Bitcoin Forum

Hey guys, i made a transaction yesterday :
https://blockchain.info/tx/b7255d5034cf0b2a8b51d7634f5d49f73c6ca74c9c4a98fe901b5ba2cfbe8adb

Unfortunately ... i delibeteraly forgot to add miners fee and now it's almost been 18h and still no confirmation.

My question is : anyways I can add miners fee right now to speed things up to help it spread in the network?

And when I look at the network propagation tab in https://blockchain.info/inv/b7255d5034cf0b2a8b51d7634f5d49f73c6ca74c9c4a98fe901b5ba2cfbe8adb
i noticed there was a Nod yesterday that had picked it up but today there's no information available, could something be wrong with the
transaction?

Thanks for your help,
Max

That transaction can stay easily a week without a single confirmation...

You can only wait and hope it will get confirmed, that's the only thing you can do.

It's not possible to retroactively add a fee. As above said the only thing you can do is wait. the money will either confirm or get sent back to you so don't worry.

There are two possible outcomes:

• Transaction eventually gets included in a block from some pool that accepts transactions with fees below the recommended threshold, then it will get confirmations just like a "normal" transaction. It might take up to several days though,
• Unconfirmed transaction times out (expiring from other nodes mempool), and the amount is returned to your balance. Depending on your client, it may require some tweaking and/or blockchain reset/resync

I guess you could accelerate things by deleting your wallet AFTER SAVING PRIVATE KEYS FROM ALL INPUTS WITH NON-ZERO BALANCES (and those with zero balance if you plan to re-use them), create a new wallet and import all private keys back. Then you can "double spend" (re-spend if you prefer) the bitcoins, but it will only be accepted from nodes that already discarded the previous unconfirmed transaction. Do not try this if you aren't sure about the private keys import/export operation, as you could lose access to your bitcoins permanently.

Another idea would be to double spend using a raw transaction, but that requires some advanced skills.

Also, there is a BIP (Bitcoin Improvement Proposal) to allow increasing the fee retroactively, but it's not possible at the moment AFAIK.

PS: How can you deliberately forget something? I guess it's a language mistake

I've just been greedy, no language mistake.
A terrible mistake.

Either way the Bitcoins are not lost, they're just flying in the Bitcoin space and
will either be sent to original recipient or sent back to me?

Yes. Technically not sent back to you, but transaction will be discarded and amount will be available again on your balance for spending

Thank you very much matt !

I do hope the transaction doesnt mess up and stay unconfirmed like a double spend.

moral of the story: include that miner fee!


good luck with your transaction. (you'll be ok)  ;D

Why would it do such?
I mean, it's just a no fee legit transaction right?

just wait a week

Without miner fee transactions have a long waiting time.   The transaction fee is processed by and received by the bitcoin miner.  Some wallet developers might also get some transaction fee, depending on the implementation. Fees are not high, it is better to include them.

Transactions without fee may be long, several miners are choosing blocks with higher fee.
Has it occurred to me that a transaction without fee delay 4 days to confirm.

There are several factors to determine the fee.
The most known is the size of the TX, 0.0001 per KByte, but the age and the size of the input also matter.

I had a TX that did not confirm for 8 days with very small inputs. 4 inputs total 0.0022 BTC. In the end I had to doublespend the TX with fee.
I also had a TX just this morning that had a single input >1 BTC and confirmed within 9 minutes without fee.

See here [1] for the formula.


[1] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees#Technical_info

if you are not in a rush be greedy :) and wait more, it might get confirmed otherwise i think you have to look into double spending your bitcoins
just delete the transaction and create a new one

No, you cannot modify a transaction that is already broadcasted but you still can doublespend it although it may be difficult. Most node refused to relay your transaction as your transaction does not include a standard fee and the coin age of the 0.1BTC is very low which brings down the priority of the confirmation. The node probably stopped relaying your transaction as other nodes are not willing to accept and relay your transaction.

"I delibeteraly forgot" lolwhat?

Your only option is to wait it out, at least you'll know not to skimp on the miners next time.

The transaction has now been dropped in blockchain.info mempool.
You can create a double-spend transaction with standard tx fee and push it to the network easily now.

It is normal for small transactions, just wait for it to be transfered.

it was cancelled in the end, transaction was just gone, now i did it again with fee :D

Yes, Sometimes it might take more than week and in the end, its your luck how fast the miner mines.
Hehe :D

The longest amount of time it took for one of my transactions to be confirmed was 20h, but it went through in the end. Which was weird since the tx fee was paid.

Every other times the transaction was fully confirmed in about 2 hours.

I also experienced the same thing, it's almost a month the transaction is not confirmed, it seems bitcoinnya not make it to a bitcoin address me, I have to wait for how long?  8)

If your transaction has no fee attached and has a low coin-age, it is possible that the transaction will never be confirmed.