how are instant bitcoin transactions done?

[Sanka555]

Please explain to a beginner
 
For example:


pay attention - the coins came and left the same second.
Why is this happening. There must also be a difference of at least 10 minutes between the blocks.

[1714913712]

1714913712

[1714913712]

1714913712

[1714913712]

1714913712

[1714913712]

1714913712

[dkbit98]

Please explain to a beginner
 
For example:

12b9TofPY9R5gtKRUHBWjQrNP6mBYZuFqr or 1JwSSubhmg6iPtRjtyqhUYYH7bZg3Lfy1T

pay attention - the coins came and left the same second.
Why is this happening. There must also be a difference of at least 10 minutes between the blocks.

There is no instant transactions for Bitcoin but they used much higher fees for sending coins, 767 sats per byte for first address you posted, and 45 sats per byte for second address and transaction from 2014, and previous transactions also got included in the same block.

[BIT-BENDER]

You must be mis-concepting the whole scenario, firstly those are bitcoin address, you would try to get the transaction ID.
There isn't any must in bitcoin Transaction time, but research has it that more likely/averagely at ten minutes, it could be quick or it could take a day to some days also transaction fees are key players to the completion on a transaction,
In between is a quick time a problem to you.

[mocacinno]

There are several concepts here:

when you create a "normal" transaction and broadcast it, it is "instantly" received by (most of) the nodes of the network... Not really instant, but it won't take more than a couple of seconds...
Once a node receives your transaction, it's put in the mempool of each individual node. So, most nodes will know the transaction exists, they know which unspent output was spend and which address was funded (at least, for a "normal" transaction, in theory there are different kinds of scripts, so your transaction doesn't *have* to fund an address per sé)

So, the moment you "send" a valid, standard, average fee transaction, most of the nodes of the network will have your transaction in their mempool in mere seconds, and most wallets monitoring the receiving address will show an UNCONFIRMED transaction allmost instantly.

In order to get your transaction into block (get a confirmation), a miner has to create a block containing your transaction, and find a block header (trough iteration) whose sha256d hash is under the current target. By adjusting said target every 2016 blocks, the network makes sure the AVERAGE time between two blocks is ~10 minutes. I have to point out that it's an average time... 2008 blocks that are found after 2 minutes and 2008 blocks that are found after 18 minutes => 10 minutes on average, and the diff won't be adjusted!

Wether or not a miner picks your transaction from it's mempool to be part of the block they're trying to solve, they usually look at your transaction fee (in sat/vbyte). Important fact: the fee has nothing to do with the monetary value that's being transmitted and only depends on the transaction size (in virtual bytes)

[Welsh]

Simply put; there are no instant transactions, and even when you broadcast a transaction its not instantly seen by the network. However, you can increase, and decrease the amount of time a transaction takes to confirm. Depending on your situation, whether you want one confirmation or 6, or more simply increasing the satoshi per byte will generally decrease the amount of time it takes for the transaction to confirm.

This is basically because you are offering a higher incentive for miners to include your transaction in the next block.

All you need to know. Higher fee = Faster confirmation time (generally as there are mitigating factors such as congestion etc).

[Charles-Tim]

Why is this happening. There must also be a difference of at least 10 minutes between the blocks.

If high fee is paid that can get bitcoin transaction confirmed in the next block, but bitcoin transaction confirmation are not instantly, it do take 10 minutes in average, the algorithm was just set in a way it should mine new block in approximately every 10 minutes and get transactions confirmed along, but that does not mean transactions is exactly 10 minutes. Even to be surprising, the next block can take 30 minutes at times, or might take less than 2 minutes at times. So, if you see a bitcoin transaction that is confirmed before 2 minutes, do not be surprised.

This is basically because you are offering a higher incentive for miners to include your transaction in the next block.

Maybe OP made a transaction that got confirmed before 10 minutes, and we know that next block at times can take less than 2 minutes. Maybe OP paid high fee, and his transaction was included in the next block, and take less than 2 minutes (or far less than 10 minutes before it was confirmed), which is very possible.

[ranochigo]

pay attention - the coins came and left the same second.
Why is this happening. There must also be a difference of at least 10 minutes between the blocks.

It doesn't have to be. The block retarget aims to keep the blocks at a 10 minutes intervals but will in no way ensure that they're at least 10 minutes apart due to varience.

To answer your question, which I don't think the posts above actually addressed. I'll define parent transaction as the transaction which sent the coins to your address and the child transaction being the outgoing transaction. Your parent transaction doesn't have to be confirmed for you to be able to spend it. You can create a valid transaction by referencing the hash of the parent transaction and broadcast it, even if it isn't in a block yet. This also means that for the nodes to accept or see your child transaction, your parent transaction has to be in the mempool and if there is sufficient propagation, it should be nearly instantaneous. In the rare case that the parent doesn't get propagated well enough, nodes would likely keep it as an orphaned transaction without including it in the mempool as they cannot find the parent transaction. However, it is important to note that the child transaction can only be confirmed provided that the parent transaction is also confirmed.

There are cases where you won't see a transaction until it gets confirmed. People can directly contact miners which are capable of mining a block to include their transaction without relaying on the network. As such, the first time that the majority of the nodes see the transaction is also the exact time that the block from that specific miner gets mined and relayed. This makes it seems like the transaction was instantaneous but it is in fact not the case. Miners can include any transaction that they want as long as it is valid.

[nakamura12]

I won't say there is an instant transaction but there is a faster confirmation of your transaction if you have high fee and it can be confirm in next block. I tried paying low fee and it went through minutes later but the second time I use the same few it took 1 week before the transaction is confirmed due to other transactions have higher fee. You can check the mempool which transaction are most likely conformed first.

[khaled0111]

Both the incoming and outgoing transactions were confirmed at the same time. Basically, what's happening is that a new transaction spends the received funds (or part of it) while it's still unconfirmed and only visible in the mempool. If the second transaction pays enough fees, both transactions will get included in the same block. Hence the same confirmation time.
This technique is what's known as CPFP used to accelerate a stuck tansaction.

However for the second address "1JwSSubhmg6iPtRjtyqhUYYH7bZg3Lfy1T" it looks like there is a bot sweeping the funds automatically.

[nc50lc]

Please explain to a beginner -snip-
pay attention - the coins came and left the same second.
Why is this happening. There must also be a difference of at least 10 minutes between the blocks.

Are you perhaps talking about outbound transactions that's suddenly created after the wallet receives a transaction?

• Why? That's doable because spending "unconfirmed outputs" doesn't break any network protocol or standard rule, that's why it doesn't need to wait for confirmation to spend the just-received-transaction's funds.
• How? Some users build tools that can monitor address(es) and create a transaction upon receiving a transaction. To do that manually, the wallet/client needs to have a "spend unconfirmed outputs" option or similar feature, like Electrum.