Why Bitcoin Transactions Are Being Delayed

Posted By : Anirudh Bhardwaj | 12-May-2017

Bitcoin Transaction Delay

The Bitcoin network is growing like a weed and new users are connecting to the network every now and then. All thanks to the unresolved scalability issues pertaining to the Bitcoin blockchain, the network is now flooded with unconfirmed transactions. Delay in Bitcoin transactions has become a daily occurrence these days and it has led to an unprecedented hype in the transaction fees. In order to get your transaction approved earlier, you have to pay a higher transaction fees or else, your transaction will most probably be delayed.

 

While it normally took minutes to process a Bitcoin transaction, the same process now takes up to twelve hours depending on the total number of unconfirmed transactions and the transaction fees that you are paying. People have complained that even after paying an exorbitant transaction fees, it took several days for their transaction to be confirmed. Many users have already lost faith in the Bitcoin community and yet the question remains unanswered to this date.

 

You may also like The Prevailing Block Size Limitations In Bitcoin.

 

What’s Causing The Delay?

The delay in transactions is a result of many unresolved issues existing in the Bitcoin network, most precarious of which is the scalability problem. The thing is, when Satoshi Nakamoto came up with the idea of creating a Peer-to-Peer cryptocurrency (i.e Bitcoin), it was never meant to be used on such a large scale. The user base of Bitcoin has evolved from a few dozen passionate enthusiasts to a whopping 10 million daily active users. The technology behind bitcoin is now 9 years old. And though many improvements have been made time-to-time by the contributing developers, the underlying code base remains pretty much the same.

 

Now to answer the question, the roots of the transaction delay are embedded deep inside the underlying architecture of the Bitcoin blockchain. Yes, I’m talking about the Block Size Limit. The existing block size limit of 1mb is currently insufficient to deal with the increased number of transactions. The miners are encountering hundreds of new transactions every minute and due to limited space in each block, it’s just taking time.

 

As a matter of fact, this block size limit of 1 mb was imposed by Satoshi Nakamoto as a security measure to prevent the network from DDoS attacks. It was conceived that the hackers may try to create blocks of infinitesimal size to paralyse the network and steal the bitcoins. This prompted Nakamoto to devise a limit of 1 mb for each block so that all the blocks that exceed this limit will be automatically rejected by the network without causing any harm.

 

However, the father of Bitcoin didn’t know that it could have an adverse effect on the network in a long run. Of course, he never in his wildest dreams could have imagined that Bitcoin will go this big someday. Each bitcoin transaction acquires some space when stored on the blockchain. This required space is quite insignificant when talking about a single transaction. But it becomes more a bottleneck when there are thousands of transactions waiting to be confirmed. That’s exactly what’s happening right now.


 

Proposed Solutions

Many solutions have been proposed to deal with the scalability issues in the existing Bitcoin network but none has been implemented to this date. The first two proposals came in form of BIP 100 and BIP 101. Both aimed at extending the block size limit of Bitcoin and both were hard fork solutions. BIP 100 was about making the block size limit adjustable whenever needed while on the other hand, BIP 101 proposed a one-time increase in block size, making it 8 mb. Both BIP 100 and 101 were hard fork solutions which means if they are to be implemented, all the older Bitcoin versions will become incompatible with the network.

 

Also read New Bitcoin Wallets Lining Up In Support of SegWit.

 

Then came SegWit which aims on fixing the transaction malleability issues in the Bitcoin network thereby fixing the scalability problem as well. Out of all the proposed solutions, SegWit gained maximum heat and more than half the Bitcoin community stepped in to support SegWit. People are adamant that SegWit is the game changer that would bring back the lost glory of Bitcoin but it is yet to be implemented. So all we can do is wait.   

 

About Author

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Anirudh Bhardwaj

Anirudh is a Content Strategist and Marketing Specialist who possess strong analytical skills and problem solving capabilities to tackle complex project tasks. Having considerable experience in the technology industry, he produces and proofreads insightful content on next-gen technologies like AI, blockchain, ERP, big data, IoT, and immersive AR/VR technologies. In addition to formulating content strategies for successful project execution, he has got ample experience in handling WordPress/PHP-based projects (delivering from scratch with UI/UX design, content, SEO, and quality assurance). Anirudh is proficient at using popular website tools like GTmetrix, Pagespeed Insights, ahrefs, GA3/GA4, Google Search Console, ChatGPT, Jira, Trello, Postman (API testing), and many more. Talking about the professional experience, he has worked on a range of projects including Wethio Blockchain, BlocEdu, NowCast, IT Savanna, Canine Concepts UK, and more.

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