How many confirmations are equivalent* to 6 Bitcoin confirmations?

[Yaunfitda]

How many confirmations are equivalent* to 6 Bitcoin confirmations?

You will be surprised,  

https://howmanyconfs.com
How are these values calculated?

It's easy to compare blockchain hashrates when the Proof-of-Work algorithm is the same. For example if Bitcoin has a hashrate of SHA-256 @ 40 PH/s and Bitcoin Cash has a hashrate of SHA-256 @ 2 PH/s, it's easy to see that for a given period of time the Bitcoin blockchain will have 20x (40/2) the amount of work securing it than the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Or to say that differently, you need to wait for 20x more Bitcoin Cash confirmations before an equivalent amount of work has been done compared to the Bitcoin blockchain. So 6 Bitcoin confirmations would be roughly equivalent to 120 Bitcoin Cash confirmations in the amount of work done.

However if the Proof-of-Work algorithms are different, how can we compare the hashrate? If we're comparing Bitcoin (SHA-256 @ 40 PH/s) against Litecoin (Scrypt @ 300 TH/s), the hashes aren't equal, one round of SHA-256 is not equivalent to one round of Scrypt.

What we really want to know is how much energy is being consumed to provide the current hash rate. Literal energy, as in joules or kilowatt hours. It would be great if we had a universal metric across blockchains like kWh/s to measure immutability.

However that's fairly hard to calculate, we need to know the average power consumption of the average device used to mine. For GPU/CPU mined Proof-of-Work algorithms this varies greatly. For ASIC mined Proof-of-Work algorithms it varies less, however it's likely that ASIC manufacturers are mining with next generation hardware long before the public is made aware of them, which we can't account for.

There's no automated way to get this data and no reliable data source to scrape it from. We'd need to manually research all mining hardware and collate the data ourself. And as soon as newer mining hardware comes out our results will be outdated.

Is there a simpler way to get an estimated amount of work per blockchain in a single metric we can use for comparisons?

Yeah, there is, we can use NiceHash prices to estimate the cost in $ to secure a blockchain for a given timeframe. This is directly comparable across blockchains and should be directly proportionate to kWh/s, because after all, the energy needs to be paid for in $.

How can we estimate this?

Get the blockchains Proof-of-Work algorithm
Lookup the average price per hash on NiceHash for this algorithm
Multiply price per hash by total hashrate per second
Now we have an estimated total Proof-of-Work metric measured in dollars per second ($/s).

The $/s metric may not be that accurate. Miners will mark up the cost when reselling on NiceHash and we're making the assumption that NiceHash supply is infinite. You can't actually rent 100% of Bitcoin's hashpower from NiceHash, there isn't enough supply.

However that's not really an issue for this metric, we aren't trying to calculate the theoretical cost to rent an additional 100% of the hashrate, we're trying to get a figure that allows us to compare the cost of the current total hashrate accross blockchains. Even if the exact $ value we end up with is not that accurate, it should still be proportionate to kWh/s. This means it's still an accurate metric to compare the difference in work done over a given amount of time between blockchains.

So how do we compare these values between blockchains?

Once we've done the above calculations and got a $/s cost for each blockchain, we just need to factor in the average block time and calculate the total $ cost for a given number of confirmations. Then see how much time is required on the other blockchain at it's $/s value to equal the total cost.

So to calculate how many Litecoin confirmations are equivalent to 6 Bitcoin confirmations we would do:

Bitcoin (SHA-256 @ 40 PH/s) or ($100/s)
Litecoin (Scrypt @ 300 TH/s) or ($10/s)
Bitcoin's average block time is 10 minutes (600 seconds)
6 Bitcoin confirmations on average is 60 minutes (3,600 seconds)
Bitcoin's total $ cost for 6 confirmations is ($100 * 3,600 seconds) $360,000
At Litecoin's hashrate of $10/s it would take ($360,000 / $10) 36,000 seconds (10 hours) to complete an equivalent amount of work
Litecoin's average block time is 2.5 minutes (150 seconds)
The amount of Litecoin blocks expected over this period of time is (36,000 seconds / 150 seconds) 240 blocks.
Therefore we can say that 240 Litecoin confirmations are roughly equal to 6 Bitcoin confirmations in total amount of work done.

https://github.com/lukechilds/howmanyconfs.com

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[pooya87]

this was good information, thanks for sharing. unfortunately i am out of merits to give to you.
i have been saying the same thing for a long time now, but i usually use the exchange deposits as a simple verifiable source of information although it is not accurate. for example if the exchange needs 6 confirmation for bitcoin, it needs 1000 for another altcoin and it shows the insecurity of that altcoin chain.

additionally another factor that is usually overlooked is the "immutability of the blockchain" of that altcoin not based on 51% attacks but based on roll backs. being immutable simply means when a block is found and chain grows after that, it won't be rolled back and undone after a while.
a good example would be both ethereum and bitcoincash both of which have performed roll backs to undo certain mess-ups and reverse their transactions and they succeeded because of their centralization.
that means if your transaction has x number of confirmation you still can't trust it because they can repeat the roll back if they wish to.

