Can Bitcoin transaction time reduce in future?

[bitterguy28]

Currently it takes 1-3 hours for a transaction to complete if we do it with less fee? Is it possible in future that this transaction time will reduce or may be even become instant? Like when all Bitcoins are  mined and there are mainly holders instead of traders and volume of transactions decline.

in normal occasion , of course not in having congestion and Miner prioriticism like this ? it is faster even if we are using  lower fees and yes 1-3 hours is really a long wait when it only took couple of minutes in the past or even faster.
also there is another approach if you really wanted to pay low in fees and have a more faster transaction and that is to use altcoins(but be aware of the situation unless you will use legit and old timer coins) also try using Lightning Network for low transaction as it is faster and cheaper .

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[m2017]

Currently it takes 1-3 hours for a transaction to complete if we do it with less fee? Is it possible in future that this transaction time will reduce or may be even become instant? Like when all Bitcoins are  mined and there are mainly holders instead of traders and volume of transactions decline.

If don’t come up with anything new, transaction times will only increase. If mass adoption occurs, which bitcoiners are eagerly awaiting, this will attract many new users to the BTC-network. Which, in turn, will lead to an increase in the number of transactions, the overload of the mempool, an increase in commissions, queues and time for confirming transactions. If don’t change anything, this is definitely what will happen. Therefore, what is happening now is just a trifle compared to what awaits in the future.

[Tigerheart3026]

instant transaction? it's never ever impossible in bitcoin transactions. because minted per block to take time minimum 9 to 10 minutes.
may be you didn't transact with average fees that's why your transaction are not confirmed in 1-3 hours.
now bitcoin network is highly congested, so very low fees transaction will take to complete even a week.

[Z-tight]

I hope that with some developments in the near future we can see that both transfer fees and transfer time are shorter.

BTC block confirmation time is ~ 10 minutes on average, take note that this didn't and doesn't change because of mining difficulty adjustment, what changes is fee rate, BTC fee rate goes up when the network is congested and drops when the network is free, there is no 'development' to change that because nobody sets it, it is the community that determines it based on how they are using the network.

in normal occasion , of course not in having congestion and Miner prioriticism like this ?

Miners have and will always prioritize tx's based on the fee attached to them, that is why you should always check mempool.space before broadcasting your tx.

[Abiky]

There are layer 2 solutions that you can use, especially for micro payments, but i don't think the protocol in the BTC main chain is going to be changed for this reason, blocks would be found ~ 10 minutes on average and the transaction fees would be determined by the 'community', meaning if the mempool is congested for any reason, fee rate is going to rise and if the mempool is free, fee rate will drop.

Take note that no matter what, you decide the fees to attach to your tx, but the problem of using a low fee when fee rate is high is that there are so many other users who would outbid you for block space and push your tx down the mempool. That is why it is called a free market and there is nothing to be 'resolved' about this, except for using later 2 or offchain solutions.

Exactly. Changing the BTC protocol would require the approval of a large majority of nodes and miners. Everything would be done in the community's best interests. I believe it's best for BTC to remain as is, just to preserve decentralization. Reducing block times or increasing the block size would make the network centralized in the long run. That's because node bandwidth and storage requirements will increase (incurring higher costs for node operators).

As you've said before, we can either wait until fees decline or use an off-chain scaling solution for complete peace of mind. There's also the option of switching to an altcoin with lower network congestion. I'm sure the Ordinals hype will fade away into oblivion, giving average users a huge relief to their pockets. How can Bitcoin be a cryptocurrency for the "unbanked" if fees are high all of the time? The future is widely unpredictable, so lets hope for the best.

[Z-tight]

There's also the option of switching to an altcoin with lower network congestion.

I don't like this option and i don't use it; but i see that so many people are recommending it, so if it works for some of you guys, then yeah.

How can Bitcoin be a cryptocurrency for the "unbanked" if fees are high all of the time? The future is widely unpredictable, so lets hope for the best.

If you can call it a network for the 'unbanked', then it because it is a totally permissionless network, anyone can get an address and fund it from anywhere in the world, BTC is anything but a network free from fees, mining is a business and to incentivize them to contribute to the network's security, we have to pay fees. As for the fees to pay, it depends on how congested the network is and a few other things, but if we want mass adoption we have to understand that the network will get congested without ordinals in the future.

[Abiky]

If you can call it a network for the 'unbanked', then it because it is a totally permissionless network, anyone can get an address and fund it from anywhere in the world, BTC is anything but a network free from fees, mining is a business and to incentivize them to contribute to the network's security, we have to pay fees. As for the fees to pay, it depends on how congested the network is and a few other things, but if we want mass adoption we have to understand that the network will get congested without ordinals in the future.

Of course. There's no such thing as "free lunch". But when fees get too high, that's when it becomes a real problem. Especially for people with low income. If we want to include the "unbanked", fees need to remain as low as possible. At least, we're not forced to pay a high fee on the BTC blockchain. There's something called the "free market" where you decide what fee you want to pay with the hopes of getting your transaction approved by a miner. Lower fees will take longer than usual, but that won't be a problem if you don't mind the wait.

