Trading Bitcoins can create nervousness and anxiety, but eventually, it leads to a happy outcome. It sometimes happens that it takes hours to receive BTC, and you got that feeling that something got stuck somewhere. Sometimes it takes only minutes, but either way, it begs the question – why are things like this? Most people who were in this situation ask the same question. This is why we have dedicated this article to this subject. Here you have the 2020 guide on how long does it take to transfer Bitcoins between wallets. Read carefully, and afterward, you’ll have a clearer image of the relation between BTC and wallets, and why it takes time to transfer funds. Many people dind’t understand this at first, but after going through this article with us, they learned a thing or two.
What is a Bitcoin Transaction?
As you already know, BTC is a digital currency – the oldest one, invented by Satoshi Nakamoto, back in 2009. This means it has no physical presence. So far, no person has held a Bitcoin in their hands, nor is there any collateral for its value. The only thing standing behind BTC is blockchain. In Bitcoins blockchain, you’ll find the entire history of all transactions and signatures since its inception. BTC is verified on this public ledger.
Once you get into possession of a Bitcoin, it would hold its entire history together with two keys – public and private. Bitcoin can be transacted by your private key that contains this purpose, while the public one is meant for others with whom you want to share your BTC. The public one holds all the info regarding the transaction, while the private one serves for verification and authorization.
Once you are prepared to make a transaction, you’ll receive a message that has three sections:
* Input – This is the code that contains the entire BTC history that comes with the public key. Thanks to this, you’ll know the origin of that coin.
* Amount – This section shows you the number of BTC contained in the transaction.
* Output – The address of the transaction is also tied to the public key, and it can be found in the output.
How Long Does It Take To Transfer BTC To A Wallet?
Even the most uncomplicated BTC transaction can last an hour. Yes, you heard it well, but things can get even worse. There are recorded cases when this lasted for twenty hours, and sometimes even for two days. Yes, this can happen, and we are not exaggerating. This can happen because there are many factors that influence the transactions of BTC. But, the two most important ones are the Bitcoins network and getting loaded onto it, and transaction fee, which is a standard for every BTC transaction.
Loading onto the network isn’t a quick process. It is influenced by the number of other transactions that happen on the BTC blockchain during the day. If there’s a high number of transactions, it will take more time to process them all. It all has to do with the limitations surrounding Bitcoin. The number of miners is limited, in addition to a limited number of transactions that can be tied to a 1MB block size of BTC.
Moving on, and we have that same 1MB block, which would prioritize the transactions based on the fee. The larger the payment, the faster the transaction. Furthermore, the miners also put their priority on the trade that carries the more oversized cost. So, in theory, your transaction could last for days if it has a small fee tied to it. In most instances, this is the sole reason why your Bitcoin transaction takes so much time.
The Actual Transaction Time of Bitcoin
So, as you can see, the two things above block the speed of transactions regarding BTC. The actual time it takes to transfer BTC is close to ten minutes. This the same amount of time the miners need to mine one block of BTC. This time span is tied for your transaction when it is a part of the same block. But, if it is not part of that particular block, then you’ll find it in the BTC mempool. So, if your transaction is in the same block, the first confirmation of its successfulness will happen within the first ten minutes. In the next hour, you can expect the following five confirmation. When you receive the sixth confirmation, you can consider your transaction safe.
To avoid any panic when you transfer your BTC, it takes sixty minutes to get it over with. But, this is only the case when it is part of the first block. If it is not, it could take longer, so there’s no reason to worry too much. Before BTC became a global phenomenon, people waited for a full week for the transfer. There are many factors included, and you’ll need to arm yourself with patience. If your fee is good enough, and your transaction is tied to the first block, it can happen in less than sixty minutes, and this should make you happy.
When you take into account all transactions on the global level, the time they take is, on average, approximately twenty minutes. One way to shorten the time needed is to use the segwit enabled wallets. There are also many other solutions on the way, as people who deal with BTC consider this time for transactions as unacceptable.
Conclusion
As you can see, trading Bitcoin is exciting and can bring you money, but what it lacks is the speed. From everything we have added above, you can tell that in a case you have many valuable BTC, everything would go smoothly. But in the case you do not have a vast fortune of this can you might have to wait for transactions to occur. All things written above are important to know if you are about to start trading BTC with https://bitcoin-up.live/ or any other similar outlet.