Do you lose your coins if your transaction never confirms?

[kopipe]

I read this page: http://bitcoinfees.com/

And it gave me an interesting question: since we are allowed to broadcast transactions with less than the required fees, what happens if these transactions never confirm? Are the coins lost forever in blockchain heaven? Does the person who initiated the transaction have any way to cancel it?

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, I'm still fairly new Thank you.

[tinus42]

I read this page: http://bitcoinfees.com/

And it gave me an interesting question: since we are allowed to broadcast transactions with less than the required fees, what happens if these transactions never confirm? Are the coins lost forever in blockchain heaven? Does the person who initiated the transaction have any way to cancel it?

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, I'm still fairly new Thank you.

I once had a transaction that took two weeks to confirm. Eventually your coins will get there.

[kopipe]

I read this page: http://bitcoinfees.com/

And it gave me an interesting question: since we are allowed to broadcast transactions with less than the required fees, what happens if these transactions never confirm? Are the coins lost forever in blockchain heaven? Does the person who initiated the transaction have any way to cancel it?

I'm sorry if this has been asked before, I'm still fairly new Thank you.

I once had a transaction that took two weeks to confirm. Eventually your coins will get there.

Right, likely because of the "rogue miners" referred to on that page. I'm curious what would happen, specifically, if there were none and everyone followed the reference implementation.

This is a theoretical question.

[HeroC]

If it has 0 confirmations, I believe you can use Pywallet to remove the transaction.

[kopipe]

If it has 0 confirmations, I believe you can use Pywallet to remove the transaction.

Wouldn't you cause a double spend if you tried to spend the coins after this?

Which, now that I think about it, would cause both to be rejected by the network and the coins to be returned? 

[DeathAndTaxes]

If it has 0 confirmations, I believe you can use Pywallet to remove the transaction.

Wouldn't you cause a double spend if you tried to spend the coins after this?

Which, now that I think about it, would cause both to be rejected by the network and the coins to be returned? 

No double spend attempts don't cause coins to be returned.

However if you delete a transaction then your node will stop broadcasting it.  Eventually all nodes delete the oldest transactions so without continual rebroadcast the tx will simply cease to exist.  At that point you can create a new transaction.

Understand this is a hack and in the future you should follow network rules.  The default client won't allow you to send a tx which requires a fee without a fee for this specific reason.