As I've said before, you have two options. Either use the Lightning Network, or an altcoin with low network congestion. Ultimately, the Ordinals hype will die, paving the way for BTC to become great again. Who knows what the future holds for the cryptocurrency?

[Silver005]

Yes, there is potential for Bitcoin transaction times to decrease in the future. One of the biggest factors affecting transaction times is the Bitcoin blockchain's capacity. Currently, the Bitcoin network can only process a limited number of transactions per second. However, there are ongoing efforts to increase this capacity through improvements to the Bitcoin protocol. Additionally, new technologies such as the Lightning Network are being developed to speed up transaction times. With these advancements, it's possible that Bitcoin transaction times could decrease significantly in the future.


To understand how these advancements may affect transaction times, it's important to understand how Bitcoin transactions are processed. When you send a Bitcoin transaction, it is added to a "mempool" of unconfirmed transactions. Miners then choose transactions from the mempool to include in a block. When a block is mined, the transactions within it are confirmed. The more transactions there are in the mempool, the longer it can take for a transaction to be confirmed.
Some improvements to the Bitcoin protocol aim to increase the block size, which would allow for more transactions to be included in each block.....

[The Cryptovator]

I believe the average Bitcoin transaction would remain the same even if all the blocks were mined. If the network becomes congested, then it takes more time to confirm transactions. When Bitcoin is fully mined, more transactions will occur on the Bitcoin blockchain. Because every day, a lot of new Bitcoin investors add to the Bitcoin network. So we have to pay a high fee or use other solutions like lightning. Because it's impossible to modify the Bitcoin blockchain.

[_BlackStar]

I believe the average Bitcoin transaction would remain the same even if all the blocks were mined. If the network becomes congested, then it takes more time to confirm transactions.

Average time required between blocks 8 minutes 56 seconds - that is the statistics in the last 24 hours. Transaction times between blocks will of course vary because they are influenced by two things - firstly transaction costs and the state of the mempool. So far - I often use this site to see the statistics: https://blockchair.com/bitcoin.

When Bitcoin is fully mined, more transactions will occur on the Bitcoin blockchain. Because every day, a lot of new Bitcoin investors add to the Bitcoin network. So we have to pay a high fee or use other solutions like lightning. Because it's impossible to modify the Bitcoin blockchain.

Ordinal transactions will likely be a problem that makes bitcoin transaction fees more expensive - it only makes things worse if they last longer. Lightning network is a solution that may be worth considering due to its fees - so may see its adoption increase.

[panganib999]

I doubt it. There's no real solution to scalability problems that bitcoin is facing nowadays other than the lightning network, which I must say isn't particularly effective either. So if this presses on we might have to expect bitcoin transactions taking longer wait times and higher fees as well to even process, making it less viable as a transaction tool, and more useful as something you'd use to save the value of your assets, like a store of value. So regardless if bitcoin does get expensive in the future, pretty sure there's still going to be usage for it, since we can't just drop something as valuable as bitcoin easily. Bitcoin may become expensive to manage and handle in the future, but that doesn't mean it's going to become impossible to handle.

[Sarah Azhari]

Yes, there is potential for Bitcoin transaction times to decrease in the future. One of the biggest factors affecting transaction times is the Bitcoin blockchain's capacity. Currently, the Bitcoin network can only process a limited number of transactions per second. However, there are ongoing efforts to increase this capacity through improvements to the Bitcoin protocol.

Bitcoin block size is limited to 1 MB with only can confirmed limited transaction. I think is impossible to change the protocol or hard fork to a new network if we look at experience in the past (BCH hard fork). What is possible now is to change the address measure such as native segwit which reduces the size of transactions. The chance to reduce time transactions in the future is the same as segwit, reducing the weight of transactions. We can't change or increase the block size limit over 1 MB, but we can change the weight of transactions like segwit. So, it's not impossible in the future we have a new format address (bc1) or another with a new protocol to reduce weight of transactions, so if reduce, we can process many transactions on 1 block (1MB) from today (segwit)

[thecodebear]

Currently it takes 1-3 hours for a transaction to complete if we do it with less fee? Is it possible in future that this transaction time will reduce or may be even become instant? Like when all Bitcoins are  mined and there are mainly holders instead of traders and volume of transactions decline.

Average transaction takes 30-60 minutes (3-6 confirmations). 1-3 hour range would be very slow, like putting in a very small fee.

If you want faster than 30-60 minutes then use the lightning network, which is indeed instant.

Bitcoin on-chain transactions will never be faster than the 30-60 minutes on average. That's how Bitcoin was designed.




And not sure why you think when all Bitcoins are mined there will mostly be holders. By that time there will be many more people using Bitcoin. Right now most people are holders because Bitcoin is still early in its adoption so everyone knows it will grow immensely in price so it makes much more sense to save in bitcoin than spend your bitcoin now and for the next decade or two. In the future once adoption has matured and growth has slowed there will be many times more people using it to buy things (though of course still plenty of holders). But regardless, new bitcoins being mined or not has nothing to do with how many people are holding or using it.

