No matter how much we love BTC, confirmations take way too long!

[vpitcher07]

What is the average time for 1 confirmation?  15-30 minutes ?  That isn't exactly terrible considering a lot of banks have a 3 business day policy...

Yes. Actually, 1st confirmation usually is around 10 mins based on my experience.

An average of 10 minutes is by design. Network difficulty adjusts to keep it on a 10 minute basis. If hashrate increases, difficulty increases to keep it at 10 minutes. (Roughly)

[desired_username]

I've been using BTC for years. I never had any problem due to the confirmation time.

[AliceWonder]

this is another reason i forgot why bitcoin can never replace paper currency, even if delusional people still think that.

It's not delusional.

There are two kinds of gas stations - those take that credit cards and charge a dime more a gallon to cover losses from processing and chargebacks, and those that only take cash and debit cards where chargebacks are much much harder.

Debit cards are more like bitcoin, you have to have the funds - and they don't have the same chargebacks that credit cards have.
Yet they can be instantly confirmed.

bitcoin once it has confirmed is like debit card but it takes way too long to confirm to be used at something like a gas station.

A coin that confirms in 30 seconds or less however is only risky if there is a fork, and that's not very common.

bitcoin is a fantastic coin, but not the right one for point of sale.

[AliceWonder]

I've been using BTC for years. I never had any problem due to the confirmation time.

Have you used it to buy gas?

[RodeoX]

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

[dancupid]

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

There is no single instance in the entire history of Bitcoin of this ever occurring.
The same output has to occur in the same moment of the initial transaction  and has to be propagated on the network in such a way that is is impossible to detect before the thief runs away with the swag (his coffee).
Any merchant who is worrying about this should not be running a business - there is more chance that the cash they are accepting is a forgery, or that the customer is a suicide bomber about to kill everyone in the shop.

[AliceWonder]

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

Selling a car you can wait, but the wait time at places like the grocery store where the cost is often several hundred dollars would kill the checkout. So the only way those places could accept bitcoin is through 3rd party, making bitcoin not the best coin for them. Other coins however have much lower risk.

With 30 second confirms at a grocery store there is much less time to try and pull a double spend so the risk of letting them leave before confirm is far less than with bitcoin. And if you do see a double spend hit the network before a confirm you may even be able to have your security record their license plate number because it would have to very quickly be executed.

[AliceWonder]

There is no single instance in the entire history of Bitcoin of this ever occurring.

Where do bitcoin transaction over $100 in value take place?

Outside of Internet where you can wait for confirms before shipping, they are quite rare.

There's a reason.

[fonsie]

Or in 40 to 70 minutes the merchant finds out you sent the same outputs to 4 other addresses... and the transaction you sent to him was not confirmed.

Equivalent of writing a bad check but he has nothing to go on to recover his losses.

True. it's a legit risk. I like using the number of confirmations relative to the amount as a way to mitigate the risk. So if I were selling a car I would want 6 confirmations. If selling a bag of popcorn, I might not even wait for one.

Selling a car you can wait, but the wait time at places like the grocery store where the cost is often several hundred dollars would kill the checkout. So the only way those places could accept bitcoin is through 3rd party, making bitcoin not the best coin for them. Other coins however have much lower risk.

With 30 second confirms at a grocery store there is much less time to try and pull a double spend so the risk of letting them leave before confirm is far less than with bitcoin. And if you do see a double spend hit the network before a confirm you may even be able to have your security record their license plate number because it would have to very quickly be executed.

There's no need to try performing a double spend, just steal the grocery bag, much easier. Better to keep the entire network safe by 10 min confirmation, instead of those altcoins with seconds of confirmation times just so that mommy/teller can see it's confirmed, but when she comes home, the entire thing has gone to shit.

[AliceWonder]

There's no need to try performing a double spend, just steal the grocery bag

Not really a smart way to do it. You never know when there will be a citizen hero who wants to impress a checkout girl.

[Mageant]

How about some "transaction processing" service that works together with the payment processors and the large mining pools.

The payment processor notifies this service of a valid transaction and this service would then notify the mining pools of the valid transaction.

The mining pools would agree only to include the valid transaction and not any possible double spends of it.

That way you could have instant confirmation of even large transactions (probably at a slightly higher cost).

[Hazir]

We don't need any company, any regulations any outside 'company'. It would be disaster really. If something like that will happen bitcoin would be no different than paying with credit card or paypal really.

