Bitcoin Forum

Sick of how long it takes to confirm a transaction. I even put a $4.00 miner's fee, and it is still taking over 2 hours for the second time.

Wish it could just be a little faster.... Am I the only one? Lol

Sometimes it takes a bit until a new block is found. No matter how high your fee is, thats just how bitcoin works. A block is found on average(!) every 10 minutes, but there is luck involved and thus it can take longer. Its been 44 minutes between block 348180 and block 348181. I dont even notice it anymore. I just create a transaction and do something else until its confirmed (if thats needed at all).

Post your transaction id.  One cause could be the inputs you are using.  If an input is from a transaction that has no fee and is not confirmed, your transaction can't be confirmed until that is.

I've been watching blockchain.info all day... The average time between blocks is in the range of 20 - 40 minutes currently. With an occassional burst of 3-4 blocks back to back under 10 minutes. 

Latest block is #348183. The block #348041 was ~24 hours ago. Thats 142 out of 144 expected blocks in 24 hours, you should probably check your calculations for "average".

Never said that weren't averaging 10 mins throughout the day, but they are absolutely ridiculously sporadic. Like if you take 348181, 348180, and 348179 and average them out, you get 23 minutes averaged between the 3 of them and 69.3 minutes from 348179 to 348181.

Sure if you cherry pick certain block you will find some that are far apart, but thats hardly typical.

#152218 and #152217 have been apart almost 2 hours. Naturally earlier blocks have even larger gaps, #27 and #28 have been >8 hours apart. The difficulty is specifically designed to keep the average time for 2016 blocks at 2 weeks which boils down to 10 minutes a block. It looks like the next adjustment might result in a reduction of the difficulty, but not by much.

-> https://bitcoinwisdom.com/bitcoin/difficulty

People who are “sick of the confirmation time” don't understand that you can accept payments with 0 confirmations just fine.

I have noticed that lately the confirmation times have gotten a bit random, sometimes they take forever and sometimes it's extremely quick, that said I've been using Bitcoin a lot more lately.

Except when you're working on somebody elses rules and waiting for payment to clear before you can use a service.

Still it doesn't help when you want to move your funds to an exchange or some other place that doesn't allow you to use your money without multiple confirmations.
I had a number of transactions with a normal fee, that took more than an hour to confirm, which is quite annoying.

This is not in the ops hand he sounds like the buyer so that would mean contacting the seller and saying look buddy just accept my bitcoin with no confirmations as i am sick of how long it takes to confirm. Not sure the seller will really care if i am honest, what do you think?

That aside it would be much better if more most places could accept with 0 confirms the only one i know is luckybit,  it can be annoying for me as well sometimes 10mins other times near on an hour so yeh op you are not alone.

You are not the only one.
I had it the other day when I was trying to buy from Takeaway.com.

I needed to transfer funds to the Mycelium wallet on my phone and it took over 10 minutes. I wasn't that bothered because I just did something else while I waited but by the time the funds had arrived the QR code on takeaway had expired and I had to generate a new invoice.

Yeah it is okey if you don't need confirmations but when you need them it can really be an issue. Wish that improved.

They are a wined up to say the least, i have had them take over 2 hours before for just one confirmation was kind of scared to whether they would ever confirm it and it was not a small amount so i was on edge for awhile lol You are not the only one who would like to confirm faster. I would have avoided paying the extra miners fee unless you are feeling generous because like you have found out does not speed it up unfortunately.

In my experience as a buyer, when I've paid for stuff online, I've never had to wait for 1 confirmation. Most payments went through BitPay, who gladly accepts 0 confirmations. The issue with exchanges... well, their business is to handle money, so it's reasonable for them to be totally sure they get the confirmation.

I can live with it. Some of the other coins can be horrific. I waited 6 hours for some NXT to show up on an exchange once upon a time.

you're in the wrong spot here. In this place everyone will tell you how happy they are with it and how it's not an issue and how it can't be avoided and how zero confirms are enough and what not. To be honest, i'd tell you i agree and prefer faster alts.  ;)
Bitcoin isn't superior to many alts. You got that right.

