Hello,
I have made 2 payments via bitcoin-cli about 24 hours ago. One had a 120 sat per byte fee, the other one had a 160 sat per byte fee. The problem is that these transactions are not yet confirmed on the blockchain (probably because the 200k+ unconfirmed transactions).
More importantly, many of those 200k+ transactions are paying a higher fee per byte than yours are. If your transactions paid a higher fee, they'd be confirmed in a sooner block.
Now, I have 2 addresses with funds (0.1 and 0.2 both with 0 confirmations). bitcoin-cli shows a balance of 0.3 even if both the addresses has 0 confirmations.
Now, what happens if I try to spend these amounts?
That's a bad idea. You can try. The protocol will allow it.
However, your new transaction can NOT confirm until the earlier transactions confirm. If the earlier transactions become invalid, then the new transaction will also become invalid. It is generally a bad idea to spend unconfirmed funds unless you are very certain that they will eventually confirm AND you don't mind the fact that confirmations on the new transaction will have to wait until the earlier transactions have at least 1 confirmation.
Can I spend them?
Can you? Yes.
Should you? That depends on the specifics of your situation.
Also, if I set a higher fee (for example 6-800 sat per byte) for a new transaction, will this mean my earlier 2 transactions will also be confirmed faster?
It means that miners that have implemented CPFP will add up the fees of the new transaction PLUS all the transactions that it depends on. Then they will add up the bytes of all those transactions. If the fees per byte for the entire thing is high enough then they will include your set of transactions in the block they are working on. If they solve that block, then your transactions will all be confirmed.
So, whether or not they will be confirmed faster will depend on:
- Total size of your chain of transactions combined
- Total fees of your chain of transactions combined
- Number of bytes of pending transactions on the network that pay a higher fee per byte than your combined transactions
- How many miners and pools have implemented CPFP
- If any of those CPFP miners or pools solve any blocks any times soon
Creating a CPFP transaction with a high enough fee will certainly increase your chances of your transactions being confirmed sooner, but it won't guarantee it.
