How to confirm your transactions on mempool.space as a newbie

[Mr Reporter]

What's Mempool??



  Well from the little research i made the mempool is an (blockchain explorer) or an critical component blockchain system networks which in particularly it's know in the cryptocurrency worlds as a temporary storage areas which is used to confirm and unconfirmed transactions on a blockchain networks, as an cryptocurrency investor having to have a better understanding on how the mempool.space works can be of help to a newbies, this helps in the navigation of the complexities of blockchain technology transactions.

Why is the Mempool important to us??

The cryptocurrency mempool plays a critical role in ensuring the smooth operation of the network, the Bitcoin mempool helps manage the flow of transactions during busy times, before a transaction enters the mempool, it is thoroughly validated by nodes.


I think in this thread I'll likely want to  walk most newbies through on how to check a confirm or unconfirmed transactions in the mempool.

Firstly will like us to focus more on this part of the confirmed and unconfirmed blocks transactions   made by a user here is an image of the blocks



Let take a look at the left hand sides, we can see a Queues of the unconfirmed blocks.

                


Having a closer look you will see that the block that is closer to the line is the next one to be confirmed.
  
Here is a well closer view breaking it down in details




I will also want us to take a very close looks at some different between this block and the other one enclosed with much red in it body, if we take a deep looks on the both block it is because the content of this unconfirmed block  changes dramatically.
 

Miner's repriorilized certain transactions over orhers within a short time frame

 Take note of this  "the higher your transactions's relative fee rate is the more likely Miner's will process your transactions ASAP.


I no most newbies might be seeing this write up but do not really no how to figures out what are writing on the blocks so here are what it really means,



1. On the images you have been seeing this on the blocks "In ~ 10 minute" this means:from my own understanding i think this mean that you should be expecting the miners to confirm this upcoming block in 10 minutes as mostly be expected but its also an estimate most times, but some blocks can sometimes take close to 5 second or so to be mine, while other's can take close to an hour's or so.

2. On top, you will ll'see this ~ 68sat/vb: this mean an media's fee rate which is paid in every transaction made in a block, which depends on the higher the fee rate a transaction increases.

3. What are Sat/Satoshis?

This means satoshi per virtual byte it refers to the fee rate that a transaction is willing to pay miner to get confirmed.

in the cryptocurrency numerator it been called satoshi (or sat for short term)

4. Whay are vB/virtual bytes?

It been know as an block limited amount of space and transactions and data that fill up the space.

The "virtual bytes" to convert weights units back to bytes by dividing by 4.

If we take a closer look at the other  image on blocks transactions we can see that the upcoming blocks was 1.18 in size with 2,886 pending transactions.

How its been calculated

This means that the average size of each transaction was 409 virtual bytes. (1,180,000 virtual bytes / 2886 transactions).

We can get the median fee of each transaction by multiplying the average size by the median fee rate. In this case
Median fee rate = 15 sat/vB
Average size = 409 vB
Median fee = 15 sat/vB * 409 vB = 6135 sats or 0.00006135 BTC.

Now let take a look at the image and here is how the confirmed block looks like.


We can all see that there is not much alot of different and also instead of showing an ETA it now shows when the block was mined (12 minutes ago) and it colour are different.

Source and useful link

https://bitcoinbriefly.com/how-to-use-mempool-space-block-explorer/

https://www.rockitcoin.com/what-is-the-bitcoin-mempool/

https://www.rockitcoin.com/what-is-the-bitcoin-mempool/

[DubemIfedigbo001]

What's Mempool.space??

  Well from the little research i made the mempool.space is an (blockchain explorer) or an critical component blockchain system networks which in particularly it's know in the cryptocurrency worlds as a temporary storage areas which is used to confirm and unconfirmed transactions on a blockchain networks, as an cryptocurrency investor having to have a better understanding on how the mempool.space works can be of help to a newbies, this helps in the navigation of the complexities of blockchain technology transactions.

In addition mempool.space is a bitcoin explorer environment where people can view the status of bitcoin transactions. You can literally find out the position of you transaction on the mempool and if a miner has added your transaction in the block to be mined(you can know this when your transaction has some confirmations already out of the total confirmations needed to fully confirm your transactions).

It is also a storage space for unconfirmed transactions and where users can monitor the current acceptable transaction fees and block timing.

