CRYPTOCURRENCIES LATES NEWS: What to do if your transaction is "stuck"
The number of transactions in the Bitcoin network has been steadily increasing over the years. This means that blocks are increasingly filled to the limit. And since not all transactions can be immediately included in the block, in the "memory pools" (a kind of "transaction queues") of the miners, traffic jams are formed.
Miners are usually the first to include in their blocks of transactions with the highest commission. Transactions with lower commissions "interrupt" in the so-called "commissions market" and remain in the pool of memory of the miners until the next block is found. If the transaction is interrupted again, it must wait for the next block.
The result may not be the best user experience. Confirmation of transactions with a very low commission can take hours, days, and sometimes they are never confirmed.
But here are some tips on how to avoid hanging your transaction.
Before sending
In the early years of Bitcoin's existence, most wallets added a fixed commission to outgoing transactions: as a rule, 0.1 mBTC. Since the miners still had free space in the blocks, they usually included these transactions in the nearest extracted block. (Actually, transactions with a lower commission or even no commission were also often included).
With the growth of competition for space in the fixed commission unit, 0.1 mBTC is often not enough for a transaction to be included in the next block; it is interrupted by transactions with a higher commission. Although even transactions with a low commission are likely to be confirmed sooner or later, it can take a long time.
Try to increase the commission
If you want your transaction to be confirmed more quickly, the obvious decision is to include a higher commission.
If your wallet (by default) indicates insufficient commission, it can be adjusted manually, either in the purse settings or when sending a transaction (or both here and there).
Sites such as 21.co are monitoring the network and suggesting which commission should be included per byte, and also how quickly transactions with different commissions can be confirmed.
If you need to make payment in the next one or two blocks, you must pay a higher commission. For not such urgent payments, the commission may be lower, just for confirmation, it takes a little more time.
Check if there are any dynamic commissions in your wallet
Today, most wallets support dynamic commissions. These wallets, based on Bitcoin network data, automatically include commissions with which the transaction should be included in the nearest or one of the nearest blocks.
Some wallets also allow you to select a commission depending on the priority. Again, with higher commissions, your transactions will be confirmed faster, and with lower ones, you will need more time.
If transactions from your wallet are often delayed during peak hours and you do not have the option to select a commission with a higher priority, it's likely that your wallet is out of date. Check if the update is available, or change the purse.
Think about changing your wallet
If you decide to change the purse, you, of course, need to transfer money from the old wallet to a new one. If you are not in a hurry and do not mind paying the commission, you can simply transfer funds from the old purse to the new one through the Bitcoin network. They, probably, sooner or later will reach - even if the commission is low.
If you are in a hurry, some wallets allow you to export private keys or the source of private keys and then import them into a new purse. To do this, transactions in the Bitcoin network are not required. You can immediately carry out transactions from a new wallet.
After sending
If you have already poisoned the transaction and it has hung up, in some cases it can be done so that it "jumps the queue"
Replacement by commission
The easiest way to make the transaction jump over the queue is to use the option of "possible replacement by the commission" (Opt-In Replace-by-Fee, or Opt-In RBF). This allows you to re-send the same transaction, but with a higher commission.
In most cases, when the same transaction is sent over the network again, but with a higher commission, the network rejects it. Bitcoin nodes usually consider such a new transaction as a double expenditure and therefore do not accept or not transmit it.
But when you send a transaction with Opt-In RBF, you essentially tell the network that you can later re-send the same transaction, but with a larger commission. As a consequence, most Bitcoin nodes will accept this new transaction instead of the old one, allowing it to get to the top of the queue.
Whether the new transaction is included in the nearest block depends on which miner will find the next block: not all miners support Opt-In RBF. However, this option supports enough miners so that your transaction is highly likely to be included in one of the nearest blocks.
Opt-In RBF now supports two purses: Electrum and GreenAddress. Depending on the purse, you may need to enable the Opt-In RBF in the settings before sending the (first) transaction.
The child pays for the parent
If your wallet does not support the Opt-In RBF, everything is somewhat more complicated.
Perhaps, the "child pays for parent" (CPFP) method works. With CPFP, the miners do not necessarily choose the transactions with the highest commission, but instead, choose the transaction group with the highest total commission.
If you do not go into the technical details, most of the transactions are not only sending bits to the recipient but also sending you a "change". You can spend this change in the next transaction.
Some wallets allow you to spend this change, even if it is still not confirmed, so you can send it to yourself in a new transaction. Only this time, do not forget to include a sufficiently high commission to compensate for the low commission of the original transaction. Miner chooses a whole group of transactions and confirms them all at once.
If your wallet does not allow you to choose which bitcoin to spend - that is, you can not expend unconfirmed surrender - you can try to send yourself all the money in your wallet, where the delivery will be included.
As with the Opt-In RBF, not all of the miners currently support CPFP. But still, this option supports enough miners so that your transaction is confirmed in one of the following blocks.
Or…
If you can not use either Opt-In RBF or CPFP, you can still try to forward the original transaction to a larger commission. Some miners take the so-called "full replacement by the commission." However, currently available in open access wallets do not support this option.
Or you can wait until the transaction is confirmed, or until bitcoin again appear in your wallet. It is important to note that while the transaction is not confirmed, the bitcoins are still formally in your wallet - although often this is not visible. Bitcoins do not "hang" in the literal sense of the network and can not be lost.
In addition, the ViaBTC mining-pool began to offer a " transaction accelerator ". If your suspended transaction includes a commission of at least 0.1 mBTC per kilobyte, you can report the ViaBTC transaction ID, and the pool will increase its priority relative to other transactions. Since ViaBTC controls about 7% of Bitcoin's processing capacity, there is a high probability that it will find the unit in the next few hours. Nevertheless, the service is limited to 100 transactions per hour.
If you are a recipient
Of course, the transaction in which you are the recipient can also hang.
If your purse supports the use of unconfirmed transactions, then you can also solve it using CPFP. In the same way, as described above, you can send unconfirmed incoming bitcoins to yourself, including a sufficiently high commission to compensate for a low commission of the original transaction. If the new commission is sufficient, the transaction is usually confirmed within the next few blocks. Of course, the above-mentioned ViaBTC transaction accelerator also works for incoming transactions.
The only other option is to ask the sender if he can use the Opt-In RBF. If so, it can re-send the transaction with a higher commission.
In addition, do not forget that you can always cancel a jam-packed bit-transaction.