[hosseinimr93]

Bitcoin block size is limited to 1 MB with only can confirmed limited transaction. )

The block size can be bigger than 1 MB. The maximum limit is 1 vMB or 4 million weight units.

What is possible now is to change the address measure such as native segwit which reduces the size of transactions.

With using segwit addresses, you decrease the virtual size of the transaction and the weight units.
Take note that with using segwit addresses instead of legacy addresses, your transaction size wouldn't change significantly and it's even possible that you increase the transaction size.

[Abiky]

Ordinal transactions will likely be a problem that makes bitcoin transaction fees more expensive - it only makes things worse if they last longer. Lightning network is a solution that may be worth considering due to its fees - so may see its adoption increase.

You'd still need to pay a high on-chain fee to open/close a channel on the Lightning Network. For large transfers, this shouldn't be much of an issue. Only for small payments. If you're getting into the LN, it's best to open a channel with a decent amount of money. Something within the $50 - $100 range would suffice. Anything less than that wouldn't be worth it. If only developers increased on-chain capacity, things would've been better by now. Now we're forced to use the LN or an altcoin because of the Ordinals craze. Things are going to get worse in the short-medium term, due to the hype surrounding the approval of spot ETFs and the halving of April 2024.

At least, fees won't stay high forever. That's because there's something called the "free market". BTC users have the power to decide which fees to pay per transaction. While most miners are greedy, there's a small few that would accept low fee TXs no matter what. Hopefully, the community will guide Bitcoin in the right direction. As long as decentralization wins, nothing else matters.

[armanda90]

Its seems little impossible to reduce time for bitcoin transaction right now or in the future, all bitcoin transaction depend on block confirmation and some time busy required long time for transaction success and some time need more than one until two hours for sending bitcoin have become complete. I think have possibility to make faster payment bitcoin transaction by adopting lightening network, usually all exchange have adopt it but ability for sending with the same exchange between one account to other account.

However, Bitcoin have advantage payment digital currency than fiat although with some time needed longer time waiting transaction block confirmation and bitcoin need to complete two block for receiving bitcoin payment. I don't all time bitcoin have busy blockchain confirmation regarding last several months I need without twenty minutes my bitcoin sending transaction trough segwit address are completed.

[bettercrypto]

Currently it takes 1-3 hours for a transaction to complete if we do it with less fee? Is it possible in future that this transaction time will reduce or may be even become instant? Like when all Bitcoins are  mined and there are mainly holders instead of traders and volume of transactions decline.

I think Bitcoin's transaction fee will probably be low again when it returns to the bear market. But in this case or currently, it is unclear that the fees have decreased, especially recently when the bitcoin fee's reached 12–13 dollars when I checked my account in my Electrum wallet, but I did not continue because the fee was high.

Especially with the approaching halving or bull run, it might increase even more, but I hope not; it's too painful to be honest, especially for bitcoin holders.

[casperBGD]

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Especially with the approaching halving or bull run, it might increase even more, but I hope not; it's too painful to be honest, especially for bitcoin holders.

it is a trade-off, low fees decrease complete security that includes combination of block rewards and block fees
but overall, fees are low enough to transact in the network, if you don't need instant confirmation (in the first or second block), you can put lower fee and wait for some time that your transaction is included in the network

at least one has a choice what he want, faster confirmation for more transaction fee, or slower confirmation and lower fee

[gabbie2010]

instant transaction? it's never ever impossible in bitcoin transactions. because minted per block to take time minimum 9 to 10 minutes.
may be you didn't transact with average fees that's why your transaction are not confirmed in 1-3 hours.
now bitcoin network is highly congested, so very low fees transaction will take to complete even a week.

Normally 9 to 10 minutes minting of block is okay for a normal transactions now with the influx of ordinals into the Blockchain the network congestion had been enormous and very frustrating for sending Bitcoin with a lower fee, last week I personally experience this issue of non confirmation despite using BTC acceleratior until I unwillingly increase the fee before I got the first confirmation, I think this issue has to be resolved once and for all for Bitcoin to gain more global adoption else it would be difficult to adopt Bitcoin as a payment gateway if low fee transactions would take almost a week before confirmation.

[Abiky]

I think Bitcoin's transaction fee will probably be low again when it returns to the bear market. But in this case or currently, it is unclear that the fees have decreased, especially recently when the bitcoin fee's reached 12–13 dollars when I checked my account in my Electrum wallet, but I did not continue because the fee was high.

Especially with the approaching halving or bull run, it might increase even more, but I hope not; it's too painful to be honest, especially for bitcoin holders.

It's going to get worse by the next block reward halving. These high fees prevent people with low income from using the BTC blockchain for daily payments. Even if they want to use the LN for faster and cheaper transactions, they'd still need to pay the high on-chain fee to open or close a channel. The only viable solution would be to use an altcoin with low network congestion.

BTC Core devs better increase on-chain TX capacity before it's too late. Otherwise, Bitcoin would become a settlement layer for the wealthy (mainly whales and big exchanges). Hopefully, fees will decline after the hype. As long as Bitcoin stays decentralized, nothing else matters.