You could also explore the full bitcoin ecosystem from the mempool.space  and track both past and recent transactions. With as little as the transactionID , you can get all the details of the transaction like how long it took to get confirmed, time stamp, the mining company that confirmed it and even the fee that was paid, among others. example below

1. On the images you have been seeing this on the blocks "In ~ 10 minute" this means:from my own understanding i think this mean that you should be expecting the miners to confirm this upcoming block in 10 minutes as mostly be expected but its also an estimate most times

The time to actually mine a block can vary due to factors like the network difficulty, and even if the transactions has been included in a block, the miner must continue hashing the block until a valid hash is found and the time can be unpredictable. The miner who builds that block might not even be the person to mine the block. It is a competition and if other miners find the valid hash faster than him, then their block gets mined first. Every block that has not been mined means that the miner is still looking for the valid hash to mine his block, it doesn't matter the time estimate you see there.

[Zaguru12]

The time to actually mine a block can vary due to factors like the network difficulty, and even if the transactions has been included in a block, the miner must continue hashing the block until a valid hash is found and the time can be unpredictable. The miner who builds that block might not even be the person to mine the block. It is a competition and if other miners find the valid hash faster than him, then their block gets mined first. Every block that has not been mined means that the miner is still looking for the valid hash to mine his block, it doesn't matter the time estimate you see there.

Little corrections that block tag you see there (on the memepool.space platform) aren’t an individual miner block ready to been mined but rather it is the position of your transactions on the entire blockchain mempool. Each miner has their own mempool which is communicated to each node and it contains all the nodes accepted transactions, then the miner nodes have their respective candidate block which comprises a transaction they have hand picked from the mempool (the criteria most used is the higher the transaction fee the faster they pick your transaction, but this isn’t a bitcoin standard though) and then include it into their candidate block and it is this candidate block that is been hashed until the block hash is below the target and then this candidate block is added to the blockchain and communicated to other nodes. So this candidate block might not be having your transactions that’s already in the mempool, so transactions in the mempool doesn’t mean it will be the next mined, it can be pushed back due to more transactions coming in with higher fees.

What to do to avoid transactions not been picked for the candidate block is to use higher fees, for example if the mempool.space suggest that the average transaction fee to be picked is 1sat/vbyte, when broadcasting your transaction just simply use a fee above that average like 1.2sats/vbyte. That is why it is advisable to use wallets that allows customization of fees

Also there are other platforms for calculations of fees or block explorers aside mempool.space

[Pablo-wood]

Nice job but would have made more sense if you had used the recent block header in your illustration. In the example  669,215 blocks which was generated in 2021 was used but the current block header is 900808 which is such a big margin.


Besides confirming transactions the mempool is a platform to understand the underneath mechanism going on within the Bitcoin block structure. You can see the block size of various transactions, the time it took to complete a single transaction, number of confirmation a transaction has received, the next and most recent block, Mining agents etc. It is a rich environment for practical learning and understanding of Bitcoin technicalities.

[Fiatless]

I no get anything to talk for this post. Chei baba you put effort for this work and I learn plenty things today. I go still come back to come read this post again because eh get some things wey I never understand.  This post is not just for newbies; it could educate everyone. I usually go to mempool. space when I want to do a transaction or calculate my transaction fees. Thank you, Baba, you do well. Abeg manage one cup.

[Mia Chloe]

mempool.space is an (blockchain explorer) or an critical component blockchain system networks

 
Actually op , mempool.space is only a blockchain explorer kinda like a visualization tool. The mempool itself is the critical decentralized component of the Bitcoin network where unconfirmed transactions wait. The website does not manage transactions it displays data from the real mempool.

Queues of the unconfirmed blocks

 
Also op blocks actually are never unconfirmed Once mined blocks are confirmed. The image you added shows unconfirmed transactions (in the mempool) waiting to be included in a block. The next block visualization on mempool.space is kinda like an estimate of which transactions miners will likely include next , not actually a guaranteed queue.

blocks can sometimes take close to 5 second or so to be mine

This is very wrong op because in reality Block times are actually exponentially distributed  with around 10 minute average. 5 seconds is too small because the next block difficult is based on how fast the previous one was solved.

There are a couple of other errors you made too and I was a little lazy writing them all out because I felt many users here wouldn't appreciate it regardless. Anyways you did put in effort and I recommend you put in better research next time I'll like to see fewer errors. What I see after this post will tell if I'll probably explain more.

