Bitcoin Forum

Hi All -

I sent 4 bitcoins from my circle.com account to my blockchain.info account. The blockchain.info account currently says I have 1 confirmation.

How many confirmations (or how do I) until i can send those 4 bitcoins from my blockchain.info account to another party?

I'm a newbie, so I assume that the bitcoins are still 'waiting to clear' before i can send them somwhere else.

At least one confirmation. That's when it is definitely in your account.

The clearing process just needs 1 confirmation, but that confirmation sometimes can be a bit a longer wait depending on the amount being sent for the miner to find.

If the output is too low you will need more confirmations or pay a higher fee.

4 BTCs is a big amount. :P

Blockchain.info can lag behind a little though. Sometimes it might say it is unconfirmed or only has one confirmation but in reality it's a different story. Try check the transaction on a different block explorer to see what that says.

But isn’t blockchain.info like a bank? So they will want to make sure the transaction is 100% valid until they allow me to send it to a 3rd party, correct?

No.  Blockchain.info is just a service that stores your private keys for you in encrypted form.  That way you can access your private keys from any internet connected device.  Blockchain.info does not insure your bitcoins, and doesn't care what happens to them.  It is up to you to provide adequate security for your bitcoins.

I'm pretty sure they will allow you to send the bitcoins with just 1 confirmation.  I think I've even seen comments from people here at bitcointalk.org indicating that blockchain allowed them to send bitcoins that still had 0 confirmations (although that might have been through the API instead of the user interface).

Thanks for the info. I always thought of myself of a rationale, level headed person but am having a hard time wrapping my mind around bitcoins.

You can send your BTC away after 0 confirmations if you export the private key and use any other wallet. This is really easy so everyone should be able to do it.

There are no banks in Bitcoin.

In multibit it's possible after 1 confirmation.

1 confirmation and you can calmly breath. It usually takes 3 confirmations or more before you can send it to wherever you want it to send.

if you see your balance in your account, you can re-send it, no need to wait any further

no wallet will spend non confirmed transactions.

You will need at least one, otherwise double spending would be too easy

These replies are all incorrect.


The right answer is that the protocol allows spending of unconfirmed outputs, so it depends on the wallet (and the miners). A wallet might prevent (or just discourage) spending unconfirmed outputs because doing it can lead to problems for the user. Despite that, most (if not all) wallets require 1 confirmation with some exceptions.

Blockchain.info does not (as far as I can tell) allow you to spend an unconfirmed output, but other wallets do. On the other hand, blockchain.info's shared coin feature does spend unconfirmed outputs as part of the mixing process.

Bitcoin Core allows you to spend unconfirmed change outputs.

Miners decide what transactions they will include in a block. A miner can decide to exclude transactions that spend unconfirmed outputs, but that would be rare.

The confusion about the 3 confirmation wait is probably due to exchanges requiring 3 confirmations before you can do something with a deposit, but that has nothing to do with Bitcoin.

?? What are you talking about?

Every wallet I use allows that. Its not double spending its a chained transaction. And all of those can be included in a block without a problem.

Right now I am using trezor with mytrezor.com but blockchain.info custom send can do the same.

where i can see that 1 confirmation in multibit ? i just see green circle then tick, whether it's 1 confirmation?
i had a few days using multibit

Hover over that circle or right click the transaction to see detials.

i just waiting till the circle turned into a checklist,
nah i guess that is one confirmation .. thanks

Didn't know that. Thanks for the info!

The circle turns green gradually with every confirmation.
With one confirmation, you can see a 60 degree pie of the circle turned green.

At 6 confirmations, the circle turns into green tick mark.

Technically you can spend unconfirmed coins, but some clients does not allow you to use unconfirmed coins. So, it's up to your client. Of course, it is safe to wait for at least one confirmation to be sure.

EDIT: Mycelium does not allow you to spend unconfirmed coins, while Electrum does. Haven't tested core/qt or other clients.

at times I resend them as soon as its received. I use blockchain as wallet I'm not sure it works on other wallets

you can send the coins to anywhere even without confirmation if it is from blockchain wallet as long as there is enough fee for the transaction, however if the fee is lower than the minimum amount there will be a prompt when you try to send the coins

QT clients don't allow it. But electrum and mytrezor.com and blockchain.info do.

I remember someone using blockchain wallet tried to send some coins with a standard fee and it did not confirm for hours. Later he found out it was due to him spending the uncomformed 1 satoshi spam. This means blockchain wallet can spend uncomfirmed inputs, but that transaction may not confirm.

if you send unconfirmed coins to a certain address i assume it would need 2 confirmations to get 1 confirmation on each address?

I don't think so, for example see txhash 80bc750edfffdbd1c50116faf832aa932b8ebb5756bc08076296f381dada9096 (https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/80bc750edfffdbd1c50116faf832aa932b8ebb5756bc08076296f381dada9096) and 6da6d4cf7cdcf362dcffd4499a44c84c5d0e09bfc47169ae4fe91dc99a3a1f77 (https://www.blocktrail.com/BTC/tx/6da6d4cf7cdcf362dcffd4499a44c84c5d0e09bfc47169ae4fe91dc99a3a1f77). They both have 2 confirms. (As of now I'm saving this)

As Gisado said, bitcoin allows valid transacitons to be chained and being included in a single block. I think the only limitation is, that all former transaction need to be confirmed in the same block.

If the transaction do not have any competing transactions on the network and is well propagated with enough fees, the risk of double spending should be negligible. 6 confirmations prevents most attacks but not 51% attacks, you can't be 100% safe with it.

But you are sending those transactions yourself. Whom would you have to trust then?

Or do you mean as the receiving party?

Yes but then he compromizes the security of the wallet.

