A new block of encrypted transaction data is linked to the Bitcoin blockchain every seven to ten minutes. These blocks are where Bitcoin transactions are stored. But these transactions are not made permanent yet – namely, blockchain technology requires validation and authentication of the transactions.
Once a transaction is completed, the blockchain explorer indicates that its status is still ‘Unconfirmed’ before it’s validated and added to the blockchain as ‘Confirmed’. By simply using block explorers (such as Blockchain or Bitcoin), you may browse around the blockchain of any cryptocurrency in a convenient and straightforward manner and easily check your BTC transactions status.
How To Find Any Bitcoin Transaction On The Blockchain
To investigate a Bitcoin transaction, users may visit blockchain.com/explorer and utilize the search bar in the top right corner of the screen to discover more about a specific Bitcoin address, transaction hash, or block number. All it takes is to simply enter this data in the search field to get started.
What is a Bitcoin Transaction ID?
You may check up on the specifics of a Bitcoin transfer from your BTC wallet to a receiver’s Bitcoin address by browsing the blockchain after you’ve made the transfer. You can see the amount of digital assets that have been transferred, both the sender and recipient addresses, and the date and time of the transaction.
To find the transfer, you need to provide the transaction ID, also known as a txID. In most cases, the receivers of your Bitcoin transactions will ask you for this transaction ID in order to verify that the payment was completed. In case you’ve forgotten to save your TxID, you may also provide your wallet address.
How to Check the Bitcoin Transaction Status
You may view your Bitcoin payments and their status by entering a term or phrase linked to your transaction into the search box of any of the public blockchain explorers, such as https://blockchain.info/.
When you find the relevant transaction, its ID will appear like a long string of alphanumeric characters in the grey area above the balance, located on the left from the transaction timestamp. Click the ID link of the relevant transaction to get the detailed information on the Bitcoin exchange and the transaction history. You may then provide your addressee the URL of the transaction or only the transaction ID for further reference.
What Are Bitcoin Confirmations?
Bitcoin confirmations are the volume of blocks in the Bitcoin blockchain network that have been verified by the miners. The SHA-256 cryptographic hash algorithm is used by Bitcoin miners to authenticate the cryptocurrency transaction inputs.
This algorithm was introduced by Bitcoin’s founder Satoshi Nakamoto when they created the Bitcoin protocols. In the vast majority of instances, six confirmations are usually necessary before your digital assets are shown at the receiving address.
Why Do Some Bitcoin Transaction Confirmations Take So Long?
An exchange of value between two or more Bitcoin network members is represented by a digital data structure known as a transaction on the Bitcoin network. Once a miner verifies a transaction and adds a new block to the blockchain, they transmit the modified database to other miners who attempt to validate the new block and chain it to the previously validated transaction block.
Regular Bitcoin Cash (BCH) transactions often take seconds to complete, but larger transactions frequently take an hour to complete if they involve a significant quantity of crypto assets. Sometimes, the validation of the new block of transaction data can be quite a lengthy process, and there are a couple of legitimate reasons behind it.
Low Transaction Fee
When an unconfirmed transaction is waiting to be verified, miners are more likely to select transactions with a higher transaction fee than transactions with a lower transaction fee. Namely, when they mine a new block in order to authenticate a transaction, they are consuming large amounts of both computational power and energy to achieve a higher hash rate which is a costly process.
As a result, they are more inclined to commit their time and resources to validating a transaction that provides them with greater profitability. If you want your transaction to get validated more quickly, offer an average or above-average confirmation fee.
Large Volume of Transactions
The Bitcoin blockchain can only accommodate up to 7 transactions per second, according to its specifications. It takes an average of ten minutes to approve a new transaction data block, which is a considerable amount of time if you take into account the number of requests that get sent to miners all the time. In other words, if the blockchain network is overburdened with a large volume of unconfirmed transactions that are queued for verification, your transfer will need to wait its turn, even if you are ready to accept a larger fee to have your transaction completed.
A Few Words Before You Go…
As much as it’s important to understand the ideology behind the Bitcoin project, it’s even more important to have a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism behind the transactions conducted on the Bitcoin blockchain. In general, the time it takes for a transaction to be confirmed on the blockchain and the associated transaction fees are the first questions that puzzle newbies in the world of crypto trading.
We do hope that this tutorial will help you find the relevant answers regarding your BTC transactions and help you monitor your BTC balances on the block explorer on your own.
