What we can do to confirm transactions faster?

[jaysabi]

I wish blockchain.info told you the size of your transaction prior to sending. It is currently not possible to tell how large your transaction is (as far as I know) for the purpose of estimating or calculating the fee you should attach. The suggested amount it uses doesn't provide the basis for the calculation either.

[zvs]

I wish blockchain.info told you the size of your transaction prior to sending. It is currently not possible to tell how large your transaction is (as far as I know) for the purpose of estimating or calculating the fee you should attach. The suggested amount it uses doesn't provide the basis for the calculation either.

your post made me check the whole 'suggested fee' thing.  

I am using (windows client) v0.12.1 and it suggests 0.00446029 BTC/kb per transaction for 'estimated to begin within 25 blocks'.  This was about a minute after block 456032, dunno how fluid that is and how often it changes.  The 0.00446029 being a bit bizarre since it's quite a bit above the 0.0020604~ that was paid for the cheapest transaction in 456032.  Cheapest in 456033 is 0.0015821.    Oh, it did just change.  Now it's 0.0045942.  Anyway, I sent transaction @ 0.0016001 and it did take 3 blocks to confirm, probably should have looked a bit longer, re; I based the price on block 456030 which was block #4 in a 10m period or so.

Transaction size -- the windows clients reports the total fee calculation and then you're given the option of sending or not, or at least it does with the custom setting per kilobyte.  Unsure if suggested setting does, as I've never used that.

[thejaytiesto]

Only small improvements can be made like segwit, schnorr sigs, compact blocks etc... those are ultimately optimizations and ways to "compress" and deal with the available blocksize faster. Once we run out of that, we need to increase the blocksize too, but it is stupid that segwit is getting blocked, we need both.

And ultimately, no amount of those will allow us to compete against VISA and other centralized payment networks without lightning network anyway. We need Everything.

[zedicus]

If you are not patient enough to wait until the transaction is confirmed. Try making your fees increased and do not base on the regular fee. But, if you are only transacting low amount. The transaction should be confirmed easily. But, if the transaction has a big amount, you should put a higher fees also to make the transaction faster. There are also other ways to confirm your transaction faster, you can try to look at this site:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/3-solutions-instant-bitcoin-confirmations/

[locopao]

Anyone tried this accelarator? https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/
Supposed to help transactions confirmed faster.
I tried it many times but i always get a "Submissions are beyond limit. Please try later" message. Does it really work? I don't know...

Also some people suggest to change the old school wallet such as multibit to a new one (ledger, greenaddress, etc)

I use multibit and the transactions take ages to get just one confirmation, even with higher than usual fees.

[AliceWonderMiscreations]

So, wait and pray when developers implement segwit and lightning network is the best?
I quess i need to start learning more about bitcoin code and try to write better code implementations myself...

That's a discussion i don't want to start, but yes, segwit, LN, BU are all options/directions. Each option will have pro's and con's.
For now, you can either pay more fees, wait longer to get your tx into a block, or switch to a stable altcoin...

If this is a spammer as someone suggested, and the spammer chooses to make TXs that are not SegWit or LN - wouldn't the same problem still exist? Even after SegWit is activated, isn't there still only 1MB available for the non signature part of transactions?

[jaysabi]

I wish blockchain.info told you the size of your transaction prior to sending. It is currently not possible to tell how large your transaction is (as far as I know) for the purpose of estimating or calculating the fee you should attach. The suggested amount it uses doesn't provide the basis for the calculation either.

your post made me check the whole 'suggested fee' thing.  

I am using (windows client) v0.12.1 and it suggests 0.00446029 BTC/kb per transaction for 'estimated to begin within 25 blocks'.  This was about a minute after block 456032, dunno how fluid that is and how often it changes.  The 0.00446029 being a bit bizarre since it's quite a bit above the 0.0020604~ that was paid for the cheapest transaction in 456032.  Cheapest in 456033 is 0.0015821.    Oh, it did just change.  Now it's 0.0045942.  Anyway, I sent transaction @ 0.0016001 and it did take 3 blocks to confirm, probably should have looked a bit longer, re; I based the price on block 456030 which was block #4 in a 10m period or so.

Transaction size -- the windows clients reports the total fee calculation and then you're given the option of sending or not, or at least it does with the custom setting per kilobyte.  Unsure if suggested setting does, as I've never used that.

I've noticed that the fee/b suggested by blockchain.info's is far above what you would think to pay based on information available from thsi site: http://bitcoinfees.21.co/  You can only figure out the fee/b though after you send a transaction because then you can see what the transaction size was, and divide it by the fee to see the rate. It doesn't often seem to be close to the site listed above. I think they overestimate though so transactions go super fast, which is good for speed but bad for cost efficiency.