[Agbamoni]

There are a couple of other errors you made too and I was a little lazy writing them all out because I felt many users here wouldn't appreciate it regardless. Anyways you did put in effort and I recommend you put in better research next time I'll like to see fewer errors. What I see after this post will tell if I'll probably explain more.

OP is still learning but choose to share for others to learn, that is the first principle of learning (sharing).
There are some things he will understand with time.

blocks can sometimes take close to 5 second or so to be mine

Even on favorable network conditions the block cannot be mined under 5 second.

If you start seeing many block minder under 5 seconds, more often, that's a sign of abnormally low difficulty, a missive hash rate spike, or a possible test network. Very rare in the Bitcoin network.

[promise444c5]

If you start seeing many block minder under 5 seconds, more often, that's a sign of abnormally low difficulty, a missive hash rate spike, or a possible test network. Very rare in the Bitcoin network.

It is not possible to consistently mine blocks in seconds but a block can be mined quickly depending on luck,the average time remains 10 minutes which is why difficulty adjusts.

If the difficulty drops drastically due to a reduction in hash rate then it will still adapt to mining at that average time (10 minutes).

Miners have increased over time and pools of miners these days contribute collectively to solve a particular block hash target,the faster they solve it the higher the difficulty is likely to get after another 2016 blocks.

Miners want profit and the faster they can solve this hash the more profit they have so stronger hardware is therefore used to provide more hash rates leading to faster block mining and an increase in difficulty. Once the difficulty increases miners get even stronger hardware, this is why it can be very harsh for someone considering  solomining..

So technically if the hashrate from miners increases the difficulty will also increase because they will be able to mine blocks faster.

[Agbamoni]

If you start seeing many block minder under 5 seconds, more often, that's a sign of abnormally low difficulty, a missive hash rate spike, or a possible test network. Very rare in the Bitcoin network.

It is not possible to consistently mine blocks in seconds but a block can be mined quickly depending on luck,the average time remains 10 minutes which is why difficulty adjusts.

If the difficulty drops drastically due to a reduction in hash rate then it will still adapt to mining at that average time (10 minutes)

Not different from what I said recently.

I repeat very rare in bitcoin network, slightly impossible.

[Zaguru12]

This is very wrong op because in reality Block times are actually exponentially distributed  with around 10 minute average. 5 seconds is too small because the next block difficult is based on how fast the previous one was solved.

In reality it is not so common but realistically blocks can be mined within 5 seconds so OP is definitely right, in fact there are 1-3 blocks mined within same time interval with difference not far as milliseconds. The blocks that are mostly mined within few seconds like 5 seconds or so are usually empty blocks. In a clear example the miner can simply mined a Block say block X  and then another miner or even same miner  can also get to mine another block Y immediately by finding the block hash below the target just immediately and instead of wanting to include transactions they will simply propagate the block empty with only the coinbase transaction there for block reward, the reason for this is that they fear the block might be found by another miner they want to actually add transactions.

You know they will need transactions included in block X to be communicated to their so that they can remove it from their mempool because if they rush to add the transaction into their blocks they could end up having transactions in block X into block Y which will render the Block Y invalid due to duplicate transactions, so most of the empty blocks are found in few seconds and it is not a myth because they are common although less common so OP is actually right.

[Mia Chloe]

In reality it is not so common but realistically blocks can be mined within 5 seconds so OP is definitely right, in fact there are 1-3 blocks mined within same time interval with difference not far as milliseconds. The blocks that are mostly mined within few seconds like 5 seconds or so are usually empty blocks. In a clear example the miner can simply mined a Block say block X  and then another miner or even same miner  can also get to mine another block Y immediately by finding the block hash below the target just immediately and instead of wanting to include transactions they will simply propagate the block empty with only the coinbase transaction there for block reward, the reason for this is that they fear the block might be found by another miner they want to actually add transactions.

Lol... Do you know what it means to mine a block? It means solving and validating hashes till you get the target hash that matches the block header. Those huge hash rates you see are no jokes. They are needed for computing faster than you can imagine just to make sure it's solved within the next 8 -10 minutes window. 5 seconds is impossible because you are basically saying there are only 1000 miners in the network and the next block boom miners become 1000000 so the difficulty from the previous one will allow them solve it almost immediately. Infact after that block the next one will be so difficult the 10000000 miners will solve it in 8 - 10 minutes.
So in bold OP is wrong and so are you.
If you don't understand I could probably explain better to you.

