Can I use unconfirmed funds?

[BlackHatCoiner]

I sent some funds from address A to address B .

The transaction is unconfirmed. Can I send from address B to address C some funds?

[piebeyb]

I sent some funds from address A to address B .

The transaction is unconfirmed. Can I send from address B to address C some funds?

a few months ago I have done this using a blockchain wallet, so because I was worried about waiting a long time so I decided to make a transfer from B to C, even though the transaction from A to B has not been confirmed, so I think there is no problem

[cryptoperkele]

Technically you can but first transaction needs to be confirmed before the second and you need to pay attention to paying enough fees if you are making a long chain of these, otherwise it will take time or whole chain doesn't get confirmed at all.

[joniboini]

You can. I did that several times. But if you're a merchant, better wait for confirmation since your funds might never arrive.

[witcher_sense]

I sent some funds from address A to address B .

The transaction is unconfirmed. Can I send from address B to address C some funds?

It depends on the wallet you are using, if I am not mistaken not every wallet allows you to spend outputs of unconfirmed transaction. In any case, if your parent transaction is never mined, your child transaction will not be mined either, but in general it is normal to send funds from unconfirmed transaction. If someone sends you a transaction, be careful and don't spend it until several confirmations, because they can double spend the sent funds and make your transaction invalid.

[BlackHatCoiner]

So the miner can't mine the child's transaction unless the first one is confirmed?

[NeuroticFish]

So the miner can't mine the child's transaction unless the first one is confirmed?

That's correct. (You can't spend money you don't actually have, right?)
However, you can use CPFP and pay a bigger fee for the child tx to increase the priority of the parent tx.

[witcher_sense]

So the miner can't mine the child's transaction unless the first one is confirmed?

Miners can mine the child transaction only if the parent transaction was already confirmed or is included in the same block (unconfirmed). The child transaction is basing on outputs of previous transaction, if previous transaction is unknown to the bitcoin network, the child transaction will not be propagated to the miners, it will be kept in temporary pool and wait for parent appearance. It is not possible to mine these transactions without parent ones because they are not  being propagated by the nodes and also contain unknown utxos (parent is unknown).

[The Cryptovator]

So the miner can't mine the child's transaction unless the first one is confirmed?

No, they will not mine. If I can recall correctly I have seen an option on electrum to spend unconfirmed transaction. So it's pretty sure based on clients or wallet you can spend unconfirmed transaction. But those are using web wallets or custodial wallet, probably they wouldn't spend unconfirmed transaction what I have seen on the coinbase exchange/wallet.

[fiulpro]

I sent some funds from address A to address B .

The transaction is unconfirmed. Can I send from address B to address C some funds?

What if there is a problem in the transaction and your transaction is not confirmed and money is added back in A ?

What if you have the wrong address or some personal errors of some sort and funds never reached B?

See , it might be possible as the person above stated but frankly I have never been interested in doing something like that because it's better to wait rather than make a mistake that would turn problematic for you .

There is no back switch , even though there are people who are developing technology further towards that , there have been a lot of news , but at the same time right now what we have a simple wallet transferring funds from A to B . Wait for the funds to reach B , then only make a transfer to C.

[YuginKadoya]

It will vary depending on what wallet you are using but most of them need to be confirmed first before you can use the unconfirmed funds but I think if you have an extra coin on your wallet you can sure make a transaction on wallet B to wallet C even though wallet A transaction is not confirmed yet and vice versa wallet C can transaction again to another wallet if it has additional coin stored.

[Wind_FURY]

I sent some funds from address A to address B .

The transaction is unconfirmed. Can I send from address B to address C some funds?

a few months ago I have done this using a blockchain wallet, so because I was worried about waiting a long time so I decided to make a transfer from B to C, even though the transaction from A to B has not been confirmed,

That's impossible, for any wallet. Can you post the TXID? There must be at least one confirmation of transaction A to B, which you didn't notice.

so I think there is no problem

The risk of people double-spending in the network, you think is no problem? Calling Core developers.

It will vary depending on what wallet you are using but most of them need to be confirmed first before you can use the unconfirmed funds but I think if you have an extra coin on your wallet you can sure make a transaction on wallet B to wallet C even though wallet A transaction is not confirmed yet and vice versa wallet C can transaction again to another wallet if it has additional coin stored.

Which wallet allows sending without a confirmation?

[DabsPoorVersion]

I sent some funds from address A to address B .

The transaction is unconfirmed. Can I send from address B to address C some funds?

