Bitcoin Confirmation Speed

[shanerc563]

Is there any chance that the confirmation process will pick up in speed here in the future?  I think some people are not accepting them because the time it takes to confirm a transaction.  I know I do not want to be standing in a store for 20 minutes or longer to wait for a candy bar.

[StevenS]

This has been discussed countless times on this forum.

The answer is that if the transaction is for less than the price of an automobile, the vendor will not wait for a confirmation, but will only wait until the transaction reaches the Bitcoin network, which takes only seconds.

[randy8777]

bitcoin is perfect for online payments. if you want to pay in a physical store, then the confirmations aren't a real problem as long as the amount is lower than $20-$30. then you can do payments without needing to wait for confirmations.

[franky1]

Is there any chance that the confirmation process will pick up in speed here in the future?  I think some people are not accepting them because the time it takes to confirm a transaction.  I know I do not want to be standing in a store for 20 minutes or longer to wait for a candy bar.

when there is a fix for malleability (preventing messing with transactions before confirmation) then people can send and not need to wait for confirmations on small priced goods.

some fixes range from mining pools dropping tx's if a existant tx exists using the same origin funds (that way 2 tx's using same funds cant both wait for confirmation)
some fixes range from locking funds into bots and then moving around in offchain channels freely, and then be confirmed later when the channel closes and all senders-receivers are settled.
some fixes involve using exchanges internal 'trade keys' or usernames for people to send funds to eachother within an exchange
some fixes involve raising the blocksize limit so that miners have no excuse holding peoples tx's to ransom, and all tx's can be confirmed in 10 minutes or less
some fixes involve retailers accepting altcoins (sidechains) to have improved confirmation times and less bottleneck

but if your asking will bitcoins average blocksolving time go from 10 minutes to, lets say 2m:30s or 1m:15s... um no. as that would cause to much issues in regards to difficulty changes, reward halving times, rewards and mining hardware

[Amph]

it will be solved with sidechain i guess, i see no other way to solve this "issue" because there will be no hard fork for this ever, pretty much like the 21M limit

[NorrisK]

This is a myth that should be busted as soon as possible.. Confirmation speed has nothing to do with waiting in line for a payment of something small like a candy bar.. You don't need confirmations to know that the transaction is coming, you will know that right after the transaction is broadcasted. Only in very rare cases the transaction will not happen and this risk is perfectly acceptable for groceries. Shop lifting is probably a bigger problem than people abusing this method.

[MaxTax]

This is a myth that should be busted as soon as possible.. Confirmation speed has nothing to do with waiting in line for a payment of something small like a candy bar.. You don't need confirmations to know that the transaction is coming, you will know that right after the transaction is broadcasted. Only in very rare cases the transaction will not happen and this risk is perfectly acceptable for groceries. Shop lifting is probably a bigger problem than people abusing this method.

This is true, it goes the same way with banks. If you pay with your card in store, the money doesn't transfer immediately. It can take up to a week for the money to be transferred over. You wouldn't stand in the grocery store for a week now, would you?

[TastyChillySauce00]

i dont think the price will get confirmed and take times more than 20 minutes if you put the fees correctly or above than average, or blockchain just down for a while

[elizabethqueen]

This has been discussed countless times on this forum.

The answer is that if the transaction is for less than the price of an automobile, the vendor will not wait for a confirmation, but will only wait until the transaction reaches the Bitcoin network, which takes only seconds.

All the points are on above statement.
We dont need to wait the confirmaton completed to 10-50 confirmatoon for just a little amount coin.
The vendor will have their own rules, if the amount we sent already reached the network, possibility to get canceled almost 0%.

[DarkHyudrA]

Understand that when someone realys the transaction that more than enough to know that the seller will receive the money.
The conformations are just the way to register the transaction so the seller can use the money.

[ranochigo]

Currently, reference implementation does not relay transactions with inputs that have been seen in their mempool. This helps to reduce the chance of double spends proporgating. Most bigger miners do not use RBF anymore, FSSRBF is the better alternative since it doesn't allow users to create a malicious double spend. If majority of the miners adopt this and CPFP, it is safe to accept 0 confirmation transactions as long as the inputs are confirmed, there is no competing transactions, there is sufficient fee and bigger mining pools have seen it.

To the topic, confirmation times depends on time between blocks. Only when a block is mined, the transaction will gain a confirmation. Block times should not be changed, it would only decrease the security. Increase of block size would allow more transactions to fit into a block however.