[Charles-Tim]

Know that mempool.space is not part of bitcoin at all, it is completely different from the mempool. Mempool.space is just a bitcoin blockchain explorer, but it can also be used also to check fee rate.

There are many bitcoin blockchain explorers. List of useful Bitcoin block explorers

Well from the little research i made the mempool.space is an (blockchain explorer) or an critical component blockchain system networks which in particularly it's know in the cryptocurrency worlds as a temporary storage areas which is used to confirm and unconfirmed transactions on a blockchain networks, as an cryptocurrency investor having to have a better understanding on how the mempool.space works can be of help to a newbies, this helps in the navigation of the complexities of blockchain technology transactions.

Why is the Mempool.space important to us??

The cryptocurrency mempool.space plays a critical role in ensuring the smooth operation of the network, the Bitcoin mempool helps manage the flow of transactions during busy times, before a transaction enters the mempool, it is thoroughly validated by nodes.

Just focus on mempool.space as an explorer and remove all these parts.

[Zaguru12]

Lol... Do you know what it means to mine a block? It means solving and validating hashes till you get the target hash that matches the block header. Those huge hash rates you see are no jokes.

For this question, I will start by I am not a miner but my curiosity about mining bitcoin and lots of research have gained me some insight of how it works plus there are many miners on the forum that I have heard first hand reply from about mining. So yes I know how mining works Abstractly.

They are needed for computing faster than you can imagine just to make sure it's solved within the next 8 -10 minutes window. 5 seconds is impossible because you are basically saying there are only 1000 miners in the network and the next block boom miners become 1000000 so the difficulty from the previous one will allow them solve it almost immediately. Infact after that block the next one will be so difficult the 10000000 miners will solve it in 8 - 10 minutes.

Let me start with you’re wrong on many of your points there, first blocks aren’t mined within 8-10 minutes but on different time intervals in fact to be clear there are many blocks that have been mined in less than 8 minutes, even today there have been some.

Secondly you are very wrong by saying it is impossible to mine blocks in 5 seconds, I still reiterate that even if it is not common it very much possible to mine blocks in 5 seconds. As I gave example earlier the blocks that are usually mined in few seconds are empty blocks which only contains just the coinbase transaction.

How does empty blocks come by:
The large mining pools you see actually result to mining empty blocks because of the competition in the mining industry. Once a block is mined, miner needs to know all the transactions in that block so that they can update their mempool and also their candidates blocks, so as to avoid duplicate transactions. If the transaction they already have in their candidate block is already in the mined block they take it out and construct a new candidate block before the Merkle root calculations and then send this new block header to other miners to work on, all this takes time and instead of allowing the mining equipment standby they simply create a candidate block without any transaction in it which takes few seconds and they mine their block if they get lucky to find the target they simply mine an empty block.

Here is two examples
1. an empty block 800486 mined by Antpool which was just 36 seconds apart from 800485 which was mined by foundry

2.
Another block empty with header 628428 mined by Antpool which was just 6 seconds apart from the previous block 628427 also mined by Antpool.

So there are various example of these that you can find, more so

Timestamp you see do not give the accurate time at individual block level such block were mined much earlier but the time stamp was when the node which the explorer used got the mined block information

So in bold OP is wrong and so are you
If you don't understand I could probably explain better to you.

So in bold both me and OP aren’t wrong, rather you are wrong

For knowledge sake please explain better at least me and the entire board can understand more

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

You are saying exactly the same thing I said... The problem here is where I said it's impossible... The chances are way so thin that I had to call it impossible. Antpool taking advantage of an empty block is exactly my case scenario in the previous reply I made where it's very possible for the pool to use their hashrate as an advantage to solving the block.

For the record you should consider how many times it has happened and how far apart mining pools have been able to pull off an empty block Average it all up and you get a percentage way so thin that it can be regarded as impossible compared to regularly mined blocks so I'm not wrong plus remember the OP also said a block can take an hour to get mined...

Did some research and found:
Block 811,368 (Dec 20, 2023): Took ~80 minutes to mine after the previous block.

Block 779,533 (Feb 18, 2023): Took ~75 minutes.

Block 504,031 (Jan 8, 2018): Took ~119 minutes (almost 2 hours)

And this whole occurrence falls under very thin chances... The problem comes for the fact that bitcoin use Poisson 's distribution..