How many confirmations blockchain

Once that block is created and the new transaction is verified and included in that block, the transaction will have one confirmation. Approximately every ten minutes thereafter, a new block is created and the transaction is reconfirmed by the Bitcoin network. While some services are instant or only require one confirmation, many Bitcoin companies will require more as each confirmation greatly decreases the likelihood of a payment being reversed. It is common for six confirmations to be required which takes about an hour.

Knowing how many confirmations are required by the service provider can give you a good idea of how long it will take for your transaction to be completed. Once you make a transaction, your wallet should give you an option to view the transaction on a block explorer or give you the transaction ID.

To check the number of confirmations for a transaction, paste the ID into a block explorer like blockchain. Try one of these:. The chart below illustrates the average amount of time it takes miners to find a block - one block found means one confirmation. While the Bitcoin blockchain targets 10 minute blocks, sometimes they are faster and sometimes they are slower.

But confirmations still come in and after a few difficulty adjustments, we were right back on our 10 minute block time average. Our guide on the best bitcoin wallets features wallets with good fee estimators.

Read it here! If your transaction is unconfirmed for hours, just wait. If more than 72 hours pass and your transaction still isn't confirmed, you can re-send the transaction. We recommend using Electrum wallet with a hardware wallet like the Ledger Nano X since it allows you to raise the fee on transactions if they get stuck. Coinbase requires three confirmations before a transaction will show up and be spendable in your Coinbase account.

As mentioned above, block times are targeted to be 10 minutes. However, sometimes they are more and sometimes they are less. If the difficulty is set too low, then block times will tend to be shorter than 10 minutes. Difficulty is adjusted every 2 weeks, but the way it is adjusted is based on the previous two weeks average block times. This generally does a good job of ensuring 10 minute blocks, but it is not perfect. If a lot of mining hashing power is suddenly added to the network quickly, then this hashing power wont be accounted for until the next difficulty adjustment, resulting in faster block times on average.

Sometimes blocks are found in minutes simply because of luck. The truth is, mining bitcoin is about guessing the answers to complex math problems. Guessing the answer should, statistically speaking, take about 10 minutes. However, sometimes you get lucky and find it much sooner. Assuming 10 minute block timers are perfectly calibrated, and none of the above occurs, you could still get your first confirmation in less than 10 minutes. Let's say a block is found and five minutes later you broadcast a transaction with a higher fee than anyone else on the network.

If that were the case, you would get your first confirmation in 5 minutes. There is no way for you to speed up the rate at which blocks are added to the blockchain. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. As a regular user of Bitcoin, I often send bitcoins to other, or receive BTC from others, sometimes this might be a trade or deposit. Some traders require at least 6 confirmation, some require at least 3.

As a merchant or trader, you want to use the configuration that is more secure no incoming connections permitted, explicity connect to well-connected nodes. There could also be a miner with a lot of hashing power who could get a couple blocks in a row, so three confirmations removes most of them.

A merchant that ships e-commerce might hold off until the transaction has three confirmations. A cash, face-to-face cash trade will probably be best if three confirmations for a large amount, maybe one confirmation for small amounts.

The lesson of the recent v0. You also need to satisfy yourself that there are no competing blockchain forks. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. No further blocks will be added. In a way, giving it another stamp of authority. Six confirmations are widely considered to be safe and secure enough to prove your transaction will be valid and permanent.

At this point the chances of your transaction being invalidated are less than 0. New blocks are added to the blockchain through the mining process, which is needed to secure a network and process a Bitcoin transaction. The bigger the value of the transaction, the more confirmations you should wait for as this helps to safely verify a transaction has taken place.