I've had the first confirmation take a while sometimes, missing a few blocks, but once its picked up it gets repeatedly confirmed with every block. How do you have 1 confirmation and then it's ignored for 2 hours?

LTC confirms much faster.

it is something really anoying.... I have always thought it is something that has to have a solution for a good future of the bitcoin

you can use this site to have an alarma when transaction is confirmed http://blockconf.openbitlab.com/

"Buy my LTC"

slow confirmations are annoying but complaining won't help you here.
some times it takes 40 minutes to get 1 confirmation, and some times you get 3 confirmations within 10 minutes.

Bitcoin is slowing down... Sell, sell! 250 and falling... :P

So what? Bitcoin network is much bigger that LTC so it is understandable that processed transaction per minute are much, much larger in numbers.
The only problem is when you are waiting for confirmation because you need to use your bitcoin already and you can use 'new' coins because they are not confirmed and frozen.

This is a disturbingly common misconception.  The security afforded by a 2.5 minute average confirmation block is 1/4 that of a 10 minute average confirmation block.

not only that one, actually almost EVERY fuckin' coin out there confirms faster

The thing is, if you buy a cup of coffee or a meal you would have to pay before you receive the food, to enable you to leave the shop after the confirmation was received. *joke.

It can result in some strange scenarios happening, if the merchant is full of s#%%&  ;D ;D

It's not a issue, when you use it for online purchases, and you have to wait for shipment etc... but it can become a issue if it goes mainstream and you use it for daily shoping and entertainment.

There is no reason to put in a $4.00 miner fee other than a thank you to the miners   ;)

.001 works just fine

https://i.imgur.com/OPXKVsj.jpg

Waiting For Bitcoin to confirm, so I can buy more Mintcoin with it which is 30x faster...

I think it's already fast enough.

We shouldn't be in a rush  ;)

Guys I hate to say it, but this new user is just trolling you. Bumping a miners fee to $4 wouldn't increase the confirmation time nor would the OP likely do that in the first place. He is most likely another lambchop alt, just ignore him now and be over it :P

Are you just trolling here?
A newbie with 2 posts decides he'll complain about the transaction confirmation time, while paying $4 for the transaction fee.
I would just like to remind you that banks' confirmation times are much greater than bitcoin's.

The average block time is set to be on 10 minutes but sadly, sometimes it takes a bit longer and may take up to 40 minutes.
But come on, you have to wait ATLEAST 24 hours in every  bank for an bank transfer and you pay huge fees so wich one is better? ;)
Ask yourself.

It's cuz it was preset by developer to confirm faster so stop talking about it like it would be bitcoin's faulut and make it look like bitcoin is slowing.
It was like that since the start and it's short enought time so what?
I don't see any big deal here.

That's because you're clearly not trying to use Bitcoin for actual commerce and trade, confirmation times are an issue, I understand the reasoning behind it because it's more secure but normal people aren't going to be very happy if they have to wait 10 minutes or more to place an order.

Wait 10 minutes to place an order? What reasoning is this? Once you have your coins in wallet you can use them. I mean online shops.

It's not reasoning, it's what I've observed and I don't know where you've been shopping but other shops tend to use Bitpay and the like where you just send them to an address, sometimes it's incredibly quick but the conifrmation times are pretty random even if they only ask for 1.

you're out of luck, I'm not selling LTC

but if I was a merchant selling a coffee, I would prefer 1 LTC, that gets a first confirmation while the coffee is being brewed, over .0082342 or whatever BTC that just propagated to the network

for larger transactions BTC confirmation time is not a problem at all and for small transactions, a good hardware wallet could just support an altcoin

BTC could remain the main store of value for a decade, while altcoins , used for small day to day payments, could rise and fall, without harm to anyone

Yeah ,its a major pain in the ass moving coins to an exchange and withdrawing them. This is why day traders tend to leave their coins on the exchanges, which is a risk because of all the hacking incidents.

