If you find yourself with an unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction, rest assured, you are not alone. There are over 100,000 unconfirmed transactions waiting in a queue for confirmation on the Bitcoin network at any given time, with numbers occasionally reaching 500,000. So, the chance that your transaction is among them is not small.
And the reason is simple â your transaction has a low fee. Bitcoin miners naturally prioritize confirming transactions with high fees because the fees go to them. In many cases, the low fee isnât even your fault; itâs simply a result of network congestion at the time you posted the transaction.
In this article, we will explore the options available to confirm a Bitcoin transaction with a low fee compared to the current market conditions of the network.
1. Using a Bitcoin transaction accelerator
Some services partner with Bitcoin mining pools (miners) and offer Bitcoin transaction acceleration services. These services prioritize mining the transaction from the respective pool, even if it has a low fee. Of course, these services are not free; you essentially pay the missing fee of your transaction.
For example, BitAccelerate is a Bitcoin transaction accelerator. They are one of the oldest and most established services, operating since 2018. They offer a free package for basic transaction acceleration, suitable when the network is not busy. However, during times of extreme congestion, a premium service is available, guaranteeing results within several blocks.
2. If you receive money through the transaction, use CPFP
CPFPÂ (Child Pays For Parent) is a technique used to speed up an unconfirmed transaction (parent) by creating a second transaction that spends one of its outputs (child). The idea is that the successor transaction has a very high fee, making the average fee of the group of the two transactions sufficient for the current network requirements.
If someone sends you money via Bitcoin, as the recipient, you do not have access to the private keys that signed the underlying transaction. However, you can speed it up through CPFP by creating a second successor transaction with a high fee to incentivize miners to confirm the previous transaction as well.
There are CPFP calculators on the Internet that can help you determine the exact fee required for the second transaction (the child). However, this process requires technical knowledge, and your wallet must support spending funds from unconfirmed transactions.
3. If you are sending money through the transaction, use RBF
RBF (Replace-By-Fee) is a technique that allows you to replace the current transaction with another similar one but with a higher fee. Once you send money, you have access to the private keys, enabling you to perform the RBF procedure. Most modern wallets support RBF, so you just need to find this option.
This technique is a standard practice and relatively straightforward compared to CPFP. However, the transaction must be marked as RBF before being published. Modern wallets usually flag it as such. Another consideration is that the final amount may decrease slightly, so keep that in mind if you need to send an exact amount of Bitcoins.
One drawback of RBF is that your transaction is not marked as final, reducing confidence for the counterparty accepting the payment, as the transaction can be replaced at any moment. However, generally, few people trust unconfirmed transactions anymore.
If your wallet doesnât support RBF or if your transaction was posted without an RBF flag, you can likely use CPFP to speed up the transactions you send. This is because most likely one of the outputs of the transaction is returned to you as change, allowing you to spend the change with a higher fee (CPFP) to expedite the transaction.
As you can see, there are ways to confirm a Bitcoin transaction, even with a very low fee. Thereâs no need to wait weeks or months for fees to drop. You can use one of these techniques to confirm your transaction immediately. Choose the most appropriate option based on your situation and technical knowledge.
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