Experiencing a delayed Bitcoin transaction can be very daunting for both the buyer and the seller. There are so many explanations as to why there might be some delay in your Bitcoin transaction.
How Does the Bitcoin Transaction Work?
You must have heard the word Mining before, and if you have not, let’s break it down here. Mining is a process where from time to time, a new block is being added to the blockchain. The new block created will verify and record any new transactions, after that, the network will confirm it. For example, if you send your friend 1 Bitcoin, your transaction will be unconfirmed until the network creates a new block and adds it to the blockchain, once this is added, the transaction is verified and included in that particular block.
Bitcoin transaction delays happen because the network can only handle a certain amount of transactions per block. Each transaction that is being done has a certain size in bytes, and the block created by Blockchain can only contain some certain bytes.
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In this article, we would go through different reasons why your Bitcoin transactions can be delayed.
Your Bitcoin Might be Stuck in the Mempool Queue
What is Mempool? Mempool is like a car wash analogy for Bitcoin.
When doing Bitcoin transactions, most times, it might be too slow and expensive, that is why much emphasis is being laid on making the Lightning Network work.
When you first initiate a Bitcoin transaction, the money will be sent to the Mempool ( Mempool is like a network queue for all Bitcoin transactions), this is where transactions wait to be processed by Bitcoin miners. This is one of the reasons why you can experience a delay in Bitcoin transactions. Before any transaction is processed, it will be confirmed before it is recorded on the blockchain because it can still be rejected by the Mempool. One of the reasons Mempool can reject a transaction is if the fees are set too low. After the transactions are confirmed, that is when they will be recorded on the blockchain.
An important thing to remember is that different cryptocurrencies do have different transaction process speed. Bitcoin can handle up to seven transactions per second (TPS) and might take up to 50-60 minutes to confirm.
Congested Network
Another reason why your Bitcoin transaction might be delayed is when the Blockchain network has too much traffic. When there is much traffic, we have too much backlog of transactions, it also causes the transaction fees to go high as the demands outweigh supplies and miners will not have a choice but to be picky in the transaction they process. Sometimes, even when you put in a high transaction fee, you might be in for a wait.
Setting Transaction Fees too Low
A general belief is that the higher you set your Bitcoin transaction fee, the faster your transaction will be processed and be successfully sent to its destination. Setting your transaction fee at a very low fee might delay its process, so it is advisable that if you notice that your transaction is taking forever to be processed and you have a feeling that you have put in a very low transaction fee, you should consider canceling the transaction process and increase your transaction fee a little bit.
Slow Internet Speed or Mempool Bloat
Mining Bitcoin requires 24/7 electricity and due to high electricity costs, Bitcoin miners are most times relocated to remote areas or desolated rural areas. They might face internet connectivity issues which might result in a slow Bitcoin transaction process. Also as a sender, to avoid transaction delay, make sure you have a decent and have internet when sending funds (which goes directly to Mempool first).
Limited Miners
Even though popular digital assets like Bitcoin do attract so many miners, sometimes the demand outweighs the supply. When there are limited miners available, your Bitcoin transaction might be slow to process.
Spam or Dusting Attacks
Oftentimes, there are always spam and dusting attacks on Bitcoin. A spam attack is where a hacker will keep sending multiple Bitcoin transactions with low fees from a particular address so as to slow down the network. This is popularly known as Spam TX’s and they are mostly used by competitors to drive customers away. While Dusting attacks do involve hackers sending a little amount of Bitcoin to over a thousand public addresses, the Bitcoin they send sometimes is worth less than a cent. These hackers do this in the hope of having some information about the owners of the Bitcoin address and later use it for Phishing attacks.
In conclusion, Bitcoin transaction delay is a normal occurrence and when this happens, you should be patient as the reason for your delayed transaction is any of the aforementioned points.