1 Hour Confirmation Time

[notbatman]

I made a transaction this morning, it took an hour for 1 confirmation. I watched the blocks come in on block chain.info and there were none for an hour. Then suddenly I got a confirmation and a backlog of 4 blocks showed up on blockchain.info (my wallet is not on block chain.info just using them to see the blocks).

Having 1 confirmation I then made a second transaction and it instantly got 2 confirmation on two of the past blocks that were backlogged.

Impossible, WTF is going on this is fishy as hell.

[1714791917]

1714791917

[beatljuice]

Not fishy, perfectly normal. The average being  ~10 minutes doesn't mean the longest is 20 and the shortest is 1. It's random so there will be outliers in the amounts of time it takes. I don't know what the longest time is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were 3 hours or more.

Okay I was a little long with the 3 hours.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1vkp1x/what_is_the_longest_time_between_blocks_in_the/

[notbatman]

Read the post before offering a "knee-jerk" response.

I'm saying I witnessed something that's impossible. A transaction instantly showing 2 confirmations from 2 past blocks. One block mined 7 mins before the transaction and one 14 mins before. Not possible, so how did it happen?

[chronicaust]

Yes bitcoin does some weird stuff and makes me think it will never be ready for "prime time'.  The long confirmation times are a huge problem, esp if you make a relatively expensive purchase at a retail location.

[Rulishix]

Bit coin is open source, is it not? It will be changed and improved upon as time goes on and this includes transaction processing times I hope because I agree they are a pain.

[DannyHamilton]

Bit coin is open source, is it not? It will be changed and improved upon as time goes on and this includes transaction processing times I hope because I agree they are a pain.

This will not change, perhaps you are waiting longer than you need to?

[beatljuice]

You don't need a confirmation for a small purchase, just like you don't have to give your signature for a small purchase on a credit card. And when you make a deposit into an empty bank account they will let you withdraw a couple hundred bucks even though the check's not cleared or "confirmed."

Someone trying to do a 51% attack wouldn't be wasting the little time they have to pull the off the attack buying coffee and a doughnut.

Did you read the the post I linked above. Sometimes the times between blocks show up as negative. It's not a REAL problem. A real problem is people not buying and selling with bitcoin.

[crunchynut]

dear nobatman, surely this issue is caused by your lack of understanding of bitcoin's greatness. did you know that your seemingly instant credit card payments are in fact taking several days? you simply don't recognise it because those evil credit card companies don't think of bothering you with technical behind-the-curtain details.

only bitcoin transactions are truly real-time. you simply don't recognise it because almost nobody will accept a transaction before it is confirmed several times. however, that is only a practical problem which does not affect the theory of bitcoin in any way because it was never the intention of the ingenious satoshi fukushima to solve a problem that really exists. you might not understand this because you are not as smart as we, the early adopters and unemployed, are.

all the best
batman

[FrozenBit]

 I have noticed a little slow down in the network confirmation time.

[DannyHamilton]

dear nobatman, surely this issue is caused by your lack of understanding of bitcoin's greatness. did you know that your seemingly instant credit card payments are in fact taking several days? you simply don't recognise it because those evil credit card companies don't think of bothering you with technical behind-the-curtain details.

only bitcoin transactions are truly real-time. you simply don't recognise it because almost nobody will accept a transaction before it is confirmed several times. however, that is only a practical problem which does not affect the theory of bitcoin in any way because it was never the intention of the ingenious satoshi fukushima to solve a problem that really exists. you might not understand this because you are not as smart as we, the early adopters and unemployed, are.

all the best
batman

Humorous, but largely misleading sarcasm.

[notbatman]

I should note that the transactions went through OK in spite of the quirky network behaviour.

[Soros Shorts]

I should note that the transactions went through OK in spite of the quirky network behaviour.

Keep in mind that blockchain.info is not the network and it doesn't see everything that is going on in the entire network at that very instant. It is just a well connected node. It could suffer from network glitches when under high load.

[Nagle]

only bitcoin transactions are truly real-time.

Try overdrawing your debit card.

[howzar]

This is a main reason why bitcoin wont be used any time soon in large business unless it gets changed..

[LMGTFY]

only bitcoin transactions are truly real-time.

Try overdrawing your debit card.

In the UK at least debit cards can (and do) allow connected accounts to go overdrawn. There are two main ways people make "cardholder present" payments with debit cards in the UK: for payments over £10-£20 it's "chip and PIN" (push debit card into reader, enter PIN), and for payments under £20 there's NFC (hold card near reader). The second method doesn't connect to the bank at all; the first method only asks your bank whether the bank believes there are sufficient funds (but transfers don't confirm immediately, so there's a chance that you don't actually have sufficient funds if you've made purchases on your debit card in the past few days).

I've also used "EFTPOS" in Australasia - as far as I know that was immediate, however.

[loewen.brad]

Don't worry about it, op. I had a tx a few weeks ago that took three hours before it ever even hit blockchain.info. that tx took literally all day to get to three confirms.

