How To Speed Up A Bitcoin Transaction

Bitcoin is the first working cryptocurrency with widespread adoption, and it's often referred to interchangeably as cryptocurrency. This confusion is understandable as Bitcoin is the gateway for most investors to move value in and out of various blockchains and into fiat.

Each passing year the network continues to grow, adding new wallets, users and transactions, and as this happens these transactions need to be prioritised. As many users don't realise how the network performs confirmations, they can be left frustrated as their purchase or transfer hangs in limbo.

Thankfully the Bitcoin network does allow you to speed up your transactions by getting miners attention and jumping the queue.

How Bitcoin transactions get prioritised

When you place a transaction on the Bitcoin network, they are assembled with the rest of the unconfirmed transactions and placed in a backlog pool called mempool. Miners review this mempool and pick-up transactions in the priority of transaction fees attached to it.

Therefore, more the transaction fees attached to your transaction, higher are the chances to get included in the next block as this is more profitable for the miner.

Speeding up your Bitcoin transactions

While some hot wallets do allow you to customise your transaction fees before submitting your transaction, not all of them have this feature built into its UI, and you may need to enlist the help of a transaction accelerator.

1. Bitcoin Afterburner

This Bitcoin transaction accelerator was created by the same company that created the Sumourai Wallet. The Bitcoin Afterburner is an open-source wallet unity designed to get your stuck transaction confirmed as soon as possible.

The user has to import their existing wallet on which the transaction is stuck to the Bitcoin Afterburner. The afterburner works on almost all receiving and sending transactions. The user has to tap on the stuck unconfirmed transaction and accept the fees, and within a few blocks, the stuck transaction will be accomplished.

2. ViaBTC

The ViaBTC is a free transaction accelerator for the Bitcoin community for speeding up stuck transactions. This platform doesn't need any sign in or log in details for work. Although it is completely free, there is a paid option in case of emergencies.

To work with ViaBTC your stuck transaction should include a fee of at least 0.0001BTC/KB, any less than this; the ViaBTC don't entertain. The ViaBTC can accelerate 100 transactions per hour, exceeding upon which you have to avail the paid service.

3. BTC.Com

The BTC.com provides the services of Bitcoin transaction in cooperation with other mining pools. Even though the fee structure was quite high during the massive Bitcoin market surge back in December 2017, the general fee structure revolves around $5-$10.

This online platform can increase the probability of confirming the transaction within 1 hour to 75% and within 4 hours to 98%. But if the transaction is delayed to 12 hours, the total fee is refunded. Hence BTC.Com is really helpful for accelerating stuck Bitcoin transaction. The technological advancements in the cryptocurrency sector make it necessary for technologies like Afterburner to prosper.

Taking control of your transactions

Cryptocurrency is still in its infancy and the networks will consistently improve over time as more investment and interest in using the technology comes to the fore. Even with Bitcoin being the oldest cryptocurrency it still cannot compete with centralised fintech models yet in many facets but this might not always be the fault of the network but the tools we currently have.

As users become more educated and front end tools users need to speak to the network improve we will see more adoption with time. So if you are new to Bitcoin or have had your first experience with a hanging transaction, don't be discouraged.

You can use the above-mentioned tools to accelerate any stuck transactions but always do your own research first and beware of scams and imitation projects.

Transaction accelerators are only one solution 

Transaction accelerators are a great stop-gap solution but is not a scalable one and having to always up your fees will make the network costly to use, which is why alternatives are being built. One such alternative is the lightning network which is a side-chain that supports the Bitcoin network and will provide faster transactions at a cheaper cost, (sub satoshi level).

The Lightning Network is growing with new nodes coming online each week, but as I mentioned earlier, the UI's are not yet readily available. The average user cannot, however, transact on the lightning network or use Segwit to take advantage of high-speed Bitcoin transactions with standard wallets, but this will be integrated over time.

Once the lightning network si fully tolled out and integrated with popular wallets, we will have a faster and cheaper Bitcoin network.

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on cryptocurrency and blockchain.

• Why Blockchain and Cryptocurrency Is The Future Of Money
• 24 Ways To Earn Cryptocurrency
• How To Pay Tax On Cryptocurrency In South Africa
• How To Buy Bitcoin In South Africa
• Why Does Your Bitcoin Wallet Address Keep Changing?

Disclaimer: This article should not be taken as, and is not intended to provide any investment advice and is for educational purposes only. As of the time posting the writers may or may not have holdings in some of the coins or tokens they cover. Please conduct your own thorough research before investing in any cryptocurrency as all investments contain risk.

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