Nadezhda Zakharova 11/30/2020
The Bitcoin network stores information about all transactions throughout the history of the cryptocurrency.
If a crypto investor is worried about the status of the transfer, he can easily track the status of the BTC transaction.
Detailed instructions - how to find and verify a Bitcoin transaction.
Contents:
- How to send bitcoins
- Not so simple
- How to search for bitcoins
- Where to check Bitcoin (BTC) transaction
- Another variant
- Why doesn't Bitcoin arrive in my wallet?
- How to speed up sending BTC
How to send bitcoins
A transaction on the Bitcoin network is essentially a money transfer. Only it is much faster and simpler.
To implement it, the owner of the cryptocurrency will need only one thing - the recipient’s payment details.
For convenience, in most crypto wallets it is generated in the form of a QR code.
It can be read, and information about the recipient will be automatically added to the wallet.
If you don't have a device that reads QR codes at hand, you can always copy the address as a unique set of characters.
When the recipient's details and the BTC amount are entered, you can safely send bitcoins.
go
How to speed up a transaction?
Advanced users know how to speed up transactions on the blockchain. This is done with the help of additional multi-signatures, indicating the reliability of the transaction. Companies such as GreenAddress offer to purchase them. In this case, the system processes operations much faster than usual - in a couple of minutes.
Other ways to reduce wait times are to fully disclose your personal information. In particular, conducting a transaction within the framework of special trusted servers and platforms, for example, Coinbase.com, where all traders’ accounts are verified. If the broker is still in demand, then the former are not in demand, due to a complete contradiction to the idea of cryptocurrencies - the anonymity of financial flows. However, it is worth noting that the risk of losing funds is proportional to your level of anonymity - the higher the latter, the more you risk.
What to do if Bitcoin does not arrive in your wallet?
When for some reason BTC is not credited to the account for a long time after payment, and the funds have already been debited from the balance, you need to contact the bank’s support service with a detailed description of what happened. Institutional staff must determine whether a request has been received from a cryptocurrency seller for a transfer.
In any case, whether the money was transferred or not, be sure to notify the exchange employee or converter who has taken responsibility for the movement of your capital. As a rule, official organizations that act as intermediaries in conducting currency transactions for a certain fee indicate on the website an email or telephone number for feedback. At this stage, difficulties may arise due to the language barrier, so if there is a serious amount involved, you may need the services of a translator. The technical support specialist of the exchange or trading point must respond to the request within the time established by the rules. In most cases, the problem is resolved immediately upon request - the money is credited to the account, or the payment is canceled and the funds are returned to the sender.
Beware of scammers
To avoid becoming a victim of scammers, contact only trusted exchanges and converters. Top trading platforms value their name and reputation, so they try to quickly resolve issues with clients. In conditions of fierce competition, the ability to quickly correct mistakes becomes a matter of honor for them.
If an emergency situation arises when Bitcoin does not arrive in your wallet, or any difficulties with depositing or withdrawing funds, do not hesitate. Write about your problem on popular thematic sites and forums, in reviews on generator resources, for example bestchange. This will give the exchange an incentive to immediately respond to your request. Users have long noticed that as soon as you start complaining about an exchange or exchanger online, a technical support operator immediately appears, ready to help resolve the issue. The wider the circle of knowledgeable people, the greater the likelihood of a refund.
Trust but check!
If after these actions the platform employees continue to ignore you, write a statement to law enforcement agencies about poor quality services and possible fraud. Then send a copy of the document to the site administration via feedback.
As for exchanges, they can refuse to support a coin without explanation or freeze operations, considering the user’s assets or actions suspicious. Thus, recently, negative reviews about the WEX platform, formerly known as BTC-E, have become increasingly common on the Internet. The new management of the platform, which was closed last summer, was able to pay only 20% of the debts. The exchange's servers and assets located in the United States were seized by the FBI. Therefore, you should be extremely careful when choosing a resource for working with capital. Before starting cooperation, study the history of the project development and customer comments.
The blockchain itself has reliable protection against unauthorized interference in operations within the system. But to increase security, it would be a good idea to use the services of companies that store wallets on their own server. Yes, crimes in the IT sector have become larger and more sophisticated. Hackers are embedding malicious code into the blockchain and mass-launching transaction tracking bots that find unencrypted wallets or key files. Once they discover a vulnerability and gain access, they steal the coins. If you are worried about the safety of your funds due to the fact that Bitcoin is not arriving in your wallet, you should change your payment details and balance access passwords.
You will find even more useful recommendations, including on security, in free training on cryptocurrencies from professional investors and experienced analysts of the Golden Island club!
We will tell you how to make money on cryptocurrency, share personal experience and give valuable advice that will serve as motivation for further action and help you make a fortune in the market. Start earning money now!
Not so simple
Behind this seemingly simple process lies a unique and vast world where everyone does their job.
So, before the transaction arrives at the recipient’s account, it must be confirmed by miners.
They do this by mining blocks that store information about transactions.
Each of them holds only a certain amount of data. This is due to its size of 1 MB.
When this space is filled, the block is considered closed. After this, the data cannot be changed.
Each subsequent block stores information about the previous one. When the BTC transfer information reaches 6 blocks, it is considered confirmed.
go
Blockchain transaction stuck: what to do
First, don't panic: a transaction cannot disappear on the blockchain forever. Depending on the network congestion, there are three possible scenarios:
- the transaction will enter a new block (receive confirmation) within a few minutes or hours;
- The confirmation process can be accelerated using one of the available methods;
- if the network is heavily congested and there is no way to speed up the transaction, the transfer will simply return to the sender’s account within a few days.
The first thing you need to do is get information about the transaction status. To do this, go to blockchain.info and enter the transaction id (usually denoted as tx or txid) in the text field located in the upper right corner. The request is performed by pressing a key on the keyboard (no need to press a button!).
