How to speed up unconfirmed bitcoin transactions

Bitcoin is the first successful cryptocurrency network, created in 2009. It was originally developed as a payment system. However, Bitcoin’s bandwidth became insufficient by 2021. A large number of unconfirmed bitcoin transactions began to accumulate in the mempool (the list of unprocessed BTC transfers). At times of peak workload, the number of pending transactions reaches 20-30 thousand. In such conditions, some transfers can be confirmed for a day or more. However, there are ways to speed up this process.

Reasons for unconfirmed transactions in the Bitcoin blockchain

Bitcoin uses old cryptocurrency technologies. On average, they provide a throughput of 3.5 transactions per second (you can see this figure through blockchain monitoring services). The demand for the Bitcoin system grows annually, but the speed of processing transfers does not increase. This is the main reason why hung BTC transactions appear.

In 2015, the Bitcoin Core program development team launched the Lightning Network (LN) second-level protocol. It allows the creation of channels for instant bitcoin transfers with low fees, which increases the overall bandwidth of the BTC coin blockchain.

In 2024, LN technology is only supported by a small fraction of wallets.

Causes of transaction hang-up can also be:

• Low fees. In the mempool, pending transactions are sorted by the amount of fees specified by users. The higher the commission, the higher the priority of a bitcoin transaction for miners. Such transfers are processed first. On the contrary, transactions with low fees are included at the end of the mempool.
• Blockchain capacity limitations. In 2021, the Bitcoin cryptocurrency blockchain supports links weighing up to 2 MB. The figure depends on the total size of transactions included in the blocks, which are generated every 10 minutes. On average, a link holds 2 thousand transfers. If the number of transactions created by network participants in 10 minutes exceeds 2,000, some of them remain in the mempool for the next period.

How to cancel an unconfirmed transaction

You can roll back a hung transfer in several ways. For example, if a bitcoin transaction through a desktop wallet is not confirmed, the following method will work:

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1. Verify that the Bitcoin transfer is indeed stuck in the blockchain. Using the TxID (identifier), you need to determine the status of the BTC transaction. Monitoring services allow you to do this. All you need to do is enter the payment TxID in the search field and press Enter. If the status is “Pending” or “Not Confirmed”, you can proceed to the next step.
2. Go to the debugging console inside the desktop wallet software. Usually there is a corresponding button in the program header.
3. Get the wallet’s private cryptocurrency key. To do this, you need to enter the dumpprivkey command in the debugging console. The private crypto key should be saved, for example, in a text notepad on the computer or written down on paper.
4. Close the client and delete the desktop program. At the same time, it is important to keep a backup file of the wallet just in case. Usually it is called wallet.dat and is located in the folder C:usernamecomputerappdataroamingBTC.
5. Install the client and launch the application. This step requires creating a new wallet, into which the private digital address of the old storage will be imported later.
6. Open the debug console and enter the importprivkey command . Thus, the information about the old wallet will be transferred to the new account. In this case, unconfirmed bitcoin transactions are canceled, and the funds are returned in full.

To get the desired result, you can restart the client with the -rescan parameter. It initiates the wallet status check when the software is opened.

How long can you wait for transaction confirmation

A BTC transfer, to which the user has set the commission recommended by the system, is processed for 20-60 minutes under moderate network load. However, during peak periods, unconfirmed bitcoin transactions can hang in the mempool for 24 hours or more.

Due to too small fees, the transaction is included at the very end of the list of pending transfers. During high network load, miners do not have time to get to this Bitcoin transaction. Then after 14 days, the system automatically rejects the Bitcoin transfer with a small fee. Such a period is the maximum period of “life” of a BTC transaction in the mempool.

For a Bitcoin transaction to be considered valid, it must receive 6 confirmations from different miners. However, for small BTC transactions, many cryptocurrency services often request only 2 notifications about the validity of the transfer.

What to do if a bitcoin transaction is not validated

First, you need to make sure that the processing delay is not caused by technical problems of the service used to manage cryptocurrency assets. After that, you can try to speed up the confirmation. There are 5 methods used by the cryptocurrency community:

• Double-spending or Spending (Double-spending).
• Child Pays for Parent (CPFP).
• Gas pedal Services.
• SegWit (Segregated Witness).
• Replace-By-Fee (RBF).

Author: Saifedean Ammous, an expert in cryptocurrency economics.