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What is confirmation in crypto?
If you make a transaction on an exchange, you will see the term confirmation or confirmation. A confirmation means that approval has been given on the transaction that has been created. This can be your own address or someone else’s. Once the transaction is included in one block, it will remain under each subsequent block. Each of these blocks following the transaction in question is a new confirmation of the transaction.
“A confirmation means that approval has been given on the transaction that has been created.”
How many confirmations are (required)?
This differs greatly per cryptocurrency. For example, if you look at Bitcoin, you will see that receiving a payment notification happens almost immediately. Confirmation can sometimes take a few minutes. A confirmation means that there is consensus on the network that the bitcoins you received were not sent to anyone else and are considered your property. Once your trade is included in a block, it will continue to be buried under every block after it, which will exponentially perpetuate this consensus and reduce the risk of a reverse trade. Each confirmation lasts from a few seconds to 90 minutes, with 10 minutes being the average. For example, 6 confirmations are often considered as safe as waiting 6 months for a credit card transaction.
The confirmation
time Why 10 minutes That is programmed by the maker in the ‘source code’ of the Bitcoin protocol. It could also take shorter or longer for a transaction to be recorded and visible in the blockchain.
- 0 confirmations: Payments with 0 confirmations can still be reversed. Wait for at least 1 confirmation
- 1 confirmation: One confirmation is enough for small BTC payments of less than $1000
- 3 confirmations: Enough for payments between $1000 and $10,000. Most exchanges require at least 3 confirmations for deposits.
- 6 confirmations: Enough for large payments between $10,000 and $1,000,000. Six is the default for most Bitcoin transactions to be considered safe.
- 60 confirmations: For large payments over $1,000,000
Forming a block with Litecoin, for example, is 4 times faster than with Bitcoin, but on the other hand, it also requires 4 times more confirmations in order for the transaction to be considered safe.
How do you check a cryptocurrency transaction?
Once you make a cryptocurrency transaction, your wallet should give you an option to view the transaction in a block explorer. All data is public. This means that you can look up all transactions on the internet.
Blocktrail is a block explorer where you can look up transactions. Enter your bitcoin receiving address in the search bar. Then click on the Transactions tab. You will immediately see an overview of all transactions to and from that receiving address.
At blockchain.com transactions you can see all unconfirmed transactions of Bitcoin. This way you can see how many transactions are currently being done with Bitcoin.
At https://www.blockchain.com/nl/btc/unconfirmed-transactions you can see all unconfirmed transactions of Bitcoin. This way you can see how many transactions are currently being done with Bitcoin.