Unconfirmed transaction

[New2024]

I have this 0.00156701 bitcoin from a long time ago - probably doing the clicking to earn bitcoin kind of thing. Recently tried to send it to Binance using Bitcoin Core. Really unsure how much fees I need to put to transfer; but, it looks like the transactions is unconfirmed due to low fees.

1) How do I cancel the transaction, get back those bitcoins back to resend?
2) Also, how do you determine the resend fees? Do I look at how much the rate is from websites that show the average transaction fees at that time?

Thank you

[Zaguru12]

First question is were you able to broadcast this transaction because I doubt it, the amount is so small that it can only cover for the transaction fees. The fees is around 6-4sats/vbyte now and that’s almost equivalent to what you are sending so that means you are sending dusts. Or probably sets the fees way to low. I have doubt the transaction was even broadcasted.

1) How do I cancel the transaction, get back those bitcoins back to resend?
2) Also, how do you determine the resend fees? Do I look at how much the rate is from websites that show the average transaction fees at that time?

1. Ideally you can’t cancel a Bitcoin transaction but can only do a RBF back to the wallet again(although some wallets puts the icon as cancel) and this requires you to have extra coins on the wallet again to cover for the fees which is higher than the initial fee of the transaction. So without extra bitcoins for fees you just leave the transaction until it is dropped.

2. Yes you can see the fee estimation on the wallet you’re using, but the ideal thing is to check explorers for the fee estimation and to get the actual fee needed as some wallet either under estimates fees or over estimates fees

[Mia Chloe]

Before you make a transaction , always do well to check the average fee rate at that  period of time. You. Can make use of MEMPOOL space .

Canceling the transaction simply means you will be spending more on fees since you will have to increase the fees and bump the transaction back to your wallet. Instead you can just bump the fee if you enabled RBF to the exchange address.

[Charles-Tim]

0.00001 BTC is $0.667 if bitcoin price is $66700. So you want to transfer $0.667.

The mempool right now is around 5 sat/vbyte. 1 input and 2 outputs will cost a fee of $0.47. So is $0.197 worth sending? I do not think it is worth sending.

1) How do I cancel the transaction, get back those bitcoins back to resend?

If you see cancel transaction on the wallet that you are using, do not go for it because you will need higher transaction fee than the previous transaction fee that you use if you to send the coins back to another address on your wallet.

2) Also, how do you determine the resend fees? Do I look at how much the rate is from websites that show the average transaction fees at that time?

If the amount is much higher than the amount that you posted, use bump fee (increase fee) to increase the fee. That depends on the wallet that you used because not all wallets that support increasing fee.

[New2024]

So without extra bitcoins for fees you just leave the transaction until it is dropped.

How long before the transaction is dropped? I tried to send it on July 4th 2024. So, it has been more than 2 weeks.

Before you make a transaction , always do well to check the average fee rate at that  period of time. You. Can make use of MEMPOOL space .

Canceling the transaction simply means you will be spending more on fees since you will have to increase the fees and bump the transaction back to your wallet. Instead you can just bump the fee if you enabled RBF to the exchange address.

Thanks for the site reference - What do I look for in Mempool site? The transaction fees on No Priority, Low Priority, Medium Priority and High Priority?

0.00001 BTC is $0.667 if bitcoin price is $66700. So you want to transfer $0.667.

Apologies - just recheck and it's 0.00156701, so, trying to send about USD104.52.

[Mia Chloe]

So without extra bitcoins for fees you just leave the transaction until it is dropped.

How long before the transaction is dropped? I tried to send it on July 4th 2024. So, it has been more than 2 weeks.

It could take a month or more before the transaction is dropped. You can't really tell when as most times the node of the wallet you used keeps broadcasting it as long as it's not below the purge fee. for luck that a miner  may confirm it which will likely never happen depending on the fees.

Thanks for the site reference - What do I look for in Mempool site? The transaction fees on No Priority, Low Priority, Medium Priority and High Priority?

The higher the priority the faster the transaction will be confirmed. Fees will tell you how deep your transaction will be placed on the MEMPOOL waiting list.

[New2024]

So without extra bitcoins for fees you just leave the transaction until it is dropped.

How long before the transaction is dropped? I tried to send it on July 4th 2024. So, it has been more than 2 weeks.

It could take a month or more before the transaction is dropped. You can't really tell when as most times the node of the wallet you used keeps broadcasting it as long as it's not below the purge fee. for luck that a miner  may confirm it which will likely never happen depending on the fees.

Thanks for the site reference - What do I look for in Mempool site? The transaction fees on No Priority, Low Priority, Medium Priority and High Priority?

The higher the priority the faster the transaction will be confirmed. Fees will tell you how deep your transaction will be placed on the MEMPOOL waiting list.

Apologies - missed your earlier point

1. Ideally you can’t cancel a Bitcoin transaction but can only do a RBF back to the wallet again(although some wallets puts the icon as cancel) and this requires you to have extra coins on the wallet again to cover for the fees which is higher than the initial fee of the transaction. So without extra bitcoins for fees you just leave the transaction until it is dropped.

