Can a transaction be stuck in limbo forever?

[pereira4]

So let's say you are a noob, trying out Bitcoin for the first time ever. You have some dollars in Bitcoin and you want to send some to your friend to test it out. You see the "fee thing" and see how it gives you the possibility to put a 0 on it. He may thing "cool, this is optional it seems, it seems it will work if I put a 0 on it anyway just slower". But then it turns out the confirmation is stuck...

What happens to the guy's money? Is it stuck.. for how long? Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.

[okae]

What happens to the guy's money?

dont worry the money/bitcoin is on the blockchain, wont dissapear.

Is it stuck.. for how long?

hard to say, btw is not stuck, just "waiting" , you can check it at https://blockchain.info/

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.

hell, no, soon or later it will be confirmed.


btw, you learn the leson, dont use 0 fees

[SFR10]

What happens to the guy's money?
- It's still there on the process, worst case scenario it won't get sent to the receiver's address (happens with a very minimal chance)

Is it stuck.. for how long?
- For the mean time yes but eventually will go through and the time regarding it it depends on different cases I suppose

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.
- No, It can't and base on what I've seen on the forum, there were cases for few days and up to 2 weeks.

[pereira4]

What happens to the guy's money?

dont worry the money/bitcoin is on the blockchain, wont dissapear.

Is it stuck.. for how long?

hard to say, btw is not stuck, just "waiting" , you can check it at https://blockchain.info/

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.

hell, no, soon or later it will be confirmed.


btw, you learn the leson, dont use 0 fees

Thanks for replies. I am not a noob, I would never put 0 on the fees, but I was wondering what would happen because its a real posibility that has a noob you think its just some sort of optional donation. I just use the default fee as suggested by the Bitcoin Core, I have never used custom fees.

[neonshium]

In some explorers only last 2 or 3 days of unconfirmed transactions are shown.
I believe if the bitcoin prices go up, then the amount of satoshi required as  fee will be decreased. But price change is not a daily event.
If some one explains how long a transaction can remain unconfirmed if it was sent with very less fees like 100 satoshi.

[Xiaoxiao]

What happens to the guy's money?
- It's still there on the process, worst case scenario it won't get sent to the receiver's address (happens with a very minimal chance)

Is it stuck.. for how long?
- For the mean time yes but eventually will go through and the time regarding it it depends on different cases I suppose

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.
- No, It can't and base on what I've seen on the forum, there were cases for few days and up to 2 weeks.

2 weeks would suck on a large transaction.... Even 2 days is unacceptable.  Plenty of people put 0 in fees, this will be a problem.

[celebreze32]

What happens to the guy's money?
- It's still there on the process, worst case scenario it won't get sent to the receiver's address (happens with a very minimal chance)

Is it stuck.. for how long?
- For the mean time yes but eventually will go through and the time regarding it it depends on different cases I suppose

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.
- No, It can't and base on what I've seen on the forum, there were cases for few days and up to 2 weeks.

2 weeks would suck on a large transaction.... Even 2 days is unacceptable.  Plenty of people put 0 in fees, this will be a problem.

You can send the same transaction again with a fee above zero to cancel out an unconfirmed zero fee transaction. As soon as the second transaction you paid a fee for gets confirmed in a block the original zero fee transaction becomes invalid and will be rejected by all miners. Re-transmitting a transaction with a higher fee can also be useful for speeding up transaction confirmation times if you paid a very low fee for the original transaction.

[Blawpaw]

So let's say you are a noob, trying out Bitcoin for the first time ever. You have some dollars in Bitcoin and you want to send some to your friend to test it out. You see the "fee thing" and see how it gives you the possibility to put a 0 on it. He may thing "cool, this is optional it seems, it seems it will work if I put a 0 on it anyway just slower". But then it turns out the confirmation is stuck...

What happens to the guy's money? Is it stuck.. for how long? Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.

You better get used to see your bitcoin transactions in the limbo before they turn into real transactions... just think about the problem with 6 confirmations and the fee cost... if you think about this... before the receiver gets any of the bitcoins sent, (or should I say confirmations), they'll be stuck in the limbo...

[Mickeyb]

What happens to the guy's money?
- It's still there on the process, worst case scenario it won't get sent to the receiver's address (happens with a very minimal chance)

Is it stuck.. for how long?
- For the mean time yes but eventually will go through and the time regarding it it depends on different cases I suppose

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.
- No, It can't and base on what I've seen on the forum, there were cases for few days and up to 2 weeks.

2 weeks would suck on a large transaction.... Even 2 days is unacceptable.  Plenty of people put 0 in fees, this will be a problem.

It's actually quite easy to do a double spend and to get your coins recovered and like that you don't have to wait for the transaction to get dropped or get confirmed.

