For most of us who are holding coins outside of centralized exchanges, is it sound to transfer the coins to exchanges now or in spring 2025?
The reasoning behind my question is, right now the prices might have gone up relative to the past two years, but if the cycle continues and prices pump by mid next year, at that point, if we transfer the coins to exchanges, wouldn't those transfers incur more fees than if we transfer now when the prices hopefully are cheaper relative to mid next year?
As long as you are not selling your coins now do not risk sending it to any exchange and leaving it there in the wallet because the risk of leaving off your coins on exchanges is there. Transaction fees are not always high to scare you this early to exchanges
For instance, if I have 1,000 BTC (one can dream, can't it?) and transfer all to CEX abc, and the network fees is 0.5% in Dec 2024, that translates to 1,000 x $100,000 x 0.5% = $500,000, as opposed as to, say, Nov 2025 when the price had gone up to $200,000, and the network congestion can drive the fees higher, where the same transfer might cost the user 1,000 x $200,000 x 0.8% = $1,600,00.
This is not how transaction fees work, it is not in percentage or even fixed as you put it out, the transaction fee is based on how congested the network is and the network is not frequently high although we do sometimes experience high fees during congestion period but it is not always. What you should rather do now of you feel the fees are extremely low now is to consolidate your little inputs into one so that when you want to move out later it won’t have high fees.
Of course, I'm talking about transferring to "safer", well known, long running CEXes, and not any run of the mill/"come-let-me-scam-you" CEX. My lean on this idea is that, even if these large CEXes, such as Coinbase, end up failing, it won't happen during the crypto season such as 2021 or 2017. If anything, they'd start failing a year after that (2026) -- long after the cold hard cash has been withdrawn.
There is absolutely no perfect timing for collapse of exchanges or anything else it can can be hacked which is something that doesn’t have a season to happen, you can also have your account suspended too so there is no need to trust any exchange no matter how huge it is. You can though split your funds in different exchanges if you really want to move them as such you don’t have everything on one exchange