Spending balance with zero confirmations?

[alikim]

Will it be faster for somebody to receive coins if I send them as soon as I see the balance in my wallet without waiting for this balance to be confirmed?
That is in hope that when my balance has enough confirmations my send transaction will become valid and will be in turn confirmed faster?

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[HCP]

That is a "Bad Idea"™

If something happens to your incoming transaction (the sender double spends it) or it never confirms because of low fees, then your outgoing transaction will never confirm... It certainly won't increase the speed at which the person you're trying to send coins to will receive them as confirmed.

Just because your inbound transaction suddenly gets a confirmation, doesn't automatically guarantee that your outbound transaction will suddenly get a confirmation. It is dependent on network load and fees etc.

[alikim]

That is a "Bad Idea"™

If something happens to your incoming transaction (the sender double spends it) or it never confirms because of low fees, then your outgoing transaction will never confirm... It certainly won't increase the speed at which the person you're trying to send coins to will receive them as confirmed.

Just because your inbound transaction suddenly gets a confirmation, doesn't automatically guarantee that your outbound transaction will suddenly get a confirmation. It is dependent on network load and fees etc.

I see, thank you, so what is the best course of action then? Wait for 6 confirmations?

[Casy]

That is a "Bad Idea"™

If something happens to your incoming transaction (the sender double spends it) or it never confirms because of low fees, then your outgoing transaction will never confirm... It certainly won't increase the speed at which the person you're trying to send coins to will receive them as confirmed.

Just because your inbound transaction suddenly gets a confirmation, doesn't automatically guarantee that your outbound transaction will suddenly get a confirmation. It is dependent on network load and fees etc.

I see, thank you, so what is the best course of action then? Wait for 6 confirmations?

This depends on how much guarantee you want to have that the transaction is real and will not be double spent.
Typical values for the amounts of confirmations are 3 to 6.

[ranochigo]

That is a "Bad Idea"™

If something happens to your incoming transaction (the sender double spends it) or it never confirms because of low fees, then your outgoing transaction will never confirm... It certainly won't increase the speed at which the person you're trying to send coins to will receive them as confirmed.

Just because your inbound transaction suddenly gets a confirmation, doesn't automatically guarantee that your outbound transaction will suddenly get a confirmation. It is dependent on network load and fees etc.

I see, thank you, so what is the best course of action then? Wait for 6 confirmations?

What HCP said is correct. However, just to add on something. If you include a high fee on the subsequent transaction that uses the output, it can potentially get your previous transaction confirmed faster. Some miners have CPFP enabled and if they see that your "child" transaction has a high fee, they would be incentivised to mine the whole chain of transaction for you.

Just 1 confirmation, I've never really seen anyone double spending after a confirmation. The risk is there but its too small for most to care anyway.

[DannyHamilton]

If you are confident that the transaction paying you will confirm soon (It has a high enough transaction fee, it is from someone that you have a trust relationship with, it doesn't spend any unconfirmed bitcoins, it isn't marked as RBF, and there are no competing transactions seen on the network that spend the same bitcoins) then sending a transaction that spends those bitcoins before they have confirmed will likely result in the recipient getting confirmations sooner.  As a matter of fact, it's possible for BOTH the transaction you receive AND the transaction that you send to get confirmed at the same time.

As ranochigo mentioned, if the only problem with the transaction that you've received is insufficient fees, then you can create a transaction with high enough fees to pay for itself AND the unconfirmed parent transaction.  This will increase the chances that both transactions will confirm in the same block and that the transaction that you received will confirm sooner.

It is not necessary to wait for 3 or 6 confirmations.  If it is a small amount or from someone you trust, then 1 confirmation is generally enough to be certain that the original transaction won't be modified at all.

[alikim]

Thank you!