What is RBF?

[Mia Chloe]

~snip

What is RBF?

It means replace by fee.
Check out the detailed explanation HERE

[New2024]

Thank you Mia and all for the guidance. I guess I'll patiently wait for the transaction to age out and amount return back to me.

[Charles-Tim]

It could take a month or more before the transaction is dropped. You can't really tell when as most times the node of the wallet you used keeps broadcasting it as long as it's not below the purge fee. for luck that a miner  may confirm it which will likely never happen depending on the fees.

It is 14 days on Bitcoin Core by default for unconfirmed transactions to drop. So it should not take more than 2 weeks for the transaction to drop from mempool.

@New2024, what wallet did you use? I am asking to know if you can use replace-by-fee or not.

[Zaguru12]

How long before the transaction is dropped? I tried to send it on July 4th 2024. So, it has been more than 2 weeks.

It could take a month or more before the transaction is dropped. You can't really tell when as most times the node of the wallet you used keeps broadcasting it as long as it's not below the purge fee. for luck that a miner  may confirm it which will likely never happen depending on the fees.

It is not the nodes that keeps broadcasting it but rather the wallet or exchange sometimes does. What happens why it is prolonged like that is that some nodes might still have it in their mempool even after two weeks due to differences in each nodes settings. And that’s why you still see It even after you might feel it should be dropped. The thing to do is to switch servers and check for the server that doesn’t have it then you can simply broadcast a new transaction again with higher fees to replace the old one.

What is RBF?

RBF is bumping fee method know as replaced by fee where you bump the transaction with a higher fee than the initial transaction fee. It can be to the initial address or to another new address like even the sending address, this feature isn’t available to all wallets though. That is the protocol on which the cancel transaction is made on. So if you want the unconfirmed transaction back to the sending address then you can simply pick the address during RBF or send it to any of the address on that same wallet

[hosseinimr93]

I guess I'll patiently wait for the transaction to age out and amount return back to me.

Take note that as long as the transaction is valid, it can be confirmed. It's possible that your transaction will be confirmed even after months.
If you don't want the transaction to be confirmed for any reason, you must make a new transaction with the same input and invalidate that transaction. You can do so easily, if the transaction has been flagged as RBF.

[PX-Z]

Experienced this before, what i tried is changed my wallet since RBF is not enabled on the current wallet, good thing it was imported on different wallet, the transaction shows unconfirmed on the wallet where i send the tx but shows normal in the other wallet probably because of the difference of node server used between the so wallets. So i used the other wallet to send it again and it works.

[BitMaxz]

Thank you Mia and all for the guidance. I guess I'll patiently wait for the transaction to age out and amount return back to me.

I just want to confirm since you mentioned you are using Bitcoin core how did you set up your wallet on Bitcoin core is it pruned or full node? Because if it's a full node it requires you to download the whole blockchain including newly generated blocks and maybe you made a transaction while it does not fully sync if you did then the transaction is not broadcasted yet to the mainnet If I were you better switch to Electrum wallet it is way more easier to use, it doesn't requires you to download the whole blockchain and if you have stuck transaction you can bump or cancel(double-spend) the transaction.

[Charles-Tim]

I just want to confirm since you mentioned you are using Bitcoin core how did you set up your wallet on Bitcoin core is it pruned or full node? Because if it's a full node it requires you to download the whole blockchain including newly generated blocks and maybe you made a transaction while it does not fully sync if you did then the transaction is not broadcasted yet to the mainnet If I were you better switch to Electrum wallet it is way more easier to use, it doesn't requires you to download the whole blockchain and if you have stuck transaction you can bump or cancel(double-spend) the transaction.

Let us just assume that he is using Bitcoin Core. He can make it fully sync and increase the fee on Bitcoin Core because the wallet is also supporting replace-by-fee.

If truly he is using Bitcoin Core, I think he will know the differences between full clients and SPV wallets.

[BitMaxz]

Let us just assume that he is using Bitcoin Core. He can make it fully sync and increase the fee on Bitcoin Core because the wallet is also supporting replace-by-fee.

Yeah, I agree I didn't mention that Bitcoin core does not support RBF it is not just available on the GUI but you need to manually use a command through the console or Bitcoin-cli to bump the fee.

[New2024]

It could take a month or more before the transaction is dropped. You can't really tell when as most times the node of the wallet you used keeps broadcasting it as long as it's not below the purge fee. for luck that a miner  may confirm it which will likely never happen depending on the fees.

It is 14 days on Bitcoin Core by default for unconfirmed transactions to drop. So it should not take more than 2 weeks for the transaction to drop from mempool.

@New2024, what wallet did you use? I am asking to know if you can use replace-by-fee or not.

