Transaction stuck for several months due to low fees

[keychainX]

Hi all

I have tried searching for this answer, but I couldn't find a clear solution to my problem, so I decided to make a post.

Around the time of the recent halvening, I paid a friend for some BTC. They use Electrum wallet, I do not. Neither of us have ever used Electrum wallet to send coins, they have only used it to receive BTC. They asked me what level of fees to set - foolishly, I said as low as possible. My wallet does not allow a choice of fees.

At the time, I did not understand that would mean no miners would process the transaction. I know that, technically, one day the fees could come down low enough for it to send. However in the meantime those coins are effectively unavailable to either me or my friend.

From the research I have done, it seems that the only solution for me to receive my coins is to make a new transaction with a higher fee. However, that does not return the stuck coins to my friend's wallet. As far as I can tell, those coins are now in limbo somewhere, leaving either them or me out of pocket. They are not prepared to send more coins without a clear explanation of how to get the first transaction cancelled (fair enough, it is a large amount of money at stake for both of us).

Is there a way to cancel this stuck transaction? Or I guess, how do we "unstick" those coins?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Have you tried mempool.space to speed up transactions? Its open and you can apply for a account
/KX

[khaled0111]

Have you tried mempool.space to speed up transactions? Its open and you can apply for a account
/KX

Afaik, Mempool.space acceleration service is not for free. Although their fees are very reasonable compared to their competitors, I don't see why he should use it when he can do it himself and pay way less.

Besides, this is a good opportunity for him to learn how all of this work and how to solve such issues by himself without having to rely on third party services.

[PX-Z]

Hi all, thank you for all of the responses. I am currently abroad and it's difficult for me to contact my friend and to reply here, so thanks for your patience.

If you currently still face this problem, probably the "sent" amount is already back to your friend's wallet since that transaction probably dropped by the network already. It only shows "unconfirmed" because of the electrum's server your friend is using.
You can request to send it back to you either using RBF by sending another transaction by with higher fee (5sat/vb =$.04 as of writing).
You can also request to change his/er electrum's server so the amount will show to the wallet and send it back using desktop and android wallet of electrum
And lastly, import to another wallet using unstoppable and mycelium if using android, although this is optional and note it may risk your friend's word seed due using another wallet if not used properly.