[fonsie]

There's no need to try performing a double spend, just steal the grocery bag

Not really a smart way to do it. You never know when there will be a citizen hero who wants to impress a checkout girl.

That same hero can have a sharp eye for double spending granny's and stall them for 10 minutes....

[Beliathon]

Yes but part of the appeal of crypto is you don't have to use payment processor.

If going to have the money flow through a third party anyway, why deal with the volatility?

Because volatility is temporary, while increasing value is permanent. For fiat scrip, decreasing value is permanent. I'll leave the math to you, detective.

[Lauda]

This might be an issue in places such as a grocery store, where the transactions aren't that high but move very quickly.
If you are buying something that usually costs a few thousand, using Bitcoin, waiting shouldn't be an issue for both parties. Buying online using BTC works well too.

[AliceWonder]

Yes but part of the appeal of crypto is you don't have to use payment processor.

If going to have the money flow through a third party anyway, why deal with the volatility?

Because volatility is temporary, while increasing value is permanent. For fiat scrip, decreasing value is permanent. I'll leave the math to you, detective.

Bitcoin hasn't been around long enough to determine if the increasing value is an intrinsic property of the currency.

Some people bought and spent when it was over $1,000 - how long do they have to wait to see increasing value?

-=-

Joe empties his phone. Sends half a btc to his phone as dust inputs. Goes to Raley's, all his inputs are dust resulting in a very large kb transaction of fresh dust - which he doesn't pay a fee on. When will the transaction be confirmed?

Meanwhile his shell script detects the spend, waits for two failed confirmations (at which point Joe is long gone) and then double spends them with a transaction fee.

Miners see the transaction with a fee and confirm it. Didn't cost Joe anything, worst case scenario is some miner confirms the first spend and he pays for his groceries. Normal scenario, he's already in his car by the time the next block happens and long gone by the time the grocer sees 2 blocks w/o a confirm.

[ajareselde]

Bitcoin isnt made to be a tool for grocery shopping, but for the store of value, and transactions of value, like sending money across the globe.
Sadly, bitcoin developers failed miserably so far, and the fact that there are only 3 of them full time, on an 8 billion usd market cap. is a pure comedy.

[RodeoX]

There are a million ways to avoid these risks. For example my grocery store is a co-op and requires membership. If I were to pay with bitcoins I'm sure they would just let me walk out. If it was a fraudulent transaction, they know where to find me. I also never have had to wait for confirmation at a restaurant.

Think about personal checks, for example. That is nothing more than an I.O.U. The seller has no way of knowing if it is real or if I have money in my account. This is a non-issue as far as I can see.  

[greenearplugs]

Yes but part of the appeal of crypto is you don't have to use payment processor.

If going to have the money flow through a third party anyway, why deal with the volatility?

Because volatility is temporary, while increasing value is permanent. For fiat scrip, decreasing value is permanent. I'll leave the math to you, detective.

Joe empties his phone. Sends half a btc to his phone as dust inputs. Goes to Raley's, all his inputs are dust resulting in a very large kb transaction of fresh dust - which he doesn't pay a fee on. When will the transaction be confirmed?

Meanwhile his shell script detects the spend, waits for two failed confirmations (at which point Joe is long gone) and then double spends them with a transaction fee.

Miners see the transaction with a fee and confirm it. Didn't cost Joe anything, worst case scenario is some miner confirms the first spend and he pays for his groceries. Normal scenario, he's already in his car by the time the next block happens and long gone by the time the grocer sees 2 blocks w/o a confirm.

wouldn't it be fairly easy for a merchant wallet to check for this type of thing.  If any of the above scenarios are true, then the customer would have to wait for full confirmation.  Basically, wait 10 seconds, have the merchant wallet check for double spends.  10 seconds is enough of a head start that the first transaction should be propagated to enough of the network to make double spending unpractical.

Satoshi addressed this here. Are there any flaws in his plan?:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=423.msg3819#msg3819

[AliceWonder]

There are a million ways to avoid these risks. For example my grocery store is a co-op and requires membership.  

Sure, a business can design its model around crypto-currency but most businesses don't.

And people generally don't like having to join to buy things.

Another thing a business can do is only accept crypto-currencies with a rapid confirm.

I think it is silly to assume there can only be one, and a bit dangerous.

What happens when there is a problem in the bitcoin network? You don't want single points of failure, you want multiple crypto-currencies.

And bitcoin will ultimately fail unless there are multiple crypto-currencies.

There's a lot of sh*coins, we need to find (or create) the few worthy and get them going so they don't drown out in the sea of scams.