I am using Bitcoin Core version v27.0 zip version. No idea what's replace-by-fee until this morning. Nor what wallet I used. Previously had older version of Bitcoin Core; I read I just need to copy the wallet.dat file from my old laptop (which I did), downloaded the current Bitcoin Core version on my new desktop, drop in the wallet.dat file and ran. It looks like it's all caught up when I send out on July 4th, 2024.

It is not the nodes that keeps broadcasting it but rather the wallet or exchange sometimes does. What happens why it is prolonged like that is that some nodes might still have it in their mempool even after two weeks due to differences in each nodes settings. And that’s why you still see It even after you might feel it should be dropped. The thing to do is to switch servers and check for the server that doesn’t have it then you can simply broadcast a new transaction again with higher fees to replace the old one.

Switch servers? I'm not sure what do you mean? Where do I find the server that I'm connected to?
I'm sorry - I'm not familiar with the inner workings of bitcoin. Haven't really played with it. Just got an address long time ago - played the click and get free bitcoin for a bit. That's why the amount is so tiny.

I just want to confirm since you mentioned you are using Bitcoin core how did you set up your wallet on Bitcoin core is it pruned or full node? Because if it's a full node it requires you to download the whole blockchain including newly generated blocks and maybe you made a transaction while it does not fully sync if you did then the transaction is not broadcasted yet to the mainnet If I were you better switch to Electrum wallet it is way more easier to use, it doesn't requires you to download the whole blockchain and if you have stuck transaction you can bump or cancel(double-spend) the transaction.

No idea whether it's pruned or full node. How do I tell? Thanks!
If I have to guess, I'd guess it's pruned. Why? Because in my old laptop, it used up quite a bit of my hard disk space. On my recent desktop, I bought extra hard disk thinking it'll be for bitcoin; but, it's used just 13.6GB - it's much much much less than when it was on my old laptop.

[nc50lc]

1) How do I cancel the transaction, get back those bitcoins back to resend?
2) Also, how do you determine the resend fees? Do I look at how much the rate is from websites that show the average transaction fees at that time?

Do you actually intend to resend or cancel the transaction?

That Bitcoin Core version that you're using has opt-in "replace-by-fee" enabled by default, so it's highly likely that you can bump the transaction fee by utilizing that feature if you only need to create a replacement transaction with higher fee rate that sends to the same recipient.
That's if you didn't disabled the option in the 'Send' tab.

To bump:
The simple method is to look for the transaction in your "Transactions" tab, right-click on it and select "Increase transaction fee".
That will create a replacement transaction with the default fee estimation.

The quite complicated method is by using the console/command line to issue bumpfee command that has more control.
In this case, you should open the console, select the correct wallet in the console's drop-down menu (only if you have multiple wallets).
Then type the command:

Code:

bumpfee "Transaction ID" "{\"fee_rate\":\"10\"}"

Replace "Transaction ID" with your transaction's TXID, and fee_rate's value: "10" into your intended fee rate in sat/vB.

On the other hand, if you want to "cancel" it, you must wait for it to get dropped from you Bitcoin Core node's mempool.
You can check that by right-clicking on it and see if "Abandon transaction" is available (not grayed-out).
If so, you can use it to make the inputs that it's trying to spend available for your new transaction.

Switch servers? I'm not sure what do you mean? Where do I find the server that I'm connected to?

They are assuming that you're using an SPV wallet like Electrum that relies on a server, you don't have to do that in Bitcoin Core.
Bitcoin Core on the other hand is a full node software, it has its own mempool, blocks and UTXO set.

Recently tried to send it to Binance using Bitcoin Core. Really unsure how much fees I need to put to transfer; but, it looks like the transactions is unconfirmed due to low fees.

It's not just a low fee that makes it seem unconfirmed in Bitcoin Core.
If you want, you can share the TXID here so people can easily get to the point. That's if you're willing to show your transaction's addresses.

[Pmalek]

If I have to guess, I'd guess it's pruned. Why? Because in my old laptop, it used up quite a bit of my hard disk space. On my recent desktop, I bought extra hard disk thinking it'll be for bitcoin; but, it's used just 13.6GB - it's much much much less than when it was on my old laptop.

If your node is fully synced and it only took up 13.6GB, then it's a pruned node.

Btw, you never told us how much you paid in fees (sats/vByte). Do you care to share that information or share the transaction ID of the transaction you sent to Binance? No one can steal your bitcoin if you share the transaction ID, but you are giving up your privacy by doing so. People would know your addresses.

[logfiles]

Without knowing what fee rate you used or sharing the TX ID here. Members are just making a few guesses here and there on what the problem could be. Search your transaction ID using a wallet explorer and tell us if it says that the transaction is confirmed or not.

Also share with us the fee rate you used in Sats/vbytes

It is also likely that your Binance account was just not credited and yet the transaction go confirmed a while ago. Binance changed their Bitcoin addresses a few months ago. Once you send the transaction to the old address. Nothing will reflect in your account until you carry out a manual approval. This happened to me a few weeks back.