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I'm pretty new to Bitcoin and although the technology is pretty exciting, I feel as though the sluggish confirmation times are letting it down...
On 18th December I instructed a Bitcoin transaction (5314fb75a5d08caf563cd6f6aaf40f448e9a9c6e0ba6affa499accd3534b97f6), admittedly with a pretty low fee, but I still wasn't expecting it to take days to get confirmed... Will this soon be dropped from the mempool or is there a way I can accelerate the transaction confirmation process?
Yours, citygent
Thanks Ander - do you know roughly how long I should expect to wait for the transaction to drop from the mempool? – citygent – 2017-12-20T13:15:32.647
Around three days – Ander Aristondo – 2017-12-20T15:01:23.703
To add - bitcoins are never lost, or in transit, when a transaction is unconfirmed. The bitcoins are in your wallet, UNTIL the transaction is confirmed and then they are in the recipient's wallet. There is no limbo-state, like there is in traditional banking. – Ander Aristondo – 2017-12-20T15:02:30.920
If you liked my answer, mark it as accepted, it will give me reputation. – Ander Aristondo – 2017-12-20T15:04:01.350
As a final advice, I would recomend you to use a wallet that has segwit enabled, it will allow you to pay lower fees and to get confirmed faster – Ander Aristondo – 2017-12-20T15:04:42.903
Have accepted your answer Ander! Also what's the best way to speed up the confirmation process once the transaction has been executed. I'm still waiting for it to be confirmed... :( – citygent – 2017-12-20T17:21:32.910
It is a trade-off, the only way to speed up the confirmation time is to increase the fee you are paying. If you are not in a hurry I would suggest you to patiently wait. Right now there is an orchestated spam attack by miners who support Bitcoin Cash. They want to slow down Bitcoin network and try to replace it with their centralized fake Bitcoin imitation. I do not think they will suceed, so I would suggest you to wait until things get back to normal. – Ander Aristondo – 2017-12-20T17:32:49.527