Is it possible to send unconfirmed bitcoins

[Little Mouse]

I have received little bitcoin which is still pending, 0 confirmation. My employee has sent with lower fees which is the reason of the delay.
Now, I have to send payment to service provider. Can I pay from that bitcoin which is still unconfirmed? I don't want to face any stupid things, that's why I'm asking here.

[1715164327]

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[AB de Royse777]

Yes
If you are using Electrum then make sure you have Spend only confirmed coins is unchecked. You will be fine to spend them even they are not confirmed.

[bob123]

The transaction can not confirm before the first one does.

However, they can confirm in the same block and you are also able to already use that UTXO.

This is one way to 'boost' a transaction with a low fee. It is called Child Pays For Parent (CPFP).
If you need that transaction to be confirmed fast, create a TX using the unconfirmed UTXO as input and choose a fee which is high enough to pay for both transaction.

If the fee / size of both transactions is higher than other transactions, they will be preferred by the miner and therefore confirm relatively fast.

[NeuroticFish]

Can I pay from that bitcoin which is still unconfirmed?

Yes you can, just the payment will not be confirmed before your input is confirmed (however, they can both get confirmed in the same block). Or, if the input never gets confirmed (double spend or rejected by not getting confirmed for too many days), obviously your payment will also never get confirmed.

And if you want to help the input get confirmed faster, you can do CPFP as already explained.

[Little Mouse]

Thank you bob. One more question to ask-
Is it possible that if my employee sends another transaction with higher fee to my address (which you probably directed), will it reach faster? I'm waiting for the confirmation so that I can start working. But if there's any way of cheating, I would ask him to send again.

If possible to send with higher fee, what will happen to the current transaction? Will it remain unconfirmed forever?

Edit- Look like I have messed with CPFP

Yes

But still it is same, if previous transaction don't get confirmed, it will also not.

[bob123]

Is it possible that if my employee sends another transaction with higher fee to my address (which you probably directed), will it reach faster? I'm waiting for the confirmation so that I can start working. But if there's any way of cheating, I would ask him to send again.

If the transaction has the RBF-flag set (Replace-by-Fee), then yes. He could simply bump the fee.

If the flag is not set, you either have to do a CPFP or ask him to send another transaction.
But sending another transaction is not recommended because both may confirm ending up in you receiving the double amount.

So the best (and fairest) options are either a RBF by the sender or a CPFP by you.


And yes, he still can cheat you until it is confirmed.
If the RBF flag is set, he can replace the transaction with another one sending the funds to a completely different address.
That would be even possible without the flag set, even tho being not that easy to achieve.

If possible to send with higher fee, what will happen to the current transaction? Will it remain unconfirmed forever?

If you are refering to bumping the fee (i.e. RBF), nothing will happen.
The bumped transaction will confirm and the old one will never be able to be included into a block.

[Little Mouse]

Thank you a lot. Everything is clear now.
I was worried about the cheating from my employee and may be that's what he is thinking. I have asked him to send again, but he is asking me to wait.
Thank you anyway.