It’s a serious slack to have series of Bitcoin unconfirmed transactionson in your wallet.
During Bitcoin transfer from one wallet to another, you can make the mistake of choosing the lowest miner price as transaction fee.
This can actually cause the Bitcoin transaction time to take longer confirmation time, and also not get confirmed by miners.
Now, that’s a scenario which can cause your Bitcoin unconfirmed transaction to be delayed aside network congestion.
In this guide, I will show you how to speed-up unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction time, while even help you rebroadcast it on the blockchain network.
Bitcoin transaction confirmation explained
A Bitcoin transaction is declared as unconfirmed once it over-stays the entire block-time without being confirmed.
However, when this happens you will need to cancel and rebroadcast Bitcoin transaction entirely.
Before we continue, you should know that for every BTC transaction to be fully confirmed, it must have from 3~12 confirmations.
Otherwise, there’s a problem in the blockchain confirmation, and may lead to unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction.
If your Bitcoin transaction remains unconfirmed for more than 24 hours, then you will need to check the progress on Blockchain explorer.
Fortunately, there’s a way to cancel and rebroadcast Bitcoin transaction for revival, or even speed-up the transaction confirmation.
Best ways to rebroadcast Bitcoin transaction
Before trying to rebroadcast a Bitcoin transaction, you must ensure that it’s not confirmed yet, as that will interfer with the whole process.
You must be sure of the confirmation status, even when the transaction is unconfirmed for days, before proceeding with the process.
However, if you’re sure there’s no confirmation yet, then use the transaction ID to track the transaction node to see the progressive details.
If the number of confirmation is greater than zero, then you have to wait until it completes the transaction.
Otherwise, you can follow these 2 processes to fix and speed-up your unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction on the network.
These processes to fix Bitcoin unconfirmed transaction confirmation are:
- RBF (Replace-by-fee) protocol
- Higher fee double-spend transaction
- Bitcoin transaction accelerators
- CPFP (Child-pay-for-parents) trick.
1. Replace-by-fee protocol
To have your unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction reversed, you will need to employ Replace-by-fee (RBF) protocol to cancel the stucked confirmation process.
It’s a technique that allows individuals replace their unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions with a new version with a higher fee.
Only few wallets support the RBF protocol, and give you an opportunity to send the Bitcoin with higher miner fee.
To use this particular feature in a wallet that supports it, you will have to select it as one of the options while sending out cryptocurrency.
2. Higher fee double-spend transaction
In case you’re not able to use RBF, you can still cancel the transaction by a process known as Higher fee double-spend transaction.
To do double spending, you will have to make a new transaction to yourself with the exact equal amount of the original transaction.
This time, make sure the transaction fee is high enough to get your transaction confirmed by the miners.
You may need another crypto wallet that allow this feature to help you rebroadcast Bitcoin transaction to the miners for confirmation.
3. Bitcoin transaction accelerators
A BTC transaction accelerator helps users understand what’s the optimum transaction fee at which they’ll be confirmed in the shortest period of time.
As a matter of fact, Bitcoin miners choose the transactions with high feeson them, because these transactions provide them with the largest profits.
However, there’s no way for you to know the right amount to pay for your transaction to be confirmed immediately.
To use the Bitcoin transaction accelerator, you’ll only need a TXID (i.e. Transaction Hash), a unique code that represents the cryptocurrency transaction in your wallet.
If you decide to use a Bitcoin transaction accelerator, you have to know that some of them offer their services fee-free, while others charge a certain fee.
4. Child-pay-for-parents trick
Child Pay for Parent trick is a Bitcoin transaction rebroadcasting method where you have to create new transaction known as child transaction.
In this transaction, a higher fee also known as parent transaction is also added to force the verification of the unconfirmed transaction.
This way the miners are encouraged to confirm the previous parent transaction.
The CPFP method may seem quite similar to the Replace-by-fee method, but this process to speed-up confirmation time, the original transaction remains valid.
Furthermore, the child Bitcoin transaction is created as a motivation for the Bitcoin miners to process and confirm both the child and the parent transactions.
Not all cryptocurrency wallets support the Child Pays for Parent option for rebroadcasting a Bitcoin transaction.
However, some of the most popular Bitcoin wallets do, such as Electrum, Bitcoin Core and Exodus.
Why is my Bitcoin transaction unconfirmed?
Many things can stall your Bitcoin transaction confirmation for more than 24 hours.
It might be that the transaction operation is still in progress, or the transaction fee you chose was too low.
Does Bitcoin core rebroadcast unconfirmed transactions?
Opt-in Replace-by-Fee (RBF) allows transactions to be flagged as replaceable until they are confirmed in a block.
However, Bitcoin core also make use of this technique to unstuck your unconfirmed transaction.
In other words, Bitcoin core can rebroadcast transactions to speed up unconfirmed BTC transaction.
What is a Bitcoin transaction?
A Bitcoin transaction is a transfer of Bitcoin value that is broadcasted to the blockchain network and recorded in the ledgers.
What is a transaction ID?
Transaction ID (TXID) is a unique identifier generated by blockchain network to represent a specific transaction on the ledger.
How long does it take Bitcoin transaction to be confirmed?
Bitcoin transaction confirmation time can vary, but typically takes about 10-20 minutes for every transaction to be confirmed.
What happens if my Bitcoin transaction takes more than 24 hours to be confirmed?
If your Bitcoin transaction doesn’t get confirmed within 24 hours, it will usually be reversed by the network.
However, it’s also very necessary to use Bitcoin accelerators to make the transaction confirmation faster and successful.
What is a transaction fee?
A transaction fee is a small amount of Bitcoin that is included in each transaction to compensate miners for validating the transaction on a blockchain network.
What is a block explorer?
Block explorers are external websites, or web-applications that is used to view and validate transactions that have been recorded on the blockchain ledgers.
They can also be used for monitoring and tracking the status of a specific transaction with using the TXID.
If you are new to this web-app, you can check-out my list of best blockchain explorers in the crypto-space.
What is a mempool?
Mempool (Memory Pool) is a place on the network ledger that record all the incoming transactions that is yet to be confirmed.
Rounding up
The blockchain is designed in such a way that cryptocurrency transactions are irreversible, even when they’re not showing on the explorer chart.
It’s advisable not to change the Bitcoin transaction confirmation fee in most wallets, as you lowering it can lead to unconfirmed transaction.
Always use a cryptocurrency wallet that automatically selects transaction fee to avoid such situation, where your Bitcoin transaction gets stuck for hours.
I recommend using a cold wallet to store your Bitcoin investments instead of leaving it on an exchange wallet to avoid lose due to theft.
You should purchase a hardware wallet with Heuristic Deterministic feature, which allows it to store digital assets without internet connection.
The best and most popular cold storage in the market is are Ledger hardware wallets, as they have high security standards.
You can read my reviews on both ledger Nano X and Ledger Stax to learn how these wallet devices work to keep your digital assets safe.
