Slow Bitcoin

[TravG]

I received 2 Bitcoin payments back on 12/6 and they are yet to be confirmed. I know with all the BTC craze of late the network and miners are probably a little slow but I am starting to get concerned a little. Is there anything I can do to try to get these two transactions confirmed.

Thanks

[Pokerface]

Unfortunately it is my understanding that there is not too much that can be done except to wait. Depending on the transaction speed chosen (faster can have higher fees) it could take days. The volume of transactions occurring at the moment is not helping the matter either. I hope you receive your confirmations soon.

[Sherlock]

You either have to wait a bit: https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#4d mempool is going to be empty over weekend, so it will get conformed within 24 hours if the fee was not extraslow.

Second option is always CPFP (child pays for parent). You can add a bit of fee and it will get confirmed instantly. Look for a wallet with CPFP.

[PROFRBcom]

Sherlock has posted a detailed view of the mempool. It's perhaps a bit much for some people to read and understand. For a simplified view, check blockchain.info's view of unconfirmed transactions: https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

Over 100k and things are slow. Under 40k and things move pretty quickly. Inbetween it's mostly fast but hit or miss sometimes and the fees start to increase noticeably. At least, these are my own anecdotal observations over the last 2 years.

[Fortune Palace]

My last few transactions took a few days longer than normal, were initially declined, then adjusted, then confirmed.

All you can do is wait. And trust.

[Sherlock]

It is really hard to provide an useful information, because I have no idea who is how much educated. Like in crypto we are all beginners.

I will try to say the same and everybody dealing with btc should understand it (yes, it took me maybe 1 year using bitcoin to get it and it is really easy to understand).



This is a typical screenshot from blockchain analytics on blockchain.info (there are plenty of them, all the same).

You can input there the tx number of the transaction to the url.

The typical transaction has one input address (in this case 1948GyDGMS22LkeQh7GJ9NjmjH4npWaUZZ and 2 output addresses 1ECu9meNB8dVQeFEDWDNoAcH8uDixEzyTg and 16YH67eqay4qyYqQcnH2966ui4yzAujCnp, where one of the output addresses is your address where you get commission and second address is where the rest of bitcoin go [this second address is called change]).

The important metrics now here is fee per byte that you can see by the transaction as indicated.

The important metrics in future will be fee per weight unit. This has changed with the famous Segwit update.



Now take this site https://jochen-hoenicke.de/queue/#4d from where is the 2nd screenshot:

It shows all the bitcoin transactions piled up in a giant bitcoin cache called mempool. In this cache the transaction wait to be processed=confirmed by miners. When there are too many transactions as you could see during last days, the mempool is being filled. Now there is less incoming transactions, so mempool is being emptied as indicated.

Important here are the colors and the color legend at the left top corner. It indicated by slabs which transactions are waiting and which are being eaten up. Logically: the higher the fee, the sooner it is confirmed.

So the picture above for example indicated that the grey colored transactions with fees 100-140 Sat/byte (1 Satoshi = 0,00000001 bitcoin) are now instantly confirmed and the lightblue colored transactions with fees 70-140 Sat/byte are starting to be confirmed.

So all you have to do is to look at the picture nr.2 and locate the fee paid for the transaction (in picture nr. 1). If the transaction is not yet confirmed, it must be lower than fees that are being confirmed now. But at least you can see how far you are from confirmation and whether your confirmation is near (when mempool is being emptied) or not (when it is being filled).

Anybody has questions?

[tzar]

What's happening with time limited transactions when the Bitcoin network is slow?

I mean, when you want to pay $xxx to a merchant, or to deposit $xxx to an e-wallet (not bitcoin wallet) through their partner third-party company, which gives you 15 minutes to send a certain amount of bitcoins.

[Sherlock]

Idk how this works, just wild guess. Obviously 15 minutes sometimes is not enough even for one confirmation (on avg the block is mined every 10 minutes, but sometimes it takes more than 30 minutes to mine the block, sometimes 3 blocks are mined in 10 mins).

So the merchant or his processor somehow must work with 0-conf transactions I assume. Bitwala for example wants 3 confirmations.

I have seen this 15mins interval by Betcris, I think their provider has just a lock-in period, where they fix the price. So for example at time 12:05 you want to deposit 500 USD. So if the rate is 15746.92 they fix the deposit to 0.031750 Bitcoin and until 12:20 must be the transaction of 0.031750 Bitcoin in the mempool, but can confirm later.

Probably the payouts for bettors are locked until it is confirmed.

But that is just a wild guess how it might work.

[TheGooner]

What's happening with time limited transactions when the Bitcoin network is slow?

I mean, when you want to pay $xxx to a merchant, or to deposit $xxx to an e-wallet (not bitcoin wallet) through their partner third-party company, which gives you 15 minutes to send a certain amount of bitcoins.

When the message is first sent / broadcast it is detectable by the recipient immediately if they care to look.
I've noticed this occur when sending from wallets on different machines in the house.

Although the transaction will not be officially confirmed until it is in a few blocks (usually 5/6 blocks by exchanges merchants) and this will take an hour (ish) once the first block is made - it is possible to see payment has been made.

Typically a service like bitpay locks in a fiat/BTC rate when they post the initial screen with the BTC amount - and they will take that initial broadcast acknowledgement and reply back to the merchant that payment has been initialised and coming, but the merchant won't release goods / services etc until Bitpay confirm completed funds transfer.

If you send via mainstream wallet like Electrum / Exodus / Jaxx / Coinomi then they usually handle the fees well enough so that you are included in the first block.