[AB de Royse777]

this was good information, thanks for sharing. unfortunately i am out of merits to give to you.

I got your back.
@OP, I was really ignorant about the topic idea. It was a good read for me.
Cheers,

[adaseb]

I am pretty sure besides Bitcoin and Ethereum most of the other coins which are proof of work can easily get 51% attacked if their prices keep decresing and they result in a large amount of miners leaving the network. Exchanges know this and this is why besides ETH/BTC most of the other alts require large amounts of confirmations in the off chance that there is a 51% attack or some chain re-org, and this has happened in the past actually.

I think it was Bitcoin Gold or Ethereum Classic which had a chain re-org and many exchanges had to halt deposits/withdraws and basically some exchanges ended up getting double spent and resulted in losses. So the solution was just to increase the amount of required confirmations.

With Bitcoin you will find many exchanges and services that only require 1 confirmation, many alts are not like that.

[o_e_l_e_o]

I think it was Bitcoin Gold or Ethereum Classic which had a chain re-org

The only reason Ethereum Classic even exists is because Ethereum hard-forked to undo a transaction. Not quite a 51% attack, but effectively the same outcome - a group of users decided they didn't agree with a transaction and so conspired together to undo it.

Bitcoin Gold has been successfully 51% attacked, and was delisted from several exchanges because of it.

Even BCash was successfully 51% attacked earlier this year: https://www.coindesk.com/bitcoin-cash-miners-undo-attackers-transactions-with-51-attack.

Why anyone holds any major amounts of these altcoins is beyond me. It has been proven that an unknown entity can reverse your transactions at their will and there is nothing you can do about it. This is even less decentralized than a fiat bank, who at least have some rules and oversight as to what they can and cannot do.

[NeuroticFish]

How many confirmations are equivalent* to 6 Bitcoin confirmations?

You will be surprised,  

Great list and nice image of the reality! I guess that this topic will get quoted a lot against the cheap "fast coins" rhetoric. (I did bookmark it.)

unfortunately i am out of merits to give to you.

Don't worry, posts like this have no chance to stay unmerited.

[Dabs]

It's been known, and which is why many sites will have no problems accepting even just 1 confirmation. Some merchants even accept zero confs so long as certain criteria are met in the transaction, particularly if fees were paid and no double spends were detected in a few seconds.

[BrewMaster]

I think it was Bitcoin Gold or Ethereum Classic which had a chain re-org

The only reason Ethereum Classic even exists is because Ethereum hard-forked to undo a transaction. Not quite a 51% attack, but effectively the same outcome - a group of users decided they didn't agree with a transaction and so conspired together to undo it.

you are correct that the split had nothing to do with a 51% attack but @adaseb is talking about a completely different case of attack against ETC that took place on January of this year (10 Jan 2019 if i am not mistaken) where they actually attacked ETC chain with a big hash rate and reversed a lot of blocks.

[BitHodler]

Why anyone holds any major amounts of these altcoins is beyond me. It has been proven that an unknown entity can reverse your transactions at their will and there is nothing you can do about it. This is even less decentralized than a fiat bank, who at least have some rules and oversight as to what they can and cannot do.

People unfortunately don't care. When BTG was 51% attacked and delisted from a couple of exchanges, the price didn't even go down, which is weird because it should have had a double digit sell off.

All that matters in crypto are the profits people hope to make. It really is sad that the community has such an attitude, but there isn't much that can be done against it.... people will continue to hop from one scam coin to another.

[o_e_l_e_o]

where they actually attacked ETC chain with a big hash rate and reversed a lot of blocks.

I can't keep track of all the attacks, hacks, and scams that take place on altcoins. A combination of me not caring about most altcoins and these kind of things happening so frequently, I suppose. That's ringing same vague bells now that you mention it, though. Maybe I did read about it at the time.

People unfortunately don't care.

Unfortunately true. As this site shows, most altcoins could be 51% attacked by a fraction of bitcoin's hashpower, certainly far less than some of the biggest mining operations possess. These coins are perpetually insecure, which is why it takes days or even weeks to achieve what bitcoin can in under an hour. And yet still people trust them.

[jhontwis]

51% Attack may apply to each coin. But I think Bitcoin is still very safe. 6 The fact of the completion of the transaction with confirmation. The Ethereum chain has its own structure. These situations are not important for many investors. Most of them are waiting for news of the new deal.

[1Referee]

Some merchants even accept zero confs so long as certain criteria are met in the transaction, particularly if fees were paid and no double spends were detected in a few seconds.

