What Really Happens After You Click Send Bitcoin?

A lot of us have done this countless times. All you do is paste in the address you enter the amount, let say 0.001BTC and you click on Send, input your Pin and boom you are done. After some minutes later, the receiver will see the transaction and waits for confirmation.

But what actually happened in those 10 minutes?
You guys must have be curious but why this question? Just of recently, it just came to my notice that despite my 3 years of using Bitcoin. I can’t explain the mystery behind what do happen after I click Send than just saying, blockchain confirms first. And this a problem, it a problem in the sense that, you not understanding what under the hood. Will make you to fall for each BTC slow or even a transaction that can be reversed by myth fiat that users do throw at us.

So here’s what really goes down after you hit Send.

1. Your wallet shouts into a room full of people
The very moment you decide and click Send, what your wallet does is that it broadcast your transaction to Bitcoin network, just imagine that me, Sammy shouting I want to send out 0.002 BTC to so address in a crowded place like market. You see that slot of thousands of nodes will hear it. In a situation where by your fee is not high compared to transaction competing block space, like ur fee rate is low. This may allow your transaction to be unconfirmed for a longer period, just like shouting in a market place without any money in hand, you will see nobody will be move. This are one of the reason you see a Bitcoin transaction can be stuck for a longer period. This doesn’t really mean that your Bitcoin itself is broken. This just like paying a danfo fare, when you are there expecting a private jet service (funny )

2. Miners decide if you’re worth including
For this very place, miners Dey like bus drivers. In this very expect they do select transactions and then pack them into a block. But one thing again is that the bus has limited seats, which makes transactions more competitive. Competitive in the sense that fee rates generally have a chance to be included sooner.

If you are observant you will see that, this is why, If the network activity of Bitcoin becomes so high, allot of users do compete for limited bock space that are available and fee rates can increase. Everywhere is crowded with noise. If he be that you choose a very low fee rate just to save up little fubds, transactions may have to wait way longer before it being confirmed.

3. One confirmation isn’t done
If a miner include your transaction in a block a confirmation is set, this becomes a part of blockchain accepted chain. This are why you see most exchanges do wait for a several confirmation first before they proceed in creating a deposit. So that blockchain can do experience reorganize.

Back days in 2023, someone close to me sold BTC and he go on releasing Naira after just see a confirmation. In no time, block that containing transaction do became a stale during chain reorganization, what happened is that the transaction is wasn’t no longer confirmed on the chain. And this cause problem for trade. In a situation we’re all this happen, a lot of us will just immediately assume that this buyer have scammed him, but nah the biggest lesson here is that he didn’t understand the risk of relying on just one confirmation.

Make I give my people some example
Confirmation 1: The bus have leave the park.
Confirmation 6: The bus have travelled so far in distance, so turning back is a hard deal to be meet up.

So why should we care?
Once you come to understand all this thing, you will see no reason to blame Bitcoin when transaction are being delay. You all can also check this current mempool and fee conditions on http://mempool.space before having to choose a fee for transaction. With this you stop releasing fiat after first confirmation 1. And we should also keep this in mind that, our Bitcoin transaction fee is not really base on how much Bitcoin you’re sending. This because fee do depends on the fee rate or even transaction side, that why most a times small transaction cab most atimes have a higher fee.

The two different are now clear, to just click Send is so easy but understanding what happen after the Send, it what separate someone who just use Bitcoin and someone who understands Bitcoin.

Have you ever had any Bitcoin transaction that was stuck or took a long time before? If yes, what are your lessons from it?