Posted this in electrum thread but didn't get reply.
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However, each time i send the btc with electrum and put 0 for the miner's fee, it seems to take pretty long with certain sites. One site takes around 15 minutes for the btc to show up. However, some other sites would take 45 minutes all the way up to 1 hour or a bit more. They tell me they have to wait for 3 confirmations.
Does this mean the other site which takes only 15 minutes use only 1 confirmation or do they take 3 confirmation as well? If so, how come this site is a bit slower? But if i send the 0.0002 btc fee, does that mean they will get the 3 confirmations very fast such that 15 minutes my btc would reach them?
Thank you.
A possibility.
1)Bitcoin Core 0.11.0 introduced the option to change the amount of free transactions to be accepted in the mempool per minute. If the node has reached the maximum (Default 15kb/min, can be set), it would take a while for them to include your transaction into the mempool. Probably now the problem in your case. [Please correct me if I'm wrong]
The confirmations varies on a number of factor
1) Block free space. Each block by default has a space of 50kb for free transaction. The transaction with highest priority would be included first, while the others would be included last. If your transaction is ranked right after the last transaction included in the small space, you would have to wait for the next block.
2) Block frequency. Blocks are generated on an average of 10 minutes, it usually varies, a block can take anywhere from 1 second to infinity.
has anyone here done 0 fee and if so, how long does it typically take?
i have done it. i have record of ~half hour to 1 week for getting any confirmation.
It highly depends on the network load. The more the amount of free transactions, the more time your transaction can take.
So basically everyone here does 0.0002 btc fee then right? How long does it take for that?
with standard fee, the transactions usually take minutes to confirm
More specifically, the next few block. Again, there is no such thing as standard fee. The only kind of minimum fee is the relay fee, it is by default at 0.00001BTC/KB for nodes to relay your transactions. It can be changed on the reference client however.