BTC

How Long Does it Take to Transfer Bitcoin?

Bitcoin has become a leading and popular cryptocurrency in the market for more than a decade. It was launched in January 2009 by a mysterious person called Satoshi Nakamoto. And it has been traded without intermediaries through various peer-to-peer platforms. Bitcoins do not exist as physical coins or just like a paper currency; they exist only virtually. The transactions are carried out through a distributed ledger technology called Blockchain, and they are mined through a process called mining. As Bitcoin price is ever-increasing, more people are learning about Bitcoin, its transactions, and how long they take to complete a transaction. In this article, we’ll analyze how long it takes to transfer Bitcoins.

What is a Bitcoin Transaction?

  • Bitcoin is a digital currency; it has to be verified on the blockchain, a secure public ledger with a history of signatures and transactions. 
  • On average, it takes 10 minutes for a Bitcoin transaction to be completed. However, the Bitcoin transaction time depends upon various factors. These transactions have to be verified through a process called mining, where miners are required to solve complicated mathematical problems.
  • If you hold Bitcoins, it contains a history of your bitcoin transactions and a pair of keys known as the private and the public key.
  • The private key is only known to the user, and it helps to transact Bitcoin, while the user can use the public key to share it with peers for accepting Bitcoins.
  • Further, public keys offer the users information about the transaction, and the private keys help the users to authorize the transactions.

What Determines the Transfer Time of Bitcoin?

Bitcoin transactions can take a minimum of 10 minutes to hours, days, and also a week. This is because the miners need to verify the transactions, and the network might be slow at times. Besides, the transactions that are added to the blocks have to be verified, and it needs to be added to the public blockchain; the standard time required to mine the block is 10 minutes.

Two major factors influence Bitcoin transaction time – 

Network Activity

Bitcoin network activity depends on the transactions that are processed in a day. The higher the number of transactions, the more will be the network activity. Further, the number of miners is limited to process the transactions of 1MB block. For example, for your transaction, you will receive the first confirmation within 10 minutes and the remaining confirmation in the next 50 minutes, which means it might take up to 60 minutes to deliver the Bitcoins to your wallet.

Transaction fees

Mining is a monotonous task, and it needs effort, scale, power, and technology. Therefore, Bitcoin transactions ask you to pay the transaction fees. Transaction fees help you prioritize your transactions; this implies that the more you pay the miners for verifying your transaction, it will be processed faster. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency, and it is highly volatile; based on this, the transaction may go up or down, and the wait time needs to be stabilized.

How fast can Bitcoin be transferred?

Bitcoin transactions can be confirmed within 10 minutes to a maximum of a day. The major influence on the confirmation time is the number of transaction fees and the network activity confirmation. It will take an average of 10 minutes, but few merchants would require more confirmations before the bitcoins are sent.

How Long Does it Take to Transfer Bitcoin in Between Wallets?

  • The time taken to transfer between wallets can vary with every transaction. Every Bitcoin transaction should be approved by the network before completion. The Bitcoin community has set a standard – 6 transfer confirmation before it is completed.
  • Confirmation is expected to take around 10 minutes, taking an average of one transaction for an hour. If a network has more transactions, it will take a longer time. As the miners are limited to process the blocks, the transactions per block are also limited.
  • The miners prioritize the transactions as per the fee they receive while confirming them. If the fee paid by the user is high, they are processed by the miners immediately, thereby decreasing the processing time.
  • Bitcoin’s spike in price and popularity has cost several network congestion. Moreover, the average time taken for a single confirmation had impeded to 30 minutes and below.

How to Cancel an Unconfirmed Bitcoin Transaction?

Confirmed Bitcoin transactions can be irreversible; it is not the case with unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions. With less effort, you can cancel your unconfirmed transactions. We have given you a few steps on how to cancel your Bitcoin transactions. There are two ways you can use to cancel the unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction – 

Replace by Fee (RBF)

Few wallets support the RBF (Replace By Fee) protocol that allows you to replace the original transaction with the new one, which involves a higher transaction fee. This method could effectively cancel your transaction.

Double spending using a higher fee

If you cannot use RBF, you can still cancel your Bitcoin transactions by double-spending using a higher fee.

Final Words

To summarise, a Bitcoin transaction can take around 60 minutes to complete. The time taken to transfer between wallets might vary with every transaction. Further, each Bitcoin transaction should be network approved before completing it. This can be increased to a day based on the network congestion. You can reduce the time taken for your transaction by paying a higher miner fee, or you can choose to conduct your Bitcoin transaction when there is less congestion in the network. Additionally, at times when there is less congestion, it can result in fewer transaction fees. Apart from that, You can take advantage of an automated trading platform called Immediate Edge Bot. It is a Bitcoin trading robot that helps you make huge profits from trading. Check its official website or experts’ view on the same.

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About author
Veronica Smith is a writer and journalist who holds specialization in language and journalism, including blockchain and crytpocurrencies. She was freelance news writer before getting into our CoinSubtle team. She has written number of articles on financial markets and cryptocurrencies.
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