They do, but it has to be said that most of the goods they sell are reversible by nature. I use Namecheap quite frequently and they also accept 0 confirmation transactions, but they can take your hosting/domain/server away from you if turns out that you have tried to cheat on them by double spending. In other words, they have some form of certainty that they will not lose out.

What shocked me was that scammers this year managed to steal a lot of money from an ATM because they accepted 0 confirmation transactions. If there is one thing you shouldn't do as ATM operator, it's accepting 0 confirmation transactions for payout. You are begging to get scammed by doing that. It boggles my mind that there are businesses already exposed to insane risk be that negligent.

0 confirmation transactions are never safe. Not even with a high fee. It takes a second to double spend a transaction you set up in advance.

[Dabs]

Yeah, well, digital products are one thing, domains controlled by a registrar on your behalf (or a hosting company) are another.

I think what Bitpay or other payment processors do is have multiple nodes in the network they can check against, and it actually waits maybe 5 to 10 seconds for the transaction to be seen on all their nodes. A double spend sent 10 seconds after the first transaction is unlikely to confirm before the first one, provided the first one has enough of a fee.

The network will simply not relay the second transaction. Or it could, but it's already 10 seconds too late.

1 confirmation is the best compromise since it almost guarantees the transaction even if the block it's in gets orphaned, as it will likely be included in the next one.

[AB de Royse777]

Well I gamble very often and have accounts with bookies. Sportsnet.io are the one who will allow you to use the funds without any confirmation even within few seconds of the fund you just sent but the catch is you have to have minimum 3 confirmation of your deposits before be able to withdraw any fund.

End story is that everyone has their own strategy to protect their business. By the way I really hate bitpay shit. Sorry about the language :-D

[gentlemand]

And for those who read and discard this it's worth remembering that this may have a bearing on interacting with these coins on exchanges. Okex won't let anything you sold BSV for go until the BSV you deposited has 200 confirmations. Your quick flip will turn into a 2-3 day wait.

[o_e_l_e_o]

And for those who read and discard this it's worth remembering that this may have a bearing on interacting with these coins on exchanges.

All major exchanges take much longer to accept altcoins than bitcoin. So although altcoins are "faster" due to their shorter block times, it takes far longer for them to "confirmed" and available on your account due to them requiring far more confirmations to be secure.

Coinbase - https://support.coinbase.com/customer/en/portal/articles/593836-why-is-my-transaction-pending-
BTC 3 confirmations, BCH 12 confirmations.

Kraken - https://support.kraken.com/hc/en-us/articles/203325283-Cryptocurrency-deposit-processing-times
BTC 6 confirmations, BCH 15 confirmations.

Gemini - https://gemini24.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205424836-How-long-until-deposited-funds-hit-my-account-
BTC 3 confirmations, BCH 15 confirmations.

Even waiting hours to reach these numbers for BCH, it still isn't as secure as a single bitcoin confirmation. The numbers are even worse for smaller alts.

[Yaunfitda]

Bump, just a friendly reminders to everyone specially newbies!!!

[Tipstar]

I don't agree with the logic or the math of the op, I think this is a foolish way to falsely give Bitcoin maximalists a foolish talking point.

I think this is shit and I am no minimalist.

The value of crypto and it's existence depends on the users and their trust. Bitcoin is successful because a lot of people believe in it.  The larger the community, safer the future. The larger the hash power, the safer are the transactions. It's not an opinion, even the popular low hash coins had a 51% attack on past.

[ranochigo]

The value of crypto and it's existence depends on the users and their trust. Bitcoin is successful because a lot of people believe in it.  The larger the community, safer the future. The larger the hash power, the safer are the transactions. It's not an opinion, even the popular low hash coins had a 51% attack on past.

The only thing a larger hashrate does is to deter individuals without a significant resource to execute an attack. The graph indirectly portrays how much resources in monetary terms is needed to execute an attack. Given how some of the cryptos uses novel algorithm, it would be tougher for a malicious entity to acquire enough resources to be able to execute an attack. In contrast, given how ASICs are prevalent in SHA256 coins, it would be easier for attacks to be executed with it, no matter the cost.

It also doesn't consider the fact that for some, there may be different motivations for an execution of an attack and monetary cost might not matter.

[Betwrong]

I don't agree with the logic or the math of the op, I think this is a foolish way to falsely give Bitcoin maximalists a foolish talking point. ~

Idk, seems logical to me.

They assume that the more efforts put into securing something, the more secure it becomes. "Efforts" in our case is electric power spent on mining (a certain amount of blocks), or, in turn, the amount of USD spent on purchasing that power. IMO, if you agree with this, you will also agree with the conclusion below:

Therefore we can say that 240 Litecoin confirmations are roughly equal to 6 Bitcoin confirmations in total amount of work done.

It is highly likely that you know much more than I do in this field, so please elaborate on what's wrong with that logic in your opinion.