Network fee
A network fee is the cost of recording a transaction on a blockchain, paid to the network's validators or miners. It varies by chain and congestion, and it is what exchange withdrawal fees pass through to you.
Every on-chain transfer competes for limited block space, and the fee is the auction price. Bitcoin fees rise with mempool congestion; Ethereum's gas market reprices continuously; high-throughput chains keep fees near-negligible until demand spikes. The same asset can cost cents or tens of dollars to move depending on which network carries it.
Exchanges surface network fees twice: directly, as the main component of withdrawal fees, and indirectly, when you choose among supported networks for a transfer — the dropdown that offers USDT via several chains at very different prices is a network-fee menu.
Inside an exchange, none of this applies: trades and internal transfers settle on the venue's own ledger, which is why trading fees and rebate payouts involve no network cost at all. The distinction is worth internalizing — network fees are the price of leaving the exchange's walls, trading fees are the price of activity within them, and only the latter generates payback.
Choosing networks for transfers →