Why six confirmations?

[WuLabsWuTecH]

My understanding is that with the current ecosystem the way it is the 6 number is pretty arbitrarily chosen (for 10% of the hashrate).  If elethria or Luke wanted to attack, 6 isn't enough.  But if any casual person wanted to attack, even 1 or 2 would be pretty hard to do.

I only wait for 1 or two confirmations before considered the funds in my pocket.  Is this a stupid idea?

[vm1990]

not at all i do the same 1 confirmation is enough to make it very hard for most people to undo the transaction...
even miners with extreme amounts of power will find it hard to undo the transactions.. after 2 blocks its pretty much sealed on the chain it would probably take 2 or 3 of the big pools to do a correction..

[wachtwoord]

I usually trust a transaction after 1 confirmation (zero when the amount is low).

[WuLabsWuTecH]

Ok, that's what I thought.  With physical goods that I have to ship, it's not an issue because it won't go out till the next truck leaves.  But for digital goods (like a voucher or Gift card) I just feel very silly sitting around and waiting for an hour for $20 to confirm so I usually send it after 1 or 2 confirmations.

But right now, I'm witting here waiting for a $5 gift card to confirm from bitmit and their "instant" delivery is waiting for 6 confirmations and it just feels really, really stupid...  Good thing I don't need all these GC's until Thursday!

[vm1990]

i think the only reason they still use 6 confirmations is because before the network was secured with a mass amount of mining hardware it would be easy to undo a transaction but to undo a block these days your talking atleast 60Th worth of mining power so its unlikely

[wachtwoord]

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Confirmation

[Birdy]

I only wait for 1 or two confirmations before considered the funds in my pocket.  Is this a stupid idea?

It's alright. If it's a really high sum, you might wanna wait for some more confirmations, just in case.

[quentinn]

I usually trust a transaction after 1 confirmation (zero when the amount is low).

Same.
Did anyone see any double spent transactions?

[wachtwoord]

I usually trust a transaction after 1 confirmation (zero when the amount is low).

Same.
Did anyone see any double spent transactions?

http://blockchain.info/double-spends