More than 50,000 unconfirmed transactions

[1Referee]

Maybe we should add a "unconfirmed transactions backlog checker" on clients to warn us about the state of the network, and invite us to use a larger fee.

The core client gives you an estimate of how many blocks it will take to confirm your transaction and allows you the option of changing the fee to speed it up to a faster estimate.

It's funny how wide the guess range is that the client thinks you will need before it gets included in a certain block. In some cases it gives people false hope as they purely focus on getting their transaction confirmed within an x amount of blocks as suggested by the client. It all depends on whether the pools find your transaction worthy enough to be picked up. But it's not always the pools to be blamed for not including certain transactions in their block. I still find it quite shocking that some people include fees that are far lower in number than 0.0001BTC. They either have no clue of how the current network situation is, or they try to save out a few thousand Satoshi's by adding lower fees. Not sure which of the two reasons is worse.

[leopard2]

More unconfirmed transactions are good - more transactions = growth. It is growing pains, that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

BTC will be worth a lot more in the future IMHO. The block size issue will be solved. 

[mnightwaffle]

It was 57k unconfirmed transactions about 15 mins back and I thought it was getting better since everyone is posting about it being over 70k. Now, it is going back up. Crossed 60k unconfirmed transactions. Ive been waiting for about 18 hrs for my transaction to get confirmed. Hoping that happens in a couple of hours. It really sucks that it is taking soo long. Hopefully this will pass soon.

It was at like 69k when I sent.
Mine will be unconfirmed for 24 hrs soon..

https://blockchain.info/tx/93ed5db0182e7447716a43741858e132df845b1216e1c1958d50086e2c02b643

[erickkyut]

Sh*t! It's happening again! We really need to increase that damned block size!

I've been waiting for more than 6 hours for a transaction to be confirmed, and I'm shocked to see there are more than 50,000 in the queue.

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

We need SegWit, or an urgent block size increase. For the sake of BTC, something needs to be done, fast!

Wow! I think it is only a proof that bitcoin users are constantly growing in numbers. Bitcoin is becoming more and more popular worldwide! Well, there are advantages and disadvantages for this but let us just be positive always. I hope that by half quarter this year, bitcoin will reach its value by $1500 and expect a longer queue by that time

[mnightwaffle]

It was at like 69k when I sent.
Mine will be unconfirmed for 24 hrs soon..

https://blockchain.info/tx/93ed5db0182e7447716a43741858e132df845b1216e1c1958d50086e2c02b643

update:
used
https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/
fixed the confirmations...... good stuff 

[Wind_FURY]

Sh*t! It's happening again! We really need to increase that damned block size!

I've been waiting for more than 6 hours for a transaction to be confirmed, and I'm shocked to see there are more than 50,000 in the queue.

https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions

We need SegWit, or an urgent block size increase. For the sake of BTC, something needs to be done, fast!

Miners please activate Segwit already to free some space in the blocks to allow more transactions to fit in. It is far from what Bitcoin Unlimited may do in terms of block size but if the miners do not want Segwit then why is Bitcoin not forked to Bitcoin Unlimited? What is causing the stalemate?

[Bitcoin0916]

I often think that too many confirmation useless, one thing which could make the bitcoin not ideal so that there are opportunities for other coins that can be used to replace the bitcoin. I am worried that if it took 50.000 confirmations then how if 1 million transactions simultaneously? Of course one time transaction could fail.

[Riddikulo]

We would all love for the network to process thousands of transactions per second without any trade-offs, but at present, that is not possible. Simply increasing blocksize creates a problem known as "cost externalizing".

[philiveyjr]

It was 57k unconfirmed transactions about 15 mins back and I thought it was getting better since everyone is posting about it being over 70k. Now, it is going back up. Crossed 60k unconfirmed transactions. Ive been waiting for about 18 hrs for my transaction to get confirmed. Hoping that happens in a couple of hours. It really sucks that it is taking soo long. Hopefully this will pass soon.

It was at like 69k when I sent.
Mine will be unconfirmed for 24 hrs soon..

https://blockchain.info/tx/93ed5db0182e7447716a43741858e132df845b1216e1c1958d50086e2c02b643

Your transaction got confirmed. I'm a couple of hours away from mine being 24hrs. The estimated time on Localbitcoins suggests that my transaction might take up to 60hrs. That would really suck if it actually takes 60 hours for a confirmation.

Edit: now it suggests that it'll take 30 mins. (Suggests 63 hrs 5 mins later :/ )

[thepo1m]

More unconfirmed transactions are good - more transactions = growth. It is growing pains, that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

BTC will be worth a lot more in the future IMHO. The block size issue will be solved. 

This is not good, it frustrates new users getting into BTC, just imagine you are pitched that you will get 10mins confirmation for a service and its end up lasting 24hrs, you are going to be frustrating.  I just hope the block size issue will be resolved soon

[OROBTC]

...

I did a transaction today for some BTC0.33 with a fee of BTC0.00014 or so.  It did not confirm in the first couple of blocks, so I accelerated it with ViaBTC's nice little tool for moving along trx with small fees:

https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/

It still took a several more blocks, normally when I accelerate a trx it confirms pretty fast.  But this time it did not until ViaBTC won a block, and my trx was in it.

I like the tool, it's free.

But, wherever possible I am just going to put a fee of some BTC0.0002 or BTC0.0003...

[Windpower]

More unconfirmed transactions are good - more transactions = growth. It is growing pains, that is a good thing, not a bad thing.

