A question on transaction speed.

[Stepstowealth]

can we stop telling people that ask if transaction speed is a benefit of using bitcoins for payment? I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

What determines speed of transactions?

I want to learn.

[1714213926]

1714213926

[NeuroticFish]

What determines speed of transactions?

The quick answer is: the fee you're paying (counted as sat/vByte)

Transaction confirmation means that it's included by miners in a mined block. The miners will (almost) always include the ones with higher fee, since they want to earn more money.
And with new blocks being mined every ~10 minutes, sometimes, when the network is more busy, a higher fee can get your transaction mined faster.
For a better view you can take a look at: https://mempool.space/

The withdrawals from exchanges go "faster" because the exchanges overpay the fee.

[Upgrade00]

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

Transactions within exchanges usually just involve changing of balance sheets and not actual transfer of bitcoins on chain, this is the reason it is presumably faster than from one wallet to another.

What determines speed of transactions?

• Mempool space, i.e, how clogged the network is at the time,
• Feerate, this is the amount paid for the confirmation of the transaction. It's counted in sat/vbyte.
• Number of inputs and outputs, which influence the fee paid and indirectly affects the tx speed.

[hosseinimr93]

I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

If your friend is comparing bitcoin with altcoins, tell him/her that you may get the first confirmation in many altcoins much faster, but altcoins need a much higher number of confirmations, so a transaction is equivalent to a bitcoin transaction with only 1 confirmation.

[odolvlobo]

can we stop telling people that ask if transaction speed is a benefit of using bitcoins for payment? I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

While cash and some other crytocurrencies are faster than Bitcoin, Bitcoin is faster than most other forms of payment.

Keep in mind that card and bank transactions are not as fast as they seem. First, the merchant isn't credited the money for at least a few days, and even after that they must wait for months before they know for sure that they can keep it. The merchant allows the customer to take the purchased items immediately because they are willing to take the risk that they will eventually receive the money.

It is the same with Bitcoin. Once your friend has broadcast the transaction, the receiver of the bitcoins can just assume that they have them, although there is a risk that they will ultimately not receive them, as in the case above. Furthermore, the receiver is free to use the bitcoins immediately even though the transaction has not yet been confirmed.

Then, of course there is Bitcoin's Lightning Network that provides instantaneous payments.

[JeromeTash]

I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

Bitcoin blocks are mined approximately every 10 minutes, sometimes a confirmation can happen within 1 minute of the previous block, other times it can even take more than 50 minutes for a block to be confirmed.

But the biggest factor if one wants their transaction to be confirmed in the next block is the transaction fee rate used. I am somehow certain that your friend did not use the Optimal fee rate, thus a delay in confirming his transaction

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster than moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

Bitcoins from an exchange to another have to also get confirmed using the Bitcoin network, so it won't be any different if the same fee rate is used as for a transaction from an electrum wallet to another.  The advantage is that exchanges broadcast the transactions with a fee rate that is even higher than the optimal one in most cases, so chances of the transaction getting confirmed in the next block are very high.

Internal transfers (from one account to another of the same exchange) do not involve Bitcoin network confirmations, so these are usually instant.

[sheenshane]

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

What determines speed of transactions?

It matters about these combinations.

• Network congestion
• Transaction fees
• Block size limit

The speed of a Bitcoin transaction can be influenced by a combination of these factors, and it's important to consider them when sending or receiving Bitcoin to ensure timely processing.  The link shown above, always check the network congestion first before such a transaction so that you'll know the fee, usually, ain't in a hurry when making a transaction, and within an hour the transaction will be confirmed.

You can use also a free service of Bitcoin transaction accelerator service, I usually used ViaBTC.

[hosseinimr93]

• Transaction fees

Fee rate, not fee.

• Block size limit

The block size limit isn't a variable at all and it doesn't make sense to say the transaction confirmation time depends on block size limit. The block size limit is always 1 vMB or 4 million weight units.

You can use also a free service of Bitcoin transaction accelerator service, I usually used ViaBTC.

It may worth mentioning that you can use their fee service only if the fee rate used for your transaction is at least 10 sat/byte.

[UchihaSarada]

Plot your transaction in mempool

Input & output affect transaction size

Fee rate in general plots your transaction in priority of miners from top of mempools.

However, Transaction size * fee rate will combine to result in your transaction fee that will be used by miners when they prioritize transactions from top of mempools to confirm first.

Two transactions with same fee rate but with different transaction sizes will have different priority from miners. A transaction with bigger transaction size and transaction fee will be confirmed first. Another transaction with lower transaction fee if won't be confirmed in a same block, will be confirmed in next one or few blocks by miners.

[jrrsparkles]

can we stop telling people that ask if transaction speed is a benefit of using bitcoins for payment? I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

What determines speed of transactions?

I want to learn.

In layman term the transaction fee decides the transaction speed, so higher you pay the chances of your transaction will be included into the next block itself. For checking the current mempool status few members already posted the links so make sure he is using the right fee for faster transfer.

And no worries even if the transaction stuck for longer time period when you enabled Replace-by-fee (RBF) so you can change the feed to higher if mempool gets clogged after you broadcasted the transaction.

About exchanges they always use a lot higher fee than current fee required for transaction that is why it gets confirmed soon but its isn't that instant cause they send withdrawals by batch in the mean time you have to wait too.

[pooya87]

can we stop telling people that ask if transaction speed is a benefit of using bitcoins for payment?