To the sect that says "Satoshi got everything perfect", complaints like this fall on deaf ears.

To the rest of us... yes, it is an issue. It shouldn't cause any issues for online shopping and such, once more vendors accept it, but for in-person/point of sale transacting, the waits for confirmations will really hold it back.

And YES - I know that if we had an alternate crypto with 1 minute blocks, a transaction would be no more secure with 10 confirmations behind it, than 1 confirmation from the Bitcoin network and its 10 minute blocks. But to simply see it's been accepted into a block, for low value transactions, that should be acceptable to most. Many argue that for low value transactions, zero confirms are acceptable, but to me, that's unacceptable, and the only reason people put that forth is because of the 10 minute wait.

 But yeah. 10 minute block times only mean that thats what the network is targeting. Occasionally, a new block is found immediately after the previous. Other times, the time between blocks can be multitudes longer than 10 minutes. Not much you can do bu sit and wait it out...

What is holding 0 confirmations from happening? Because i feel what you are saying OP it can be super annoying waiting for a transaction to get a confirm and a little scary if you have a large amount try to confirm. Is there anyway to solve this? Because if there is not then we just need to accept it and move on, as long as you are not really in need like i have been in a poker tourny waiting for it to confirm so i could get a add on but is that confirmation times fault or should i have prepared and sent earlier, i go with the latter..

Again, merchants can accept unconfirmed transactions in this case, and they do in real usage.

Each confirmation on the litecoin network is much less secure and less certain to actually be included in the litecoin blockchain. Additionally the litecoin network has a much lower hashrate, so it would take a lot less for someone to attack it.

For both of the above reasons even having one confirmation on the litecoin network is generally less secure then having a 0/unconfirmed transaction on the bitcoin network

generally speaking, a well propagated transaction, with a 'proper' tx fee that does not spend any unconfirmed inputs should be considered to be "safe" after only a few seconds on the bitcoin network

I don't think it is a hassle since it would take a lot more time to move money from bank to other places while Bitcoins only take an hour or two max to get 6 confirmations. The past hacking accidents shouldn't be a problem if they choose a reputable exchange with fairly clean history. If an exchange  hack happens once, it doesn't mean other exchanges would also be hacked.

Usually it's not an issue for me. I will find my own stuff to do and when I'm back it's done. But however, if you are in a hurry, that will really get on your nerves and I believe that's the main reason preventing mass retail adoption because there's a need to have it done quickly and move on and out of the store with the product. So that is something we have to live on with it for now. However having said that cross-border transaction would be fine and there is where bitcoin comes in useful.

IT might be 1/4 as much security, but, at least for that first confirmation, you can at least see that it had valid inputs. That is worlds more security than accepting a zero confirmation transaction.

There is no need to cry over long confirmations times. As it is not that important in my opinion. You only need fast confirmation time in one scenario.
And it is when you have no coins at all and you are awaiting payment, and that not confirmed coins you want to use asap for other payment of yours.

In practical terms, double-spends (even without block confirmations) require collusion with a miner (specifically, the miner who mines the next block).  Good luck with that.  It may sound scary to accept payment with 0 confirmations, but it is by no definition risky.  If you are connected to the network and see the transaction broadcast, with no conflicting transaction immediately sent, then you can go ahead and make the guy's coffee.

Retailers know this, and they understand that the miniscule risk involved is absolutely nothing compared to the serious risk involved in accepting credit cards, checks, and cash.  Chargebacks are a way of life, and an extremely costly one.  Checks bounce.  Cash is counterfeited, more often than many know.  Who bears the brunt of these risks?  The retailer.

I see plenty of people bemoaning the 10-minute confirmation time. What I don't see is complaints from the retailers.