[jaysabi]

Only small improvements can be made like segwit, schnorr sigs, compact blocks etc... those are ultimately optimizations and ways to "compress" and deal with the available blocksize faster. Once we run out of that, we need to increase the blocksize too, but it is stupid that segwit is getting blocked, we need both.

And ultimately, no amount of those will allow us to compete against VISA and other centralized payment networks without lightning network anyway. We need Everything.

Yes, this especially. Private payment networks run by Visa and Mastercard blow bitcoin out of the water in terms of speed and cost. The more I see how bitcoin is developing, the less I see it ever achieving anywhere close to parity on either of these issues. Which means bitcoin is likely, taken on a wider view, is a novelty or fad that is likely to flame out eventually. I don't predict that to happen necessarily, but that idea is not foreign to me any longer. I see it having merit and wouldn't be surprised if people become disillusioned with the unfulfilled promise of bitcoin and abandon it slowly over time.

[mocacinno]

I can also add that BlockCypher has created technology that enables merchants to confirm transactions in mere seconds with 99.9% confidence.
It is like Amazon Web Services for Bitcoin. Their platform exposes web services to help developers build, monitor and secure Bitcoin applications.

This sounds really, really, really strange to me... To get a 99,9% chance of getting your transaction into the next block (= confirmation), you'll need 99,9% of the miners to add this tx to the block they're currently solving.
This means that this company should be cooperating with 99,9% of the miners...

Even then, if they promise to confirm a transaction in mere seconds, they're lying. The diff adjustment makes sure that the average time between blocks is ~10minutes. This means that on average, if a transaction is in 99,9% of the blocks currently worked on by miners, it'll have an average waiting time of ~5min.

If you have a really, really high fee, your broadcasted tx will be added to most of the miner's blocks, altough i do not believe you'll ever reach 99,9%, since some miners (or pools) seem to be mining empty blocks from time to time... But if you add a ridiculous high fee, you wouldn't need an external company anyways.

[coinfirst]

The confirming speed is limited on the size of block and the block generation period if there are no seg or ligtht.

[X7]

Activate Segwit

[soy]

And second, what is the goal of a spam attack? What is gained by the attacker?

My favourite conspiracy theory is that it's some miner(s) who flood the network with transactions, forcing legitimate users to increase their fees in their normal transactions.

This works because the miner can just collect his own fees back. (of course only on the blocks they mine)  It also explains the hold up on scaling solutions.  Scaling solutions break their scam.

No proof, just fun speculation.

Follow the money does make sense.  

Reminds me of a national chain that sells a lot of nice Rhode Island Red chicks every year.  They lay eggs for 2 or a little more years.  While French Black Copper Marans will sometimes lay eggs for 5 years but you won't find those in the store.

[soy]

Only small improvements can be made like segwit, schnorr sigs, compact blocks etc... those are ultimately optimizations and ways to "compress" and deal with the available blocksize faster. Once we run out of that, we need to increase the blocksize too, but it is stupid that segwit is getting blocked, we need both.

And ultimately, no amount of those will allow us to compete against VISA and other centralized payment networks without lightning network anyway. We need Everything.

Yes, this especially. Private payment networks run by Visa and Mastercard blow bitcoin out of the water in terms of speed and cost. The more I see how bitcoin is developing, the less I see it ever achieving anywhere close to parity on either of these issues. Which means bitcoin is likely, taken on a wider view, is a novelty or fad that is likely to flame out eventually. I don't predict that to happen necessarily, but that idea is not foreign to me any longer. I see it having merit and wouldn't be surprised if people become disillusioned with the unfulfilled promise of bitcoin and abandon it slowly over time.

I'm getting on in years, retired now.  When I first found Bitcoin the quality of its limited total quantity seemed extremely attractive.  I mean that inflation isn't quite like hearing my grandmother in the late 1970's talking about NYC rent in the '20's but I have watched the money supply increase over the years, credit cards allowing us to spend tomorrow's income today, and dollars getting much less valuable.  How many countries have impossible inflation? Venezuela, Argentina.  And what's going to happen if Italy decides to get out of the EU or even just go back to the lira?  Or if a terrorist sets off a kiloton nuclear weapon in some major city?  I don't see spending btc on a cup of coffee but as a hedge against inflation.  That shouldn't change.

[dodgecharger]

If you are not patient enough to wait until the transaction is confirmed. Try making your fees increased and do not base on the regular fee. But, if you are only transacting low amount. The transaction should be confirmed easily. But, if the transaction has a big amount, you should put a higher fees also to make the transaction faster. There are also other ways to confirm your transaction faster, you can try to look at this site:

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/3-solutions-instant-bitcoin-confirmations/

The amount of needed fees to get tx included in the next blocks is not based on the amount of the sending, it is about the size of the transactions. More inputs or outputs will increase the to size.