Bitcoin Forum

I downloaded and installed Electrum on my PC. I copied the receiving address to the Windows clipboard. I went to Coinbase and clicked the send button and pasted in the address. I've been waiting for almost an hour and in Coinbase it just says Pending. Is this normal? How long does it usually take?

Thanks

Are you sending Bitcoins for first time? I guess yes...
Whenever you create Bitcoin transaction, it goes through blockchain where approval from miners is necessary. This approval is known as confirmation and it is necessary process as it checks the legitimacy of transaction. This process makes Bitcoin or cryptocurrency on whole different from centralized payment system.
Yes! It takes time to complete transaction ranging from 5 minutes to ~ depending on fees. As you sent from Coinbase, you don't have to worry about fees because Coinbase does batch payments and set optimal fees. You can track your transaction by clicking it and copying TX Hash ID and searching it on blockchain.info, it will show whether transaction is confirmed or not (you have to wait for 6 confirmations). Generally it takes 30 minutes to 3 hours to confirm transactions done via Coinbase.

Thanks Webtricks and yes you are correct--this was my first transaction. I have been cramming to understand the technology and I do have a fundamental understanding of what is going on. I can easily envision that the community block data is getting larger by the second and given it is encrypted using the SHA-256 encryption algorithm that the decryption process can take time. However, I have also read that the miners will give precedence to larger transactions over the smaller ones. For my first transaction I only sent $200 US dollars to my wallet.

It is normal for  btc transaction from coinbase.Generally it take time to complete a btc transaction about 30 minute to 3 hours or more . Don't worry about this . It occur only high traffic on btc transaction .

Update: the money has now appeared in my wallet (Electrum) and it took 2 hours and 10 minutes. When I logged into Coinbase it still says Pending, but they sent me an email saying the transaction was successful so I guess it takes them a while to update their database. I'm mainly posting my thoughts for the benefit of others who find this post in the future.

This seems like it is going to be a very helpful forum!

if anyone can help me i never used this website before. i sent my btc from electrum to coinbase but i still haven't got my funds yet. any help would be a blessing. thank you. if you could message me

If you can post the transaction ID so that we can check if its already confirmed in the network. Because if its already confirmed, the problem isn't with the network anymore but with coinbase.
The best that you can do right now is to contact the coinbase support and tell this to them.

When you send any Bitcoin to another adress (not just coinbase), you should wait process starting. And when it start, then you look at the block number.

For example, when your transaction process start, you can look to btc.com for blocks. Usually the transaction is completed after 2 blocks.