There are a lot of questions circling about the transfer time for Bitcoin ATM transactions. Many people are a bit frustrated right now, wondering exactly how long it’s going to take to see their crypto in their wallet.
Let’s take a moment to clear up what’s happening.
The blockchain network is sometimes busier than normal (as you have probably noticed right now), so transactions are backlogged and waiting. Bitcoin is the most well-known crypto on the planet, so miners process hundreds of thousands of transactions on a daily basis.
Mempool backlog 11/9/23.
Multiple transactions form a single block, but a block can only hold so many. And only one block is mined every ten minutes. That means there’s a limit to how many transactions can be processed at once. Sometimes, the volume is simply too high.
In addition, miners can choose to process the transactions that make them the most money. So when one of the transactions in a group puts the block over its limit, or a miner chooses not to process it because it happens to be smaller than the others, that transaction gets queued in what’s called the mempool.
Okay, but what’s the mempool?
“Mempool” is simply a short way of saying “memory pool.” Your transaction has been committed to memory, so it’s not lost. It’s just not done yet.
Is this frustrating? You bet.
But will it get completed in the end? Absolutely.
