New to Bitcoin, question about confirmations

[payagold]

Hey everyone,
I just started learning about Bitcoin and crypto.
I’m a bit confused about confirmations.
If I send some BTC from one wallet to another, how many confirmations does it usually take before it’s fully done?
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?
Thanks a lot for any help!

[Alpha Marine]

One confirmation means the transaction is successful. It means a miner has added the transaction to a block, and it's irreversible. But some services, like exchanges and casinos, require at least two confirmations for extra guarantees, because if it were extremely difficult to reverse the transaction when it had just one confirmation, it is nearly impossible to reverse it with two or more confirmations. A confirmation means it has been added to a block, so the more subsequent blocks the transaction is added to, the more secure the transaction becomes.

I may be wrong, but I have never heard of a case where a transaction was reversed after one confirmation, even though it's theoretically possible. So one confirmation means it's done, but two or more confirmations mean it's more secure.
Some exchanges require confirmation based on the amount being sent. Over $1k can be 3 confirmations, while bigger amounts are from 3 to 6 confirmations.

[casey15]

Confirmations are basically how many miners have confirmed and verify  the transaction on the block. And the it is dependent in the transaction fee. The higher the transaction fee, the faster the confirmation.. if you are transferring to an exchange, Bybit for example reflects the Bitcoin balance on your account after one confirmation but you won't be able to withdraw it until it has two or more confirmations on the block, I dint know for other exchanges but that is basically it. I made a thread on how to use Mempool to select the appropriate transaction fee for your Bitcoin transaction.
Higher fee means faster confirmations, lower fee means slower confirmation.
You can check out the thread here : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5570395.msg66251158#msg66251158

[dzungmobile]

Hey everyone,
I just started learning about Bitcoin and crypto.
I’m a bit confused about confirmations.
If I send some BTC from one wallet to another, how many confirmations does it usually take before it’s fully done?
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?

Bitcoin blockchain is very strong and secure so one confirmation is enough in general. If you are more careful, you must consider your transaction value and there are recommended confirmations to have a "safe" transaction.

See differences

If you are patient enough to wait for at least one confirmation then you are no longer vulnerable to race attacks or Finney attacks. Now your only concern is 51% attacks. What's the rule of thumb for an acceptable number of confirmations?

• 1 confirmation: sufficient for small payments less than $1,000.
• 3 confirmations: for payments $1,000 - $10,000. Most exchanges require 3 confirmations for deposits.
• 6 confirmations: good for large payments between $10,000 - $1,000,000. Six is standard for most transactions to be considered secure.
• 10 confirmations: suggested for large payments greater than $1,000,000.

More details are there.
How many Bitcoin confirmations is enough?

[payagold]

Thanks, that makes sense. Appreciate the clear explanation.

[gibrab16]

Hey everyone,
I just started learning about Bitcoin and crypto.
I’m a bit confused about confirmations.
If I send some BTC from one wallet to another, how many confirmations does it usually take before it’s fully done?
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?
Thanks a lot for any help!

For Bitcoin, 1 confirmation means it’s in a block, but most wallets/exchanges consider it final at 3–6 confirmations.
It doesn’t really depend on the wallet it’s about the Bitcoin network.
Exchanges just set their own safety rules on top of that.

[JunaidAzizi]

It depends on the amount you are sending. If it's a small amount, then one confirmation is enough, but if the amount is large, then at least six confirmations will be required. The more confirmations there are, the more secure the transaction will be. If you are in a hurry, then pay some extra fees, and your transaction will be faster than normal.

[uchegod-21]

Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?
Thanks a lot for any help!

Bitcoin Confirmations depend on the Bitcoin network and has nothing to do with the wallet itself or the exchanges. However, exchanges or wallets can only set their rules regarding Confirmations. What I mean is, they have the right to decide how many Confirmations is neccessary before the received bitcoin is considered spendable. Most times, this rule depends on the amount involved. One confirmation takes about 10 minutes. Network congestion, transaction fees and mempool condition can affect that timing.

