You’re probably twiddling your thumbs as you wait for that transaction of yours to go through. It’s taking longer than expected. Maybe it’s taking hours. Maybe it was even rejected. Regardless of long waits, you have nothing to fret over as cryptocurrency transactions take time.
The first thing you need to realize is that long transaction times are completely normal in the cryptocurrency world.
Each cryptocurrency has its own speed of processing transactions. It’s measured in transactions per second (TPS) that depends largely on the consensus algorithm employed. Bitcoin’s Proof-of-Work is notoriously slow to validate transactions — taking 78 minutes on average. Among the fastest cryptocurrencies in 2018, there were Ripple at 1,500 TPS and Bitcoin Cash at 61 TPS.
What affects transaction speed?
Cryptocurrency transaction speed can drop depending on all of the obstacles that may arise when transferring digital currency from one wallet to the other. Network speed can be a culprit, of course. But transactions can slow down on a busy day when a large number of users are making transactions on the same blockchain at a time.
Maybe the recipient is waiting on all the necessary confirmations from the blockchain users to validate the transaction. Maybe you forgot to include a note with your transaction, which is necessary in the case of certain coins.
Whatever the reason, dry the sweat from your forehead and resist the urge to open a support ticket (unless you really, really need to). You’re doing fine and you can use the wait times to check out more of our best tips and techniques on how to become a crypto trading guru.