How long does a Bitcoin transaction take?

A Bitcoin transaction usually gets its first confirmation in about 10 minutes, the average gap between blocks, although single gaps vary a lot. Most receivers wait for 1 to 6 confirmations, so expect roughly 10 to 60 minutes. A low fee rate can stretch that to hours, because miners fill blocks with higher-paying transactions first.

How long does each confirmation take?

A transaction has one confirmation once a block includes it, and one more for every block found after that. The wait therefore depends on how many confirmations the receiver asks for.

The thresholds come from the Bitcoin Wiki's confirmation page, which also stresses that 6 is a convention, not a rule: each merchant or exchange sets its own threshold. Average waits are the number of blocks times 10 minutes.

Why isn't every block exactly 10 minutes apart?

Mining is a race with no memory: every second, a block has the same chance of being found, whatever happened before. That produces many short gaps and a few very long ones. The same wiki page gives the odds for a single block. It is found within 10 minutes about 63% of the time, within 30 minutes 95% of the time, and within an hour 99.7% of the time.

In practice this means a 2-confirmation wait is often shorter than 20 minutes, and now and then takes 40 or more. When you are waiting on a deposit, a quiet stretch with no new block is normal and not a sign that anything failed.

What decides how long your transaction waits?

The fee rate, not the amount. Block space is limited, so miners pick the transactions that pay the most per unit of size, measured in satoshis per virtual byte (sat/vB). A transfer of 0.01 BTC and one of 10 BTC wait the same time if they pay the same fee rate.

• Fee rate against the mempool. Unconfirmed transactions wait in the mempool. When it is crowded, a fee rate that cleared in the next block yesterday may wait many blocks today.
• Transaction size. A payment that spends many small inputs is larger in vbytes, so it costs more at the same fee rate. Wallets that let you consolidate small inputs during quiet periods reduce this.
• The wallet's fee setting. Fast, normal and slow presets target inclusion within a different number of blocks. Choosing slow saves money and costs time.
• Luck. Even a well-paid transaction waits for the next block, which can take an hour on a slow run.

An unconfirmed transaction does not expire under Bitcoin's rules, so a low-fee payment can sit in the mempool for a long time rather than failing cleanly. That is why the fixes below matter.

How do you speed up a stuck transaction?

You speed up a stuck transaction by paying miners more to include it. If you sent the payment, use replace-by-fee (RBF) to replace it with a higher-fee version. Either side can use child pays for parent (CPFP), spending one of its outputs in a new high-fee transaction. Both are done from your own wallet.

• Replace-by-fee (RBF), for the sender. Bitcoin Optech describes RBF as replacing an unconfirmed transaction with a new one that spends at least one of the same inputs and pays a higher fee. Under the widely used BIP125 rules, the replacement must pay both a higher fee rate and a higher total fee. Many wallets offer it as "bump fee" or "speed up".
• Child pays for parent (CPFP), for either side. CPFP spends an output of the stuck transaction in a new child transaction with a high fee rate. Miners take the pair together, so the child's fee pulls the parent into a block. The receiver can do this with the incoming output; the sender can do it with the change.

Be wary of paid "accelerator" offers from sites you don't know, and try RBF or CPFP first.

How do you check a Bitcoin transaction on a block explorer?

1. Copy the transaction ID (TXID) from the sending wallet's history.
2. Paste it into any Bitcoin block explorer's search field.
3. Read the status. "Unconfirmed" means it is waiting in the mempool; a number means that many blocks now include it or sit on top of it.
4. Compare its fee rate in sat/vB with the rates of transactions in recent blocks. If yours is far lower, use RBF or CPFP.
5. If the explorer can't find the TXID, the transaction may never have been broadcast or may have dropped out of that explorer's mempool. Check the wallet before you create a second payment, which could pay twice.

For a Ghostex order you don't need an explorer: every step of the order, through to the payout, is logged on the order page with the agent that handled it.

Need it faster? Receive the payout over Lightning

Lightning payments move through payment channels and usually settle within seconds, with no block confirmations. On Ghostex, Lightning is a payout option only: BTC deposits arrive on-chain, but you can receive the swapped BTC as a Lightning payment. That way the payout skips the wait for blocks.

The invoice must stay valid for at least 45 minutes, and an invoice that names an amount works only with a fixed rate. The BOLT 11 specification sets a default expiry of 3,600 seconds when an invoice doesn't state one. The full comparison is in Lightning vs on-chain Bitcoin.

How long does a BTC swap take on Ghostex?

Sentinel waits for 2 confirmations on a BTC deposit, about 20 minutes on average, then Executor runs the swap and Courier sends the payout. Because the two blocks are most of the wait, a BTC swap sits toward the upper end of Ghostex's typical 5 to 30 minutes. A slow run of blocks pushes it past that.

The fee your wallet pays for the deposit decides how soon the first of those blocks includes it. A normal or fast fee setting keeps the wait close to the average; see network fees, explained.

Swapping into Bitcoin moves the wait to the payout side, because most deposit networks confirm faster. A SOL to BTC swap clears its 32 Solana confirmations in about 10 to 20 seconds. A USDT TRC20 to BTC swap needs 20 Tron confirmations, about a minute. An LTC to BTC swap waits for 6 Litecoin confirmations, about 15 minutes, while an XRP to BTC swap confirms its XRP deposit in seconds. The on-chain BTC payout then gets its first confirmation in about 10 minutes on average.

On a fixed rate, the payout is locked for 30 minutes from order creation. The exact order amount has to be sent within that window, as set out in section 8 of the Terms. The window is for sending the deposit, which is why a 30-minute lock helps even when blocks are slow. Common routes out of Bitcoin are BTC to XMR, BTC to ETH and BTC to USDT TRC20.

Bitcoin timing: questions

How long does it take to send Bitcoin to another wallet?

The receiving wallet shows the payment as unconfirmed once it is broadcast. The first confirmation takes about 10 minutes on average, and most receivers treat a payment as settled after 1 to 6 confirmations, roughly 10 to 60 minutes.

How many confirmations does a Bitcoin transaction need?

As many as the receiver asks for. Six is the long-standing convention for exchanges and merchants that carry double-spend risk, many services accept fewer, and Ghostex swaps a BTC deposit after 2.

Why is my Bitcoin transaction taking hours?

Usually its fee rate is below what miners are currently picking, so newer, better-paying transactions go first. A slow run of blocks can add to that. Raise the fee with replace-by-fee if you sent it, or use child pays for parent.

Can a Bitcoin transaction be cancelled?

Only while it is unconfirmed, and only by replacing it: with replace-by-fee, the sender can spend the same inputs back to their own address at a higher fee. Once a block includes the transaction, it cannot be undone.

Does Ghostex wait for 6 confirmations on Bitcoin?

No. Sentinel waits for 2 confirmations on a BTC deposit, about 20 minutes on average, before Executor runs the swap.