[devphp]

You don't need a confirmation for a small purchase, just like you don't have to give your signature for a small purchase on a credit card.

yeah? go tell that to bitcoin processing services for merchants, they require 6 confirmations even for small purchases. That will hurt adoption a lot.

[waldox]

maybe your transaction fee was too small for the data size of your transaction

[cozytrade]

maybe your transaction fee was too small for the data size of your transaction

OP's case seems to be just a long interval of the mining. In fact I felt the same thing yesterday. Sometimes not stable interval.

[whtchocla7e]

Not fishy, perfectly normal. The average being  ~10 minutes doesn't mean the longest is 20 and the shortest is 1. It's random so there will be outliers in the amounts of time it takes. I don't know what the longest time is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were 3 hours or more

"Random" is not good enough for the real world.

[mprep]

Not fishy, perfectly normal. The average being  ~10 minutes doesn't mean the longest is 20 and the shortest is 1. It's random so there will be outliers in the amounts of time it takes. I don't know what the longest time is, but it wouldn't surprise me if it were 3 hours or more

"Random" is not good enough for the real world.

Well it is, some block take longer to find then others. Add different mining speeds throughout the day and you get randomness.

[kokojie]

You must be new here. 1 hour confirmation is basically an everyday occurrence.

Though the better question is, how logical is it to keep the 10 minute confirmation time, when altcoins has already proven that 15 second confirmation is doable without problems.

[DannyHamilton]

This is a main reason why bitcoin wont be used any time soon in large business unless it gets changed..

SARCASM
You are correct.  Because of this issue, businesses like TigerDirect.com, Overstock.com, and Las Vegas casinos will NEVER accept bitcoin.  It's a shame, but that's the reality we'll have to live with.
/SARCASM

You don't need a confirmation for a small purchase, just like you don't have to give your signature for a small purchase on a credit card.

yeah? go tell that to bitcoin processing services for merchants, they require 6 confirmations even for small purchases. That will hurt adoption a lot.

You are incorrect.  BitPay does not require 6 confirmations for most transactions.

[bitcerto]

I believe long confirmation times are the biggest detriment to the adoption of Bitcoin. The few times I've bought something with Bitcoin, I was mildly annoyed by the confirmation timeframe. I hope that POS bitcoin-based systems have some way to bypass this. Maybe they already do and I just don't know about it. It stands to reason that a big service, like Bitpay, could allow for approval of a customer before a confirmation on smaller purchases.

[Meuh6879]

this morning ... 2 blocks = 2 hours , the 294765 and 294763 ( http://blockr.io/block/list/ )

not a problem.
stop build industrial asic farm ... will simply the difficulty raise level.

[DannyHamilton]

None of the physical locations in my city allow for zero confirmation transactions. The best have you wait around for one confirmation before they let you go with your purchase. Any size purchase.

This makes using Bitcoin actually a bit less convenient than cash or debit around here because you have no way to know how long you need to wait.

This is a shame.  With more time, and more education, merchants will learn that it isn't always necessary to wait for a confirmation.  There will be other solutions.

[notbatman]

Seems everybody respoding only read the title of the post. I'm guessing the network came under some sort of delay in service attack. Could the big banks be behind it? It matches their mode of operation.

[Joshuar]

You don't need a confirmation for a small purchase, just like you don't have to give your signature for a small purchase on a credit card. And when you make a deposit into an empty bank account they will let you withdraw a couple hundred bucks even though the check's not cleared or "confirmed."

Someone trying to do a 51% attack wouldn't be wasting the little time they have to pull the off the attack buying coffee and a doughnut.

Did you read the the post I linked above. Sometimes the times between blocks show up as negative. It's not a REAL problem. A real problem is people not buying and selling with bitcoin.

You can still stop a transaction from taking place even after sending the coins, that's why you're supposed to wait until 6 confirmations or so..Bitcoin is not as reliable as you think, and because of that, many retail stores won't accept it....

[DannyHamilton]

You can still stop a transaction from taking place even after sending the coins, that's why you're supposed to wait until 6 confirmations or so..Bitcoin is not as reliable as you think, and because of that, many retail stores won't accept it....

If you've paid a reasonable transaction fee, and all of the inputs to your transaction are already confirmed, then it is quite difficult to stop a transaction after sending it.  For small transactions, it would be more expensive for to stop the transaction than the cost of the transaction itself.  This is why people say things like:

You don't need a confirmation for a small purchase,
- snip -
Someone trying to do a 51% attack wouldn't be wasting the little time they have to pull the off the attack buying coffee and a doughnut.
- snip -

In addition, accepting an item or service as part of a purchase transaction, and then reversing the transaction before it confirms is called fraud.  If the merchant can identify you, they can refuse to do business with you in the future and they can have you prosecuted for fraud.  In general, the risk:reward ratio makes it not worth the risk for a small reward such as a free candy bar, doughnut, or coffee