[kpitti]

Is there any chance that the confirmation process will pick up in speed here in the future?  I think some people are not accepting them because the time it takes to confirm a transaction.  I know I do not want to be standing in a store for 20 minutes or longer to wait for a candy bar.

There is not realy necessary to stand and wait for number of confirmations. When transaction is broadcast, then it`s visible as incomming. This is within a second.
It depends how owner of the shop will implement confirmation system to trust that transaction.

[knightkon]

I understand and agree with most of what is being said on here about this topic, but these answers bring this conversation back around to the fact that if these purchases are not confirmed there is a chance that someone could possibly double spend before confirmation.  I know this risk is low, but that risk is why a number of vendors will not accept Bitcoin as payment currency.

[rik3]

Is there any chance that the confirmation process will pick up in speed here in the future?  I think some people are not accepting them because the time it takes to confirm a transaction.  I know I do not want to be standing in a store for 20 minutes or longer to wait for a candy bar.

yup its true the biggest problem with bitcoin is its confermation time that is the thing we can't avoid but i think we can avoid it a little if we do the transfer into the same wallet network with no fees and time as for example lets take it i am sending a balance to others electrum wallet with my electrum wallet so we are using the same wallet and that why we don't have to pay any tax or wait to get confirmed.sorry but take it as only a example

[knightkon]

Is there any chance that the confirmation process will pick up in speed here in the future?  I think some people are not accepting them because the time it takes to confirm a transaction.  I know I do not want to be standing in a store for 20 minutes or longer to wait for a candy bar.

yup its true the biggest problem with bitcoin is its confermation time that is the thing we can't avoid but i think we can avoid it a little if we do the transfer into the same wallet network with no fees and time as for example lets take it i am sending a balance to others electrum wallet with my electrum wallet so we are using the same wallet and that why we don't have to pay any tax or wait to get confirmed.sorry but take it as only a example

I think I am understanding you correctly and you are on the right track; however, as a business owner, you can not control what wallets that your customer uses and if you try, you will be failing yourself in the terms that you limit your customer basis that want to pay with BTC but do not use your wallet choice.

[ranochigo]

I understand and agree with most of what is being said on here about this topic, but these answers bring this conversation back around to the fact that if these purchases are not confirmed there is a chance that someone could possibly double spend before confirmation.  I know this risk is low, but that risk is why a number of vendors will not accept Bitcoin as payment currency.

It is possible. If you actually weight the benefits vs the caveats, accepting Bitcoin would turn out to be better. When accepting fiat, there is a risk of accepting counterfeit notes. When accepting Credit and debit cards, the merchant have to pay a fee to the payment processors. With Bitcoin, it is easy to set up with Bitpay with very low fees.

[helloeverybody]

For me confirmation speed is fine since ive never actually had to wait for a single confirmation. most people dont unless you are talking about stupid amounts of money.

[DarkHyudrA]

I understand and agree with most of what is being said on here about this topic, but these answers bring this conversation back around to the fact that if these purchases are not confirmed there is a chance that someone could possibly double spend before confirmation.  I know this risk is low, but that risk is why a number of vendors will not accept Bitcoin as payment currency.

Double spend a transaction is not that easy.
Even more if you pay with a smartphone in the front of the guy that is selling you the candy bar.

Of course, you're going to buy a house or a car, the seller will probably request to wait 1~6 confirmations since its risky and the value is high.

[blackmachinegun]

i dont think the price will get confirmed and take times more than 20 minutes if you put the fees correctly or above than average, or blockchain just down for a while

many people choose bitcoin because fast sending and no fee costs?
what if all of it is gone from bitcoin? of course it is very annoying right

[knightkon]

I understand and agree with most of what is being said on here about this topic, but these answers bring this conversation back around to the fact that if these purchases are not confirmed there is a chance that someone could possibly double spend before confirmation.  I know this risk is low, but that risk is why a number of vendors will not accept Bitcoin as payment currency.

It is possible. If you actually weight the benefits vs the caveats, accepting Bitcoin would turn out to be better. When accepting fiat, there is a risk of accepting counterfeit notes. When accepting Credit and debit cards, the merchant have to pay a fee to the payment processors. With Bitcoin, it is easy to set up with Bitpay with very low fees.

The benefits are more when comparing it to almost any form of currency, but it is hard to try to convince small business owners of this.  They are always looking for the most secure way to protect themselves adn many of them just do nto understand that Bitcoin is one of the most secure ways to accept payment if not the most secure.