How many confirmations does a transaction have to have for you to use your Bitcoin?
Sorry, my family and I are new to this
It actually depends on the wallet your transferring to and receiving from. If you're transferring to a blockchain wallet, I guess 1-3 transactions would be suffice while other wallets require 6+ transactions to confirm it.
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But why do I not see the funds in my wallet instantly?
There could be many possible reasons. The most common one is that the wallet doesn’t show any bitcoins with less than a number of confirmations (typical values are ‘3’ and '6’). Check the Confirmations for your transaction on the blockchain.info page. What does it say?
If Confirmations shows 0-3, the Bitcoin network is just slow, and you need to wait a bit more.
If Confirmations shows a higher number, then the bitcoins can be considered completely irreversible, in other words the transaction is done.
Every new confirmation needs 10 minutes on average. So depending on what type of wallet you use and many factors, it could take between 10 minutes and 1 hour before you get to spend the bitcoins that you have bought. This will be on average 20-30 minutes.
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Source:
http://blog.bitbargain.com/post/44501276518/how-long-does-it-take-for-my-bitcoins-to-arrive