Of course, to do this, you must be using a right wallet and follow simple explanations. Even the people using blockchain.info wallet that is by far the most used wallet be my the new people (unfortunately), can import their primate keys in another wallet that will allow them to do a double spend. All of this can be done in less than half an hour.

[codishmumu]

Hahaha. Limbo. Where the good boys and girls go.  ^_____^

[maokoto]

What happens to the guy's money?
- It's still there on the process, worst case scenario it won't get sent to the receiver's address (happens with a very minimal chance)

Is it stuck.. for how long?
- For the mean time yes but eventually will go through and the time regarding it it depends on different cases I suppose

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.
- No, It can't and base on what I've seen on the forum, there were cases for few days and up to 2 weeks.

2 weeks would suck on a large transaction.... Even 2 days is unacceptable.  Plenty of people put 0 in fees, this will be a problem.

It's actually quite easy to do a double spend and to get your coins recovered and like that you don't have to wait for the transaction to get dropped or get confirmed.

Of course, to do this, you must be using a right wallet and follow simple explanations. Even the people using blockchain.info wallet that is by far the most used wallet be my the new people (unfortunately), can import their primate keys in another wallet that will allow them to do a double spend. All of this can be done in less than half an hour.

But if you do such double spend thing, what will happen with the first transaction? would be dropped, right?

[pjsonowal]

So let's say you are a noob, trying out Bitcoin for the first time ever. You have some dollars in Bitcoin and you want to send some to your friend to test it out. You see the "fee thing" and see how it gives you the possibility to put a 0 on it. He may thing "cool, this is optional it seems, it seems it will work if I put a 0 on it anyway just slower". But then it turns out the confirmation is stuck...

What happens to the guy's money? Is it stuck.. for how long? Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.

once transaction comes on blockchain , it will confirm off sure..
but it take times ,it depends basically:-

1)like how much fees you paid - a) generous(0.0005btc),it will confirm fast
                                            b) normal (0.0001btc), it will take a normal time like 10-15 minutes
                                            c) no fees (0 btc)  it will take about a day or 2 days

2)stress test or malleability attack may take transactions to confirm about 24 hours to 48 hours

But once it comes on blockchain and gets a tx ,it will be confirmed for sure..so your money goes nowhere...

[mezzomix]

                                            c) no fees (0 btc)  it will take about a day or 2 days

Wrong. It depends on the priority of the transaction.

[MikeCoin]

I have heard if you remove fees it will take a very very long time.

[Amph]

I have heard if you remove fees it will take a very very long time.

the only two times i've tried doing this, not on purpose it was a mistake, it went from 10 min, to 2 hours only, not a big deal

i never experience 1 day waiting or stuff like that

[Supercrypt]

I have heard if you remove fees it will take a very very long time.

the only two times i've tried doing this, not on purpose it was a mistake, it went from 10 min, to 2 hours only, not a big deal

i never experience 1 day waiting or stuff like that

I never tried with zero fees as I'm not using bitcoin-qt or bitcoin core. In Multi-bit or Electrum it is not at all possible to send a transactions without any fees included. During the last stress test I was forced to wait more than 6 days for my transaction get picked even I set 11000 fees per kb.

[Mickeyb]

What happens to the guy's money?
- It's still there on the process, worst case scenario it won't get sent to the receiver's address (happens with a very minimal chance)

Is it stuck.. for how long?
- For the mean time yes but eventually will go through and the time regarding it it depends on different cases I suppose

Can a transaction be unconfirmed for life? what then? scary.
- No, It can't and base on what I've seen on the forum, there were cases for few days and up to 2 weeks.

2 weeks would suck on a large transaction.... Even 2 days is unacceptable.  Plenty of people put 0 in fees, this will be a problem.

It's actually quite easy to do a double spend and to get your coins recovered and like that you don't have to wait for the transaction to get dropped or get confirmed.

Of course, to do this, you must be using a right wallet and follow simple explanations. Even the people using blockchain.info wallet that is by far the most used wallet be my the new people (unfortunately), can import their primate keys in another wallet that will allow them to do a double spend. All of this can be done in less than half an hour.

But if you do such double spend thing, what will happen with the first transaction? would be dropped, right?

Yes, eventually after some time the first transaction would get dropped. But you don't care about it since you have your coins already under your control or someone else controls them to whom you sent them to.

[teddy5145]

I have heard if you remove fees it will take a very very long time.

It depends on how many transactions are currently waiting for confirmation in the network
If im not wrong, when the blockchain got attacked by massive spam it can take days to send your money even with transaction fees
If you're not in an urgent situation you can leave the fees blank
Don't try that on urgent situation as it can screw you up

[randy8777]

as far as i know these transactions can take weeks to confirm, especially with so much unconfirmed transactions waiting there.

[MrsHash]

No, I don't think so too. Anyway, I am sure you will get you money sooner or later.