Bitcoin Forum

I sent BTC to another wallet about 9-10 hours ago. So far it has only 1 confirmation. This never happened to me before. I've always gotten 3 confirmations in under 15 mins max. Why is this taking so long and is this normal?

I sent the BTC to Localbitcoins. So now I can't access it from anywhere as it won't be available on Localbitcoins until it has 3 confirmations. Should I be worried?

I've always gotten 3 confirmations in under 15 mins max.

I find this very unlikely since it would mean 3 blocks were solved within 15 minutes. Be patient.

That's the problem with BitCoin...


It's super slow.

the time of 3 confirmations varied because of many elements. like the transaction fees and how fast miners mine a new block. so the average time is 30 minutes because a block should me mined every 10 minutes

Imagine if you're trying to spend BitCoin in real life, that a BitCoin mechants accepts...

Will it take him 30 minutes to receive that coins?

That's why it's slow.

bitcoin is not slow. i am quite sure that the main problem is, op had not paid enough fees for the transaction. btw, @op, please answer a few questions:
1. when did you get the first confirmation ?
2. can you please post your transaction id ?
but since your transaction has already got one confirmation, it should get the second confirmation in the next 15-30minutes.

After getting one confirmation?  20 minutes average but can take 2 hours or more if your luck wants you to wait.
Before getting one confirmation?  Infinite time.  Your transaction might not confirm at all for all we know.

getting your 2nd and 3rd confirmation depends only on the miners when they will find the next block but the problem in here is your first confirmation, if you didn't pay enough fees it would really take a long time but for 2nd and 3rd confirmation the fees doesn't matter anymore, you will get additional confirmation for every additional blocks found

...says the person who types it "BitCoin".   ::)

@OP, average block generation time is 10 minutes, so on average you should expect 3 confirmations in 30 minutes IF the transaction fee was appropriate.  Luck plays a roll here - there could be three blocks in 10 minutes, or it could take an hour for the next block.

Just note that there are two separate issues here.  Transaction time is nearly instant, a few seconds.  So the merchant "receive that coins" very quickly.  Confirmation time takes longer, but the number of confirmations you need depends on the real world scenario that is involved.  If you were buying a million euro house, you might want to wait 50 or 100 confirmations.  If you were buying a coffee at a coffee shop you go to every day, zero confirmations could be enough.

There are hundreds of messages on her discussing the difference between the two. 

i don't exactly knoe its a co accident or not but i have also noticed some time when i sent some coins to localbitcoin site then it takes some extra time to get 3confirmation but my usual transactions take 10-12min to get confirmed

You were super lucky to get 3 transaction confirmations within 15 minutes, sometimes it can take up to 2-3 hours to get 3 transaction confirmation but if the fees are low then it can take days or will never get confirmed.

"I find this very unlikely since it would mean 3 blocks were solved within 15 minutes."
What about time for a transaction when all blocks and all BTC will be mined? What then? How BTC will be transfered then? :)

Block rewards is halved every 4 years till the block reward becomes zero. When it becomes zero, Bitcoin will still be operating notmally since blocks will still be mined. The fees paid will be a form of incentives for the miners.

The same way it is transferred now.  "All blocks" will never be mined as long as one computer is running it. 

I think you have to post more info on the transaction like the amount of fees paid etc.
(At least that info if you don't want to post the transaction ID etc.)

A few weeks ago I had a transaction take a few hours to get confirmed after about two or three hours.
I sent it with 0.00038952 BTC/kB in Electrum wallet.

What were your fees like, lower than this?

Yesterday I was doing a transfer of 0.013btc and it took only 15 minutes to get 3 confirmations.
It was the fastest that I have ever had and with not putting a large tx fee attached to it.  ;D

The recent few blocks as shown below in the picture shows us that 3 blocks one by one were confirmed within 13 minutes.

So It is possible that sometimes the transactions get confirmed fast but sometimes for one hour or more (like the last block at the moment of writing).

We can't speed up or speed down the confirmation time because this is decided by the block solvers.

https://i.imgur.com/L6DCWXj.jpg

Ok. Basically once you send a transaction it does not immediately get a confirmation. It needs to sit in the mempool for it to be picked and put into a block. Your transaction could be in the mempool for hours. But once it gets one confirmation, it should be less than an hour to get 2 more confirmations. But i've also seen a block take 2 hours to get mined.

Very informative. Thank you very much.
Just my opinion here. There is this seen number below the current bitcoin you own that say incoming coins right? I think that is a good proof that it is already paid and not have to worry it will just be the confirmations that are needed. With patience that will be resolved right?

Tell you this as sometimes I get my transaction confirmed in just 6 minutes but rarely my transactions are delayed and I could never find out the real reason for it, because I can see nodes are doing good and everything fine only takes time.

Maybe satoshi taking a rest or going for a cigar? lol. :D

It depends, fastest 10 minutes, lowest maybe months.

Once I saw a transaction stuck for unconfirmed status for 3 months, so 3 confirmations may be very long, like many months. We have to pray for you, good luck.

i didn't encounter that confirmation took too long for a month. normally it takes 1-3hr for 1 confirmation and the following confirmation is just a minute after the first one.
i think your bitcoin encounter the problem or the software you use. because even blockchain is being ddos attack, i still can't believe for that time to confirm.

it depends on heavy transaction of blockchain. i have experience that only need about 15 minutes to receive in my wallet with full confirmations. but in other time, i have experience in about 1 hours or more to receive in my wallet with full confirmations.

It's due to queue in the block which we are sending, When op sends his fund that time block might half away in filling and there is another reason also for this delay. You might have fixed low transaction fees. These both reasons I have faced when transaction is delayed.

Nowadays the block size is always near 1 MB, meaning that you should be careful and include a reasonable high fee if you want to get it confirmed within the first block.