Yes you can,

Just like what I have experienced recently, I have transferred funds to my electrum wallet, which is actually notified me a few seconds after I send it, it shows unconfirmed transaction. After it shows the updated balance even if it is still unconfirmed, I send all my balance to my local wallet to withdraw. However, even after I have sent it to my local wallet, it only appear on my wallet right after the first transaction was confirmed.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Which wallet allows sending without a confirmation?

Lots of them. I do this in Electrum frequently.

It is entirely possible to spend unconfirmed transactions. Spending unconfirmed funds is exactly what a child-pays-for-parent (CPFP) transaction is. Either the first transaction will be confirmed first and the second transaction confirmed in a later block, or both transactions will be confirmed at the same time in the same block.

If you are not in a hurry, you can chain up any number of unconfirmed transactions with any fees you like and simply wait for them all to confirm. If you are in a hurry, then you can effectively "bump" the fee of the initial unconfirmed transaction by paying an excessive fee on a second transaction. If the average fee rate of the two transactions together is high enough, then miners will include the initial low fee transaction so they can also include the second high fee transaction in the same block.

There are uncommon but potential issues with chains of unconfirmed transactions, such as transaction malleability, but that's outside the scope of what OP was asking.

[livingfree]

That's impossible, for any wallet. Can you post the TXID? There must be at least one confirmation of transaction A to B, which you didn't notice.

Just like the others who said it is possible. I did too before, years ago but, I don't do it anymore.

There is no problem but just to be sure, I avoid doing it. It was explained well about transaction A has to be confirmed first and then B and C and so on will comes next.

[Harlot]

As long as the funds is already reflecting in your wallet it is good to go. Usually most wallets won't even reflect the Bitcoin you have not until it has around 3 confirmations in the blockchain making it sure that the transaction itself will be irreversible for small type of transactions. But I wonder why you will be sending to another person the funds you have received. Are you some kind of middleman for a transaction or something?

[ABCbits]

Yes, but there's the limit before nodes reject transaction with unconfirmed input.

IIRC the limit is 32 transaction depth, so you don't need to worry about the limit unless you make 32 chaining transaction (e.g. address 1 -> address 2 -> .... -> address 33)

[bob123]

Usually most wallets won't even reflect the Bitcoin you have not until it has around 3 confirmations in the blockchain making it sure that the transaction itself will be irreversible for small type of transactions.

Which wallet does that? It has to be a pretty bad one.
Usually wallets show the transaction once they receive it (before the first confirmation). I am not aware of a wallet which doesn't show a transaction until it has 3+ confirmations..

The only thing i could imagine would be an exchange or custodial wallet. But both of them don't count as a good or proper wallet.

[Wind_FURY]

Which wallet allows sending without a confirmation?

Lots of them. I do this in Electrum frequently.

It is entirely possible to spend unconfirmed transactions. Spending unconfirmed funds is exactly what a child-pays-for-parent (CPFP) transaction is. Either the first transaction will be confirmed first and the second transaction confirmed in a later block, or both transactions will be confirmed at the same time in the same block.

If you are not in a hurry, you can chain up any number of unconfirmed transactions with any fees you like and simply wait for them all to confirm. If you are in a hurry, then you can effectively "bump" the fee of the initial unconfirmed transaction by paying an excessive fee on a second transaction. If the average fee rate of the two transactions together is high enough, then miners will include the initial low fee transaction so they can also include the second high fee transaction in the same block.

There are uncommon but potential issues with chains of unconfirmed transactions, such as transaction malleability, but that's outside the scope of what OP was asking.

What? UNCONFIRMED? Am I the only person who doesn't know this because I never tried it? Haha.

I always assumed that Electrum required at least one confirmation before you can spend your coins, but I'm a pleb.

Today I learned.

[bearexin]

Yes, spending bitcoins that are unconfirmed is very possible. I can tell that it is true because I have done it a lot of times. I have been making use of the Blockchain wallet for years now and I have been able to send unconfirmed bitcoins to another address of a receiver. But, I think it’s not every wallet that has this particular feature of sending funds that are not yet confirmed, other wallets I have used don’t have that feature, apart from BitPay, so it’s just Blockchain and BitPay that I have seen so far.

As for BitPay you will have to go to their settings and you will see where you will be activate the feature to be able to spend funds that are not yet confirmed. Funds that are not yet confirmed is due to low fees being entered when doing the transaction, so if you make use of this feature you can re–spend the funds to another address and then add more fees which will cover up for the other one and get it confirmed in the next block.