There is a lot of benefits in using bitcoin and speed of transactions is one of them. Yes bitcoin does have the fastest transactions in the world (that includes centralized payment systems and altcoins)!

Unfortunately certain scam altcoins (like ethereum and ripple) have been advertised as "fast" just because they have faster block generation. The thing is "speed" is NOT defined as the time your transaction is included in a block BUT it is defined as the time it takes for your transaction to become irreversible.

In most traditional payment systems (your bank cards, PayPal, etc.) the transaction remains reversible for months.
In a lot of altcoins it takes weeks for the transaction to go deep enough in the blockchain to be considered irreversible. Some altcoins it never becomes irreversible because they have mutable blockchains or they are centralized.

When it comes to bitcoin because the blockchain is immutable and it is decentralized and it works correctly, with 1-3 confirmation which takes between a couple of seconds to half an hour, your transaction becomes irreversible.
This is why bitcoin has one of the fastest transactions.

[yhiaali3]

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

Mostly yes, the movement of bitcoins from one exchange to another is faster than transferring bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another, unless you pay a higher fee in which case you can get a faster transaction.

Another thing, if you and your friend work on the same exchange, the bitcoin will be transferred from your account to his account instantly without the need to send it via the bitcoin network, so in these cases (internal transfer) the process is very fast.

[Hyphen(-)]

can we stop telling people that ask if transaction speed is a benefit of using bitcoins for payment? I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

The transaction fee rate, which is the sat/bit you pay when you initiate the transaction, determines the speed of the transaction from one wallet to another. The miners are rewarded by the transaction fee we paid during such a transaction, so they process transactions with a high fee rate faster than those with a low fee rate, which is why the transaction takes time to process.

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

Third-party crypto exchanges typically have a fixed transaction fee rate for their transactions, so sending Bitcoin from one exchange to another will only be dependent on your device network and will take very little time.

What determines speed of transactions?

The rate of the transaction fee paid to initiate the transaction in the mempool.

[Plaguedeath]

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

When you want to withdraw your coin from exchange to another, you're overpaying the fees since the exchange use fixed fee.

Most wallet usually set default medium speed when you want to withdraw your money, but you can customize yourself by choose high priority, it's more faster and cheaper rather than use exchange.

I'd suggest to use lightning network, the transaction will be confirmed less than few seconds, it will beat any other altcoins network.

[hosseinimr93]

Two transactions with same fee rate but with different transaction sizes will have different priority from miners.

You are completely wrong.
Miners prioritize transactions based on their fee rate (the fee paid for 1 virtual byte of data) and it's possible that a transaction paying lower absolute fee has higher priority than a transaction paying higher absolute fee.

[UchihaSarada]

Two transactions with same fee rate but with different transaction sizes will have different priority from miners.

You are completely wrong.
Miners prioritize transactions based on their fee rate (the fee paid for 1 virtual byte of data) and it's possible that a transaction paying lower absolute fee has higher priority than a transaction paying higher absolute fee.

I did not say a transaction with a lower fee rate will be confirmed ahead of a transaction with a higher fee rate.

Fee rate is important but not only this. Transaction fee will be a multiplier of fee rate and transaction size and I meant if two transactions that use a same fee rate, a transaction with bigger size will confirmed ahead of a transaction with smaller size. This happens if two transactions won't be confirmed in a same block.

If they won't be confirmed in a same block, a transaction with smaller size will likely confirmed in a next block if mempool won't be loaded up suddenly with too higher fee rates.

They (same fee-rated transactions) won't be confirmed based on "first comes, first serves" in mempools.

[CageMabok]

can we stop telling people that ask if transaction speed is a benefit of using bitcoins for payment? I say this because my friend has been complaining about a transaction, that he made from his electrum wallet to another wallet and has been waiting for hours for it to go.

Am I missing something, is the movement of bitcoin from one exchange to another faster that moving bitcoins from one wallet like electrum to another?

What determines speed of transactions?

I want to learn.

If you want to learn a lot of things, try reading more about the things you need right now. And the simple answer to your question is Transaction speed can be affected by several factors, including block time, block size, transaction fees, and network traffic. That's what I found on statista.com which explains the transaction speed rating of 69 crypto - including DeFi and metaverse - in 2022. So try to check some of the factors that are in the transaction made by your friend and stop complaining because complaining is not a solution wise matter.

[Outhue]

If you are impatient when you want to send bitcoin from one wallet to another just add more to the gas fee, not all wallets support this but there are some that do, the higher the gas fee the faster the transaction speed, there are also other factors affecting this too, like miners and block, etc.  

On crypto exchanges, you have no choice but to go ahead with the fixed withdrawal fee, that's why I always check gas fee comparisons on exchanges, some have higher fees and some have a lower fees just like Binance exchange vs Huobi exchange.

[NeuroticFish]

gas fee

Bitcoin doesn't have gas fee. Bitcoin has transaction fee.

Ethereum and its tokens use gas fee and that's not OP problem.
Even more, if you start confusing people they may end up using wrapped bitcoins on other chains, and that's risky since those are only tokens borrowing bitcoin name (and claiming to be pegged to it's value).

So.. let's stick with the original bitcoin, OK?

[hosseinimr93]

They (same fee-rated transactions) won't be confirmed based on "first comes, first serves" in mempools.

Are you sure of that?
I am not sure, but I don't think all miners/mining pools use the same criteria for how to prioritize transactions having the same fee rate. I think every miner/mining pool should have their own criteria.