Suppost 1 of them goes scammer , the other wallet is still holding, if you expose the private key to both services then you double your risk of theft.

It's not a good idea to mix services just as its not a good idea to use the same password in all websites, its the same logic.

What are you talking about??? Sending a transaction doesn't reveal your private key.

No i was talking about importing your circle private key into blockchain.info, if one of those services goes to be a scam, then it compromizes the private key.

For example if blockchain.info were to go a scam, if you import your circle address there then it would be pretty nasty.

It's like using the same password on all internet websites, if 1 service is fake and scammy then all of it is compronized...

For now both of those wallets are honest, but who knows what the future holds.

Then you read it wrong. He said that he already sent the BTC from Circle to his BCI account. So he doesn't need to import anything at all.

I can confirm that its possible to send bitcoins to another wallet from electrum without having any confirmation. It only requires 1 confirmation and it will be confirmed on both sides since it might be processed on the same block (as far as i know, correct me if im wrong)

How was i reading wrong? And why you say "he", i was quoting you man, why you talk about yourself in the 3rd person.

You said that export-import from circle to blockchain.info, and i explained why thats not a good idea.

Where did I write this?

You are reading into things... I said that you can export the private key from your OWN wallet, not from circle. You can't export shit from circle.

Ok i was generalizing then. Forget about Circle, but it can be the same for any wallet. Never compromize the private key with 2 services, that is the point i was trying to make.

Even if it's your own wallet, why would you want to share that private key with Blockchain.info or other sites, when you arleady have it secured on your PC?

Isn't it better to pay a damn 0.0001 BTC, then to compromize the entire address with a 3rd party?

Using blockchain.info properly doesn't compromise the security of the private key. I have a private key that I have imported in nearly all wallets I have and it constantly has double digits of BTC on it. Still not stolen.

I don't think you know how BCI wallets work.

Yes it does, a secret is only a secret if 1 person knows about it, when 2 person know about it its already compromized.

The mere fact that it's on an online service makes it compromized. Sure its segregated and all that stuff, but one day they could turn scam and start looting big addresses 1 by 1.

But for 2 digits BTC is guess its ok if you trust them so much. For 3 digits BTC, i would definitely not use them though.

Also Blockchain.info has already beed hacked numerous times lately.

This settles it. You don't know what a blockchain info wallet is.

They DO NOT have access to your private keys....

And you dont know what security is.

"Let's just deposit 10.000BTC on an online site exposed to all sorts of hackers, and also take their word for it that they won't have access to it"

Basically this is your logic, its just a question of time until something will go wrong there, and it had, just look at the testimonials of people got hacked by using online wallets, many from this forum, so look around.

if you are sending 4 BTC then you should wait for atlest couple of confirmations

Blockchain.info is not some kind of scammy site who would run away given that they have received so much findings from investors. The code is 100% opensourced and people has confirmed that the private keys go to the server encrypted and they would have no chance to get it unless you tell them the password. Most of the hacks are the user's fault, using weak passwords and no two factor authentication.

Ok then even if that's true, there are keyloggers and other scrips that can read passwords, what about those?

See why would anybody risk 10.000 BTC, and expose it to unnecessary risk.

Now i say again, under perhaps 100BTC the security could be enough, but certainly for really large sums i would definitely not expose my wallet to unnecessary risk.

I think only one confirmation is needed before sending but sometimes or in many cases you need tx in your account to send the money again.
 ~KP

Keyloggers can also steal your wallet.dat and your wallet passwords. Considering most viruses has a wallet.dat stealer in it. If you are storing 1BTC, you shouldn't be using a desktop wallet or online wallet. It should be in your cold storage.

It depends on the walet program/provider.
But most of the times  confirmation is enought, but site may require up to 5 confirmations or so.
It's quite individual.

I believe Circle requires 4+ confirmations before you can access the funds.

I dont know what you are talking about here, but if you are referring to my quickwallet software's "wallet.dat" (https://www.btcdlc.com/shop/bitcoin-supermarket/Quickwallet) then you are mistaken. That wallet.dat contains absolutely no private key. It's just a collection of bitcoin addresses encrypted to ensure privacy, but it has absolutely nothing to do with actualy "wallet.wallet" files like the Bitcoin Core or Armory uses.

Otherwise who would be stupid enough to keep 1BTC if a wallet.wallet file in his infected online pc that is a major target to all kinds of viruses from faucet sites and malware?

It just doesnt seem logical to me.

First of all, it is wallet.dat not wallet.wallet. :) There are keyloggers which will save the password and then open it and next time you connect to internet, a TX popups in your wallet.


You can detect Trojans, worm etc... easily but it's hard to detect keyloggers and it appears most in pirated copies of Windows and Mac OS. You won't know whether there are keyloggers when you do a quick-scan untill you do a deep scan or untill you find a TX.

Well in armory its .wallet, but whatever i see your point.


People should use antiviruses in 2015, especitally if they store wealth on their PC. C'mon thats a basic safety protocol, nobody is dumb enough to ignore it?

Also when they download pirated stuff they should check the reputation of the uploader.

Even if they buy an original copy there can be some hidden spyware there intentionally put there by the governments to spy on people.

Many cases of firmware have been confirmed to contain surveilance viruses...

with bitcoin-core i can re-send without any conf if you have more fund than what you received, multibit does require 1 i think


there are anti-keylogger, or keystroke protection like zemana, which work really good

also leave a small wallet(little amount inside it) as a trap, to always now if your pc is secure

There's "zero confirmation" possibility in Core Wallet.
If you send bitcoins internally, (From one address to another) or If you want to send from a change address whose tx is not confirmed yet; you can send those bitcoins.
There's an option on the core wallet says; "spend unconfirmed change".
When you've unconfirmed change or self transaction that means you can send those amounts without confirmation.