Bitcoin Confirmation Speed

[EdenHazard]

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.

yes its make sense,one of bitcoin problem is confirmation time,the fastest is 10 minutes,and its too long for buy something like candy or coffee,but i think its not a major problem,because before confirmation,the transaction will appear just in several second,and its also used on some site which accpet bitcoin,and its not matter even confirmation succes yet,but transaction was appear on wallet.

[langedwig]

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.

Bitcoin transaction confirmation differs on the extra fees you spend.
The more the fees the less the time to wait for confirmation time.
If you want to get fast confirmation include extra fees and if you donot want to spend extra bits just spend less fees and slower the transaction process if it is not for important things.
Miners wont confirm / include your transaction with a no fees / very low fees because they dont get any much profit. But if some miners take interest your transaction gets confirmed.
So it is a game of fees and miners.
You can today also get confirmation in seconds or 1-5 mins. if you include very high fees.

[Holliday]

OP has never used Bitcoin to purchase a candy bar.

[fenican]

Current block now over an hour... This is pretty darned painful since I'm waiting on a .5 BTC purchase to clear.

[Your Point Is Invalid]

No OP, satoshi designed bitcoin to allow for a block to be mined every ~10 minutes, that is 1 confirmation every ~10 minutes , 10 minutes is just the average though, i've seen huge variations

[fenican]

Ugh block finally solved after an hour and my transaction wasn't in it. Paid .0001 fee. Someone must be stress testing.

[n691309]

Sometimes it takes hours for a transaction to be confirmed but sometimes a transaction can be confirmed within 10 minutes, so more miners it will take faster right?

[Slaphead]

Ugh block finally solved after an hour and my transaction wasn't in it. Paid .0001 fee. Someone must be stress testing.

It was probably a 1MB block that was so full of transactions that there wasn't room left to fit your's in. After an hour's wait the backlog of transactions builds up. Usually the next few blocks are solved much faster than normal after an abnormally long delay between blocks.

[HarryKPeters]

I agree waiting so long for 6 confirmations is not tempting for merchants. And let's face it, 6 confirmations is a minimum.

For future usability I agree it should go faster.

[Cryptock]

Bitcoin speed needs to be scale up to compete with fast growing network of mobile pay around the world.

[zimmah]

Bitcoin is much faster than any other method except transferring cash by hand.         

Just like most other transaction methods the actual transaction happens after the payment is accepted. The payment is accepted in seconds just like with credit and debit cards, but with Bitcoin the store actually receives the transaction in 10 minutes instead of in several days/weeks (sometimes even months).     

So unless you are buying something really expensive you won't need to wait for the transaction to complete.

[Mark Frappeles]

Use bitcoin to buy a puny candy bar is a waste. Bitcoin was designed to support bigger transactions, not daily purchases.

For such small things you can use altcoins or other services like BTC credit cards

[ranochigo]

Sometimes it takes hours for a transaction to be confirmed but sometimes a transaction can be confirmed within 10 minutes, so more miners it will take faster right?

It depends. After the difficulty adjustment, more miners during that period would make the blocks go faster on average. If the hashrate is increased after the difficulty adjustment, blocks would get solved on average, 10 minutes if no hashrate is added or decreased.

I agree waiting so long for 6 confirmations is not tempting for merchants. And let's face it, 6 confirmations is a minimum.

For future usability I agree it should go faster.

Unless the merchant is super stingy and do not want to lose a single cent in their lifetime, zero confirmation is more than enough. 6 confirmations is to protect against double spending in the event that there is a block reorg. Double spending is hard enough after a confirmation.

[Luqman]

You can increasing the fees above the average fee for faster confirmations.. I think it will help you then just hoping for something never happens 

[biggbox]

I am looking forward to the next update to the bitcore core that improves the transaction & confirmation speed. If there is any short coming to bitcoin, it is the confirmation speed. Although there are "green addresses" which bitcoin payment gateway recognizes as valid trusted addresses, it is still not a standard implementation, iirc.

[Timeline]

I am looking forward to the next update to the bitcore core that improves the transaction & confirmation speed. If there is any short coming to bitcoin, it is the confirmation speed. Although there are "green addresses" which bitcoin payment gateway recognizes as valid trusted addresses, it is still not a standard implementation, iirc.

Nice to hear transaction speed is being improved with core update. I have always thought slow transaction times and tps rate are bitcoins weakness.

[1Referee]

Sometimes it takes hours for a transaction to be confirmed but sometimes a transaction can be confirmed within 10 minutes, so more miners it will take faster right?

It all depends on your transaction. If the priority is low and you add for example a fee of 0.00001, then yes, you may have to wait hours for your transaction to confirm.

I once did a test with sending a few bitcoins that were sitting in one of my cold wallets for over a year without a fee, and they got confirmed within the first block. I also tested to send around 0.5BTC that was sitting just 1 day in my wallet without a fee. It took 82 blocks to confirm. I have to mention that it was a transaction where several smaller inputs were combined into 1 output. Priority is important. The longer your coins sit in your wallet, the earlier your transaction will confirm, even with a relatively small fee. Just make sure you add a fee.

[biggbox]

If Bitcoin want to be seen as a good alternative to fiat payments, then it has to be able to be as efficient as fiat payments. A credit card transaction or a debit card transaction is almost instant. Payment using RFID is also almost instant. Yes there might be lag due to festive period but transaction gets cleared and purchasers are able to have a printed receipt, see amount transacted and see gain loyalty points or credit card points.

Meanwhile, bitcoin transaction could be delayed due to network heavy usage.... During festive period where queue is long, do you expect consumers to wait in line to get confirmation cleared?

[johnyj]

Coffe or candy bar analogy is totally non-sense, forget about it. No shops will allow you to do that since the exchange fee to convert bitcoin into and out of fiat money is much larger than the sale they get from coffee or candy bar, only large transactions are interested for merchants

[ranochigo]

If Bitcoin want to be seen as a good alternative to fiat payments, then it has to be able to be as efficient as fiat payments. A credit card transaction or a debit card transaction is almost instant. Payment using RFID is also almost instant. Yes there might be lag due to festive period but transaction gets cleared and purchasers are able to have a printed receipt, see amount transacted and see gain loyalty points or credit card points.

Meanwhile, bitcoin transaction could be delayed due to network heavy usage.... During festive period where queue is long, do you expect consumers to wait in line to get confirmation cleared?

Bitcoin transactions are instant. Credit cards and debit cards are reversible for up to months. Does everyone stay in the line for months for it to be irreversible? Zero confirmation Bitcoin transactions are very very hard to reverse as long as precautions are taken. If the merchant integrate Bitcoin into their POS systems and payments would just be like fiat and credit cards.

For loyalty point, you would need to have a card or an app on your phone. Bitcoin payments can use this too.