. Tonza credits the deposit once the network reaches the required confirmations, so an underpriced fee does not lose the funds — it only delays them until a block has room.
Withdrawals work differently. The platform charges its own fee, made up of a fixed amount in the coin plus a percentage of the sum, and both parts depend on the coin and the network. Current figures are published in the table on each coin page, reachable from the crypto section of the site.
Practical ways to pay less
- Pick the network deliberately; for stablecoins this single choice outweighs every other trick.
- Avoid fragmenting a UTXO balance into dozens of tiny incoming payments.
- Move non-urgent funds during quiet hours rather than in the middle of a market panic.
- Do not shave the fee to the minimum when you need confirmation soon; waiting costs more than you save.
One habit is worth keeping: the fee is always visible before you sign. If the number looks strange, stop and check the network and the input count instead of sending and hoping.