Are you implying that that there is a requirement for a miner's confirmation to verify valid inputs?  Any node can (and does, all day, every day) verify inputs before relaying the transaction.  There is absolutely no reason to wait for a block to be mined if all you're concerned about is verifying inputs.

Yes, indeed, btc has slowest confirmation compared to other good altcoins, like top 10 coins DRK and Doge are much quicker than btc with less than 1 min confirmation time.

But btc is the prototype of crypto currency, that's why btc still has biggest market cap even with 30-60 minutes confirmation time.

In the future, if btc gets wider, Doge will surpass LTC, i guess, LTC is the other slow coin with 5 conf time.

Think of the confirmations as a clearing house. Everything you do before is like off-chain and trust based, after the clearinghouse was at it, you know that its safe.

If you have some trust 0conf is no problem.

It is up to the service provider like bitpay and coinbase to solve this problem, other than bitcoin network. The latter ought to be supreme stable and anti 51% attack. So  10 min average is ok for me.

I have never had over 20 minutes for a confirmation.

They can't prevent double spend when there is a 51% attack. Any transactions at even 6 confirmations can be doublespent. They just take risk to confirm transactions with no network confirmation. By checking any competing transactions and made sure the transactions have propagated well.

LOL, but viacoin lacks of liquidity, marketing, seldom people use that, so there is no advantage on clearing house at all.

Quick confirmation time is important, but DRK and Doge is not slower than viacoin, and they two have much better liquidity and larger trading volume.

So viacoin doesn't have any advantages, clearing house is not a good choice, although I had tons of viacoins some months ago.

Good lord....

When I talk about clearing house I mean that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_house_%28finance%29

not a shitcoin

BTC conformation time is horrible. Especially when you are transferring funds to an exchange or something and you have to wait for 6 confirmations before you can spend your coins. Takes an HOUR at least. Darkcoin and the new instant X is awesome. Takes about 30 SECONDS for 6 confirms. so cool.

I agree that the wait seems a bit uncool. We want our money fast!  ;D

*Sigh*

There is no magic "6 confirms" that relates to all altcoins.  The strength of the confirm relies largely on the time of confirmation. That is why exchanges have different requirements for number of confirmations with different coins.  DarkCoin's "Instant X" is not a new concept.  The concept of masternodes is not new, and also cannot be compared with Bitcoin's bedrock POW blockchain.  It's closer to POS as each of those masternodes must "buy in".  Apples to Oranges.

We shall see whether it proves itself when the stakes are higher.

There's no need to stress over confirmation times. Did you know credit cards also take time before the operation gets officially confirmed? People just assume nothing wrong is going to happen, so do the same with Bitcoin.

People take credit cards without issue because there are issuing banks and a full blown network of support (Visa, MasterCard, etc) backing the transaction up. BTC has nothing backing it other than another anonymous individual's word. That's why when it comes to merchants doing fast transaction (in-person retail transactions or instant download transactions) would need to rely on something like CoinBase to cover and back the transaction.

If I'm not wrong, one can still charge back after a month or so. BTC cannot be double spent after one confirmation unless you have 51% of the network hashrate.

yes, really slow... if can send instant that will be good. but a hardfork might influence bitcoin value for sure . big time

Darkcoin, eh, Dash has been instamined and is 100% a scam.

If you're looking for quick confirmation times, Bitshares confirms in less than 10 seconds(All those full PoS coins do).

Im too scared of the fork effectively ruining bitcoin all in hopes to make the transaction confirmation times faster. I don't think we need faster confirmation times. Ive never seen anyone having a problem with a transaction not going through unless they did something really stupid (0 fees for big ass transactions or whatever)

You might need to read a bit more and less lolling.

the problem is not the slowness only, but the recently randomness(i hate that), due to those little bit diff adjustment i presume

this is bad for merchants

i guess its same with everyone .... we cant really help it neither we can do something to speed it up ...