[Cookdata]

It depends on the amount you are sending. If it's a small amount, then one confirmation is enough, but if the amount is large, then at least six confirmations will be required. The more confirmations there are, the more secure the transaction will be. If you are in a hurry, then pay some extra fees, and your transaction will be faster than normal.

This is not accurate.

Confirmation and attacks are inseparable, the fear of double spend is why at least 6 confirmations are recommended. Miners with high hashrate percentage has the chance of changing transaction with low confirmation which is why it's recommended that a transaction must reach a 6 confirmation before a deposit will be consider to be valid because you need more hash rate to be able to reverse or change a transaction with high numbers of confirmation.

The reasons why people say small amount of Bitcoin with low confirmations is enough is that no miner with high percentage hash rate will want to waste their resources to flip such transactions, they will be wasting their hashrate chasing small money and in the long run it will not be profitable, In fact they are likely going to running on loss, so there is no need to waste resources on hash rate when you can't do anything with it.

[BitMaxz]

Confirmation and attacks are inseparable, the fear of double spend is why at least 6 confirmations are recommended. Miners with high hashrate percentage has the chance of changing transaction with low confirmation which is why it's recommended that a transaction must reach a 6 confirmation before a deposit will be consider to be valid because you need more hash rate to be able to reverse or change a transaction with high numbers of confirmation.

6 confirmations is too long; if you are the buyer, you would consider it took too long to process to buy something online, but the standard on most of the shops uses only 3 confirmations; even in exchanges, this is their minimum confirmation for Bitcoin transactions. However, on Binance, for small transactions, 1 confirmation is enough, and you can immediately use the amount you deposit. Except for big amounts and planning to use them on the P2P platform, it requires 2 confirmations. OKX requires 2 confirmations to be credited into your account and 3 confirmations to be able to use it on the P2P platform.

If OP is planning to deposit to an exchange, he better check the exchange terms about how many confirmations are needed to credit the Bitcoin he deposits. He might be confused about something where he deposited, and the amount is not credited yet to his account.

[un_rank]

Confirmations are basically how many miners have confirmed and verify  the transaction on the block. And the it is dependent in the transaction fee.

This is not accurate. Once the block your transaction is in gets confirmed you get one confirmation, when a block is confirmed after that, you get 2 and after the next block gets added to the chain you get 3, and it keeps going as your block gets buried deeper under other confirmed blocks.

Your fee can affect how quickly your transaction is added to a block but not how quickly the block gets confirmed or subsequent blocks.

- Jay -

[Cricktor]

Well, look at https://fork.observer/ which shows that occasionally small, one block forks happen, but personally I never observed more than just one stale block "long" fork leafs on Bitcoin mainnet.

So when your transaction just got confirmed, it could be in a stale block. Those forks usually only happen when two block are found timely quite close to each other (the timestamp in the block header doesn't represent the actual time of the block submitted to the network). One confirmation could be not quite enough, but after a second or third confirmation experience showed such transactions to be pretty much final.


If you want to see some blockchain forking madness, switch to Testnet4 on https://fork.observer/! I wonder how many confirmations you would need to consider a transaction on Bitcoin Testnet4 to be truely final. Yikes!

[Cryptohygenic]

Hey everyone,
I just started learning about Bitcoin and crypto.
I’m a bit confused about confirmations.
If I send some BTC from one wallet to another, how many confirmations does it usually take before it’s fully done?
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?

Confirmation of transactions means it has successfully verified your transaction with bitcoin being sent and received according to your inputs. It is a beat technical term which may be difficult for newbies to understand easily. I hope you will find a means to fix yourself up together and don't get it so confused. It is a gradual process and  you will learn as much as your learning ability can bear.
A lot of technicalities really goes around in the space.
The time your transaction is confirmed is determined by transactions queued in the network you are using to send the coins.

