Unconfirmed Transactions: How to Deal with Them?

So I made a transaction yesterday, but it’s still unconfirmed. I ended up cancelling it and tried again today with a higher fee, but still nothing... this isn’t normal for me.

You should check the current fee rates. I saw it’s over 40 sat/vbyte right now on mempool.

Wait, you can’t really cancel a Bitcoin transaction like that. You either wait for it to confirm, or it can drop off after 14 days. You could try bumping the fee or double-spending.

How exactly did you cancel? Did you use RBF to replace your original transaction? Just so you know, you’ll end up losing money since you have to pay fees for both transactions. What’s the fee you used?

I think OP might be using Electrum. They have a 'cancel TX' feature that looks like it cancels, but it actually just double-spends. How much was your fee?

Thanks for the input, everyone. I raised my fee to match what’s on mempool now. Also, I appreciate the clarification on the Electrum feature. I’ll be more careful next time.

Exactly. You can’t just remove a transaction from the mempool. If you want it gone, you need to create a new transaction that replaces it.

But is that even possible? I thought that in Sparrow, if a UTXO is part of an unconfirmed transaction, it can only be used for RBF or CPFP.

Yeah, that’s pretty much what it is. When you click cancel in Electrum, it essentially creates a new transaction sending funds back to your wallet.

You can double-spend an unconfirmed transaction, but most full nodes won’t like that. The RBF method is more accepted because it’s standard.

Just a sec. I think I misunderstood. What about selecting UTXOs? If they’re tied to a broadcasted transaction, can they be reused without RBF?

Honestly, I don’t know any wallets that let you replace transactions to a different address. Electrum allows it, but just for your own addresses. BIP125 says you need to have at least one same input.

With RBF, you can create a totally new transaction and change the destination address. But yeah, it’s double-spending until one gets mined.

I noticed fees jump significantly when Bitcoin’s on the rise. I was looking to make a transfer at 52 sat/vbyte yesterday, now it’s around 48. It makes me wonder about Bitcoin’s adoption.

I checked too. Even 35 sat/vbyte is considered low priority. Spending over a dollar in fees for a $50 transaction feels ridiculous.

For sure, if more people start using Bitcoin, fees will just keep going up. Remember how congested it was last time there was hype? Lightning network is still not a perfect fix.

Yeah you can cancel a Bitcoin transaction, but it costs more than just letting it sit. I had to do that on Electrum once... took like 12 hours.

You’re right, using Electrum’s cancel feature means you’re just double-spending back to your address, paying a higher fee to get it confirmed first.

The cancel option is kinda misleading then. It actually creates a new RBF transaction sending the funds back, hence the higher fees.

There’s a clear distinction between bumping a fee and getting a transaction removed from the blockchain. Bumping just helps a miner confirm it.