I find almost every time it's really important I get a transaction confirmed fast it takes like an hour for at least one confirmation. The annoying thing is there is usually three blocks minutes apart before my transaction, then an eternity waiting for the next ones after I make the transaction.

Some exchanges only require one confirmation, in which case it can be fast, but it can take forever for the exchanges requiring six confirmations.

Considering that the algorithm relies 100% on randomness, if you hate it then you shouldn't be using Bitcoin.


For the third time, merchants can and do accept unconfirmed transactions just fine, unless you're selling a car or a house (in which case, the whole paperwork will take much more than the confirmations anyway).

you can use services like greenaddress.it

your transactions will not be confirmed immediately but they are are protected by both your signature and by a signature they apply when they get your permission via two factor. With this protection, comes the fact that people receiving Bitcoin from you can trust the funds instantly as they provide a 'special' signature to your transaction when you require instant confirmation.

For what purpose though? Other than to just be random. This is one of the biggest flaws with BTC and will probably be the ultimate reason that an Alt ends up used by merchants instead.

What should happen is if a block takes more than 15 minutes to find, the difficulty should temporarily plunge.

It's a real bitch. What the worst thing is is when it trolls you and skips over your transaction, and you have to wait until the next block

For mining. The proof of work algorithm needs randomness so that nobody can just start creating blocks every second. Please show me an altcoin that doesn't use randomness at all.

Also, how can that be implemented without a central time server?

Yes.

I have charged kraken 3 times = less than 1 hour (6 confirmations needed).

37 damn minutes without a block... waiting... waiting... waiting... still nothing.

Does each node not have the time of the last block? When the clock on each node is over 15 minutes from the last block, send out a request to other nodes to confirm that they too agree it's been over 15 minutes, if there is a consensus among say 60% of the nodes that the time since the last block was over 15 minutes, then temporarily reduce the difficulty until the next block is found; then it goes back up to where it was.

What happens if I'm a new node that just finished syncing, and receive a 20-min block with reduced difficulty? I have no way to know an agreement has happened, and will reject the block.

So? You'd be one node of the thousands... you're rejection should have no bearing on what the other nodes do... once the other nodes confirm the block and a subsequent one, would your node not then accept it as being part of the chain and move on? Seems highly illogical and a major flaw in the design if it wouldn't.

That means that if your proposal was accepted right now, there would only ever be 7118 nodes for ever and ever. No new node will be able to join because they see an invalid blockchain.


Highly illogical? It's the other way round. A node shouldn't care what the other nodes do, it should be able to validate the blockchain on its own. If not, then we start to add trust to the system, which is precisely what Bitcoin is designed not to need.

If you're tired of the confirmation time you are probably gambling and waiting for your deposits to clear...   
For most everything else it is not really a concern. I mean I could see how you would be tensely waiting for a confirm if sending millions of dollars worth of BTC in one transaction or something, but for everyday purchases and whatnot it's not really a big deal in my opinion.

Thanks btcbobby. Sometimes posting here is like talking to a rock  ::)

for a small purchase the security of LTC is PERFECT!!

now for a real estate transaction, the conf. time of BTC, compared to the fiat transaction that takes days, is also PERFECT

Jedem das Seine!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedem_das_Seine

LTC is supported ... by nobody. ::)
https://bitcoinwisdom.com/litecoin/difficulty

That is the thing most gambling sites you don't even need a confirmation and some others just the one that is never really a problem i am not sure why it annoys the op and some others i am not to fussed with the wait it should never be longer than 45minutes although i have has a few transactions that have taken a few hours that was annoying but it was a one off so not to bad.

Everything's relative.
 I got paid by cheque 2 week's ago and it took 10 days to clear in my Building Society account.
  >:( and the parasite's still had the nerve to charge me for it too. >:( >:(

Slow confirm times can be annoying sometimes, but most of the time it's not too big of an issue. It is usually less processing time than fiat methods of exchanging money anyhow.