Bitcoin Forum

Exactly as the title says, I have received some 0.02 btc today and it
takes longer than expected before it is confimed.

Can someone explain how the bitcoin transaction works and why the
confirmation time takes longer than usual?

Thnx

the average time usually is like 10-20 minute to get the first transaction (when It gets included into a new block) and It's pretty much depends on the fees , the higher you set them , the faster your transaction will be confirmed , of course there is other factors and I'd advice you to check this blog article : https://blog.btc.com/why-do-we-need-to-pay-transaction-fees-and-what-is-the-right-fee-fcf6ee17c072#.6tx8auwus (we could help more If you post the TXID)

Maybe cause you have a low mining fee?

You can check the number of unconfirmed transactions here:

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

If the number is rising, it will take longer to get your transactions included, even if you use sufficient fees.

Also check here to see when the last blocks were mined:

https://blockchain.info/

If the last blocks were long ago, this means blocks are not being found at normal expected speed and it will take longer to get your transactions included.

After you pressed "Send" , your wallet sends the btc's to the bitcoin network and then the miners will verify the transaction.

Miner's fee is like a reward for the miner who mines the block along with your transaction.

Transactions with a higher miner fee usually picks  first so the higher the miners fee the fastest a transaction will be confirmed.

There is some randomness to it. I pay the same fee pretty much all the time between 0.0001 and 0.0002 and sometimes it confirms under 10 minutes and other times it can take half a day. Most of the time it's about 30 minutes to an hour.

This makes sense. I send a higher than the usual BTC.0001 to send to an exchange or to cold storage. But I noticed that when I send from an exchange it tells me that the fee is BTC.0001 to send back to my wallet. This made me think that it is still ok sending Bitcoin using the flat fee of BTC.0001? Or is everyone paying higher fees now?

At some point, the demand will get high that confirmation times will be hours for most users.
The fees will increase to a point where users will rather drop out rather than try and send bitcoins.
Hopefully, we see some steps to increase capacity before that happens.

The confirmation will take more time if your transaction will get more delay caused by block for taking your transaction to get a confirmation over 3 blocks scale.
http://www.ibtimes.com/bitcoins-big-problem-transaction-delays-renew-blockchain-debate-2330143

There is, it is called Segregated Witness. If you are running a node go for it and upgrade and hope that it will get implemented in 2 months time. The upgrade will also pave way for the Lightning Network which will make off chain transactions possible making it increase capacity even more.

full answer
blocks occur on average 2016 blocks over 2 weeks.. meaning 1000 blocks in 2days and 1000blocks over 12 days is just as acceptable as the 2016 blocks evenly spread.
evenly spread it would work out as a block every 10 minutes. but bitcoin block confirmation are not that predictable/evenly spread.
its not coded as 10 minutes, but instead a human perception of average expectation

so even with a large fee, it does not magically get a block confirmed in 10 minutes because as i said blocks are not strict about the 10 minute rule.
its only an average human mind expectation.

however by not having an adequate fee, it probably wont get accepted into the next block, which adds more time waiting
in short
it could be a combination of both inadequate fee and also a longer than expected block confirmation.

al you can do is add an adequate fee to be acceptable in the next block.. and then hope the network doesnt take too long with the next block.
you may be lucky. some blocks happen in just 2 minutes.

actually it is totally depends upon the transaction charge that has been released by you during transaction .
We mean higher the transaction charge speeder will be confirmation .

Since confirmation time depends upon the transaction charge but still some times may be a block of problem may be a reason for slower confirmation .
so i will suggest you to contact blockchain ( blockchain user ) if You get very slow confirmation even you are paying more transaction charge .

To find out recommended transaction fee this https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ can be helpful, currently
But size depends on number of inputs if the address from which you are sending those bitcoin have received multiple small amount of bitcoin than number of input will be higher which will increase transaction size so even including 10,000 satoshi make you to wait few hours to get confirmation. Most of the wallet have fee recommendation feature before sending bitcoin, if you don't alter those fee your transaction can get confirmed within first block, but sometime time between two blocks is higher than normal 10 minute and there was also more than hour delay between two blocks in several occasions before.

I feel that is not the way it should work because many new people may not be knowing the charges and they may go with a minimum amount to save money and may need to wait for how long don't know. Instead, they should make some minimum amount per transaction and if people want can pay more, but all transaction should be treated with same priority.

I depends on various factors, like sometimes, the transaction charge, and the wallet you are using. Usually, according to my experience, I have received bitcoins with a confirmation of few minutes. It will vary.

Hmm,

Because BTC sucks,

it is outdated code with performance problems that will not be fixed,
because it's masters in China refuse to update their code, so they can keep their greater than 51% domination of BTC.  :P

 8)

FYI:
Try almost any altcoin , and you will soon agree BTC sucks.

I am assuming the fees are paid to the wallet we are using? or is the money going back to the pool and need to be mined out again?

I'll sugest the same site (https://bitcoinfees.21.co/)

I just use the recomended by the wallet or if I don't have rush, I put a little less... Btw few cents don't will let me more poor.

Should only take something like 10 minutes per confirmation usually, it's roughly the same amount of time as the block target time. If it is taking hours then chances are your fees are too low or you're just getting unlucky with the blocks.

Should be fairly quick otherwise.

Will confirmation time get worse by time or will it be stabilized? I read about this "scalability" issue in BTC network, but could you please elaborate me if there is a connection between the two issues (confirmation time and scalability)?

I agree with you  it does  have   random  confirmation times even though  you  put  up the  highest   possible  miner  fee  on the transaction. Just  like  in  my case  i  putted  up  high  fee  but still confirmation times were too  long and it take  up almost  2 hours  unlike  on my previous transaction  without  any fee using coinbase, My  suspicion  would be  the overall  unconfirmed transactions  the  more   transactions  on  their  the  longer  the queue.

In most cases the issue is related to the amount you pay as fee, the higher you pay the faster the transaction gets into new blocks but there are times when even you pay the highest fee you need to wait for up to 1 hour before the transaction is confirmed, I have had such issues several times.

It happens to me many times. I don't know the exact reason, but I think because of the lower price of the fee. If you choose a fee with bigger value, the confirmation will last some minutes.

Outdated code? Bitcoin is designed to have blocks occurring per 10 minutes to ensure the fixed supply of coins and security on the transactions. The reason for Bitcoin to have 10 minutes transaction is because it is an amount of time that can be used to prevent double spending.

The shorter the confirmation time, the less security it would have due to the higher number of orphans and so on. Alt coins are extremely volatile with many of them sacrificing confirmation time for security. Hence, merchants needs to wait for more than one confirmation.

It depends from transfer fee, currently blockchain wallets make transactions in 20 minutes time, but sometimes it goes for hours. If BTC transaction comes from computer wallet, it also depends from transfer fee, but it can be fast - 10 minutes, or slower - up to hours, if transfer fee is low.

yes it also happened to me for so many time and i also noticed that when i pay the transaction fee a little high than its limit then the transaction is faster and when i pay the normal fee then it take comparatively more time.

Very rarely does it take hours to get 1 confirmation, yes it happens sometimes.  depending on the amount of bitcoin the amount of confirmations you need to wait for are different, if your waiting for six then it should be about an hour.

all i can say about it is sometimes it really depends on the luck and sometimes it depend on our mistakes like it is always told to everyone that to transact a new coin after at least 1confirmation of the previous transactions and always use a correct amount of miner fees if you are in hurry of transacting or else you have to facw the delays