Bitcoin Forum

Before sending my BTC to my paper wallet, I decided to try it out one more time with a few cents. I sent 10 cents & paid a 5 cents transaction fee. An hour has passed & when I look at the transaction in Blockchain.info, it still only has 2 confirmations & these were both made a few minutes after I did the transaction. How many confirmations does it have to have before it's confirmed & is it possible that it's slower because it's the weekend? Also could it be that because it's such a small amount, it's regarded as 'dust' & ignored?

Its fine You just need 1 confirmation. It seems mined blocks are taking a bit longer.

Sometimes it can take up to 1hr.

If you want to post (or PM me) your transaction ID then I/we can look into it for you.

Thanks everyone. BurtW it has now been confirmed but maybe you could help me with another problem which has arisen. I tried to import the private keys of this paper wallet into my blockchain wallet & it just says 'error importing private key: unknown key format. I did it yesterday with the same private key & it worked. What could be wrong? I have tried it 4 times now & checked that I have each digit correct. I would be very worried if I thought this could happen to a paper wallet with a meaningful amount of BTC in it.

Try going to bitaddress.org and see if it works there.

Thanks, my mistake, the problem lies in my own not so neat handwriting :) The way I had written U made it look like 2 Ls.

Human error, is quite common.  ;)

I have never had a problem like that. If it happen now I know what to do

How many confirmations does a transaction need before it's complete (if that's the correct term :) ? I have sent a few cents to my paper wallet to try it out, the transaction now has 5 confirmations, could I go ahead & send my BTC now? Does 5 confirmations mean the paper wallet is OK for use?

If you recieve some bitcoins for payment, it's better if you wait for 1 confirmation, and if it's a lot of bitcoins, then 2 confirmations.
For "Complete", 0 confirmations is complete. Confirmations just ensure that the funds are valid.

Transfering money to your paperwallet is not the crucial question. Important is if you can spend the money you send there, thats what you need to check. What good are your xy coins on your ultrasafe wallet, when you can not spend them in the future?

There is no magic number.

As a "rule of thumb", many people decide that they are comfortable after 6 confirmations.  As such, many wallets won't tell you that a transaction is "fully confirmed" until it has at least 6 confirmations.  Some other wallets and services will indicate that that the transaction is confirmed after 3 confirmations.  I think blockchain.info displays the transaction as confirmed once it has 1 confirmation.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Confirmation

thank you :)