[Pablo-wood]

Technically one confirmation is enough for a bitcoin transaction to be valid, although most exchanges still require multiple confirmations which usually ranges from 2 to 6 before crediting or unlocking the coins to their users. For transaction validity one transaction is enough but for p2p or withdrawal using exchanges the exchange/ Wallet you choose set their own rules and policies which has nothing to do with bitcoin network itself.

[KingsDen]

xxx
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?

It depends on the network if it's a non custodial wallet.

But it depends on network and exchange if it's an exchange wallet.

[notocactus]

For Bitcoin, 1 confirmation means it’s in a block, but most wallets/exchanges consider it final at 3–6 confirmations.
It doesn’t really depend on the wallet it’s about the Bitcoin network.
Exchanges just set their own safety rules on top of that.

6 confirmations are no longer applied on exchanges as far as I know. 3 confirmations are enough and I see centralized exchanges require from numbers of confirmations as 1 or 3. Perhaps 6 confirmations were required long time in the past and even I have been in this market a long time, honestly I don't recall that I have ever experienced 6-confirmation requirement with my deposits.

It depends on the network if it's a non custodial wallet.

But it depends on network and exchange if it's an exchange wallet.

With non custodial wallets, you have private keys and are actually controlling your bitcoin so that you are free to broadcast your Bitcoin transactions with your own customization in fee rate and UTXO selection.

With custodial wallets on online platforms, centralized exchanges, you don't have private keys and you completely depend on their decisions to approve your transaction request, broadcast your withdrawal. In addition, they can charge you very expensive withdrawal fees.

• Old story. Exchanges get profits from users' withdrawal fees.

[Oshio-man]

I believe you are operating bank account or you have follow your parents to the bank to carry out some transactions in the bank and after the transaction, sender will receive a message of deduction while the receiver will also receive a message of credit to prove to both that the transaction is successful likewise decentralized transactions also, bitcoin transactions is not hiding and there are evidence that will back your transaction either successful or not successful because the blockchain is a place where all the transaction information are be stored for future purposes, I will advice you not to be using huge amount of funds to test yourself if you are good to start using huge amount of funds to transact in the market because you need to have the knowledge of how to identify scammers transactions in the decentralized market.

[L E G E N D A R Y]

Hey everyone,
I just started learning about Bitcoin and crypto.
I’m a bit confused about confirmations.
If I send some BTC from one wallet to another, how many confirmations does it usually take before it’s fully done?
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?

Confirmation of transactions means it has successfully verified your transaction with bitcoin being sent and received according to your inputs. It is a beat technical term which may be difficult for newbies to understand easily. I hope you will find a means to fix yourself up together and don't get it so confused. It is a gradual process and  you will learn as much as your learning ability can bear.
A lot of technicalities really goes around in the space.
The time your transaction is confirmed is determined by transactions queued in the network you are using to send the coins.

Doing some confirmations before deciding on what to do, really helps a lot, as it will help to guide you in the right path and also in doing the right thing as well. As it will also boost your confidence and motivate you to keep going forward but one should be extra careful and cautious about investing in Bitcoin,  so that they won't fall into traps that will cause them loss or into the hands of scammers.

[ancafe]

Hey everyone,
I just started learning about Bitcoin and crypto.
I’m a bit confused about confirmations.
If I send some BTC from one wallet to another, how many confirmations does it usually take before it’s fully done?
Does it depend on the network, or is it more about the wallet/exchange?
Thanks a lot for any help!

Usually one to three transactions are sufficient, but the time required may vary depending on the network. For example, I use Binance, so even with small transactions, one transaction is sufficient. Using Electrum allows you to set the fee per transaction and in my experience, the lower the fee, the slower the transaction process. If you intend to deposit to an exchange, it's recommended to first check the required number of transactions based on the exchange's terms and conditions to answer this question.