BTC will be worth a lot more in the future IMHO. The block size issue will be solved. 

I didn't really think of it that way, but I think it is definitely the right way to look at this "problem". I was lucky enough to deposit into a couple of websites before this whole thing started to happen. But I don't think it is that big of a problem. It definitely shows that Bitcoin is slowly growing.

However, the problem is slowly getting out of hand and a lot of people are getting pissed off because they have to wait for such a long time to get into a block. Hopefully we don't lose some users because of this.

[digaran]

Why is this an issue now? there are always thousands of unconfirmed transactions the old ones get confirmed and new ones constantly being added.
Bitcoin network doesn't even have a second of down time or maintenance time .

Maybe you guys like to pay $1 up to $2.5 for transaction like in paypal? then good luck in using that crap easily like bitcoin, good luck getting verified.
Just try to pay less than 20 cents to get confirmed for sure.

For those talking about this issues destroy bitcoin and bla bla bla it is correct if legit TXs with recommended fee stuck and no one helped but any time I had delayed sent or received the mining community helped me.

[HabBear]

Let's hope so!

A price drop is exactly what we need, let's get back to $200...I have a hankering for a buying spree!

This is the Chinese Cashing Out before the Price Drop.

Longer you wait to do the same , the more capital you will lose.  

 

[Searing]

Why is this an issue now? there are always thousands of unconfirmed transactions the old ones get confirmed and new ones constantly being added.
Bitcoin network doesn't even have a second of down time or maintenance time .

Maybe you guys like to pay $1 up to $2.5 for transaction like in paypal? then good luck in using that crap easily like bitcoin, good luck getting verified.
Just try to pay less than 20 cents to get confirmed for sure.

For those talking about this issues destroy bitcoin and bla bla bla it is correct if legit TXs with recommended fee stuck and no one helped but any time I had delayed sent or received the mining community helped me.

yeah also unclear on this....

IS this a spam attack?

Something by the Miners to push the block size rise?

The structure of the fees being charged by the china exchanges?

The ASIC BTC miner gods hate us and loves 'tulips' ?

(probably a spam attack..just a pondering) (2 days on  1 transaction still unconfirmed....now by the by)

 

[Zadicar]

This is just an another spam attack on the network which do makes lots of transactions which is really a bit hassle because confirmation times have been more longer even you put up an higher tx fee. I suppose that the thing causes this spam attacks is from hyips which generates lots of transactions.

[Amph]

If what they receive in increased fees is more than the cost to spam the network, then it will probably continue.

btw there is a way to calculate this value? if this value is know senders can work together to have unprioritized transaction with lower fee than needed and thus making their spam attack cost more

yes you will lose the speed of your transaction, but the attack should stop eventually

[classicsucks]

Accchhh this spamming is getting to be a pain in the buttocks... Next time I will remember to always check https://blockchain.info/charts/mempool-size?timespan=30days before transacting.

A blocksize increase is needed. Fees need to rise a bit before that happens, but I guess the argument between core devs and their detractors will take another 6 months to a year anyway...

[-ck]

why do people think this or anytime mempool grows too big, that there is a spam attack going on!
I mean unless you can see the transaction that are spam you shouldn't just assume that.

in this case, there was an orphaned block (https://blockchain.info/block-height/449695) and then there were less than 10 empty blocks that day which causes lots of accumulated unconfirmed transactions.

The graph of rise in transaction sets at the time did not follow the normal stochastic nature of random transaction events. There was a perfect curve with a rise in the number of transactions starting from 2017-01-24 at 06:00 until it peaked at 17:00. After that there have been random injections into the network to keep the value high. The perfect curve is consistent with a single entity constructing a careful crafted set of injections into the network.

See:
http://statoshi.info/dashboard/db/transactions

Change the graph to see the last seven days and you will see why this is not just some random rise in transactions. There is also absolutely no reason orphans would affect transactions in any way you describe as bitcoinds would simply submit the existing transactions. Relatively empty blocks every so often is a common occurrence due to dodgy pool workarounds (see 10 billion other threads about empty blocks for explanations.)

[Pursuer]

why do people think this or anytime mempool grows too big, that there is a spam attack going on!
I mean unless you can see the transaction that are spam you shouldn't just assume that.

in this case, there was an orphaned block (https://blockchain.info/block-height/449695) and then there were less than 10 empty blocks that day which causes lots of accumulated unconfirmed transactions.

The graph of rise in transaction sets at the time did not follow the normal stochastic nature of random transaction events. There was a perfect curve with a rise in the number of transactions starting from 2017-01-24 at 06:00 until it peaked at 17:00. After that there have been random injections into the network to keep the value high. The perfect curve is consistent with a single entity constructing a careful crafted set of injections into the network.

See:
http://statoshi.info/dashboard/db/transactions

Change the graph to see the last seven days and you will see why this is not just some random rise in transactions. There is also absolutely no reason orphans would affect transactions in any way you describe as bitcoinds would simply submit the existing transactions. Relatively empty blocks every so often is a common occurrence due to dodgy pool workarounds (see 10 billion other threads about empty blocks for explanations.)

thanks for the explanation, I removed my post.
and when I was talking about the orphaned block I was thinking about something else. but looking at it again, specially since both blocks contain the same number of transactions with same size I understand it now

since I did not know about this site I was thinking the green rectangle in the pic below (were blocks are empty) was at the same time of the rise and it does affect but from 3k to 13K.
but it seems like they are not related since it happened with a big difference (right?):