Check the number of confirmations. The screenshot shows a case where a transaction is on the list of unconfirmed ones. If there is a specific number in place of the red field, there is nothing to worry about: the transfer is already included in the chain, and you just need to wait a few more tens of minutes.
In the column “Pay per byte” the size of the commission is indicated. This number will be useful for further assessment of the situation.
Next, you need to compare this commission with the current statistics of the Bitcoin network. You can do this by viewing the recommended commissions on bitaps.com. If the fee per byte is approximately equal to or greater than the last number in the “Recommended fee” field, you can expect the transaction to be confirmed within 1 – 2 hours.
To confirm the information, you can use the Bitcoinfees service, which shows the number of unconfirmed transfers, dividing them by the size of the commission.
If the transfer fee is significantly lower than recommended, it is advisable to use one of the methods to speed up transfers.
How to search for bitcoins
Information is stored according to a certain structure, which allows you to obtain details about any translation.
Each block contains the following information:
- Version;
- Date of creation;
- Code (hash) of the newly created block;
- Hash of the previous one;
- Hash codes of all transactions contained in the block.
Also here you can find the details of the sender and recipient of the bitcoin in the form of wallet numbers, as well as the number of bitcoins sent. It is this data that allows you to find your BTC among hundreds of others. It is worth noting that in the Bitcoin network it is impossible to cancel the sending, as well as change data about it. Therefore, before sending BTC to someone, you should carefully check the details.
go
Unspent Outputs (UTXO)
To understand how to protect against duplicate transactions, you first need to understand how Bitcoin works. With Bitcoin, you don't actually have a single balance, even if all payments were sent to the same address. You probably have a lot of small incoming payments, called unspent outputs (UTXO). You can only spend the funds you have, and the sum of all UTXOs is the balance that appears in your wallet.
When you spend a certain amount of Bitcoin, your wallet uses one or more unspent outputs as input for the transaction. So if user A sent you 5 bitcoins, user B sent you 3 bitcoins, and you in turn sent 8 bitcoins to user B, your wallet uses the unspent outputs from both the “5 bitcoins” and “3 bitcoins” transactions as input. . When you send 8 bitcoins to user B, he becomes the owner of a UTXO for “8 bitcoins” (fees are not taken into account in this example).
An important feature of unspent outputs is that they all must be spent every time UTXOs are used as inputs. So if you have 100 Bitcoin worth of unspent transaction output and you only want to spend 0.001 Bitcoin, what should you do? Here, the fact that you can send bitcoins to several people in one transaction will play into your hands - you can send 0.001 bitcoins to the person you were going to, and send 99.9985 to yourself (and pay a commission of 0.0005 to the miner). Typically, a chargeback to another address in your wallet is generated automatically, and is called "change." Your wallet will now contain 99.9985 Bitcoin worth of unspent outputs.
Thus, once specific UTXOs are spent, they can be forgotten. They are either consumed or they are not - there can be no intermediate state, which makes the code much simpler.
The global set of UTXOs, or the complete set of unspent outputs for all addresses on the network, is what full nodes keep track of to ensure that no transactions are duplicated.
Where to check Bitcoin (BTC) transaction
You can find your bitcoins and check the transaction status using the Blockchain.info resource.
To do this, you need to go to the official website and enter the wallet address, transaction or block hash, or IPv4 address in the search bar.
Blockchain.info will give details about the address:
- Total number of transactions;
- How many bitcoins are transferred to this wallet;
- Final balance.
Blockchain.info will also tell you about all the wallets that have ever transferred coins or accepted bitcoins in the bundle of the desired number, the amount of BTC and the date.
These details can be filtered by sender, recipient, and verification status.
Check the status of a Bitcoin transaction - click on your address and see from the inside all the transfer data, including: amount, date, commission and the number of current confirmations.
The first confirmation tells us that the money has not yet reached the recipient, since at least five more confirmations must be received.
Blockchain.info, in addition to searching for your own bitcoins, provides quite interesting statistics.
Here you can find the number of mined blocks, the market price of Bitcoin, transaction volumes, total fees for the entire chain, mining costs and network computing power. Moreover, Blockchain.info makes selections with the most popular addresses, the largest transfers and much more.
go
What is Hydra?
This exchanger has a very specific reputation and its services were previously used only by those clients who needed the appropriate substances that have a tonic effect on the nervous system and mood.
To increase the number of clients, the management of the Hydra exchanger came up with the idea of providing services for the exchange of cryptocurrencies, in particular Bitcoin. Now the exchanger provides such a service to everyone who has coins in stock. It is worth noting that they can not only be withdrawn, but also bought and exchanged.
Another variant
Chain.so is another resource that allows you to find your bitcoins.
The search principle is the same: enter the address, transaction or block hash.
Chain.so will return all available details. Unique number, confirmation status, transfer amount.
Moreover, the resource will show the miner if his identity is public.
Chain.so will tell you about all the transactions contained in the block, the addresses of the sender and recipient, as well as the amount of the commission paid for transferring Bitcoin.
You can also see on Chain.so which miners worked more hard. Here you can create your own Bitcoin wallet.
The service also allows you to track the movements of Dogecoin, Litecoin and Dash.
go
How to withdraw money from Blockchain?
Withdrawal directly by sending funds to other systems (for example, WebMoney) is not possible. Alternatively, you can again safely go to the site with bestchange exchangers, select the opposite direction of the transfer there (for example, bitcoins -> card) and select the exchanger with the best rate.
Click on the “Send” button, and there enter the address where you will transfer the bitcoins and the amount. The transaction description is not required to be filled out.
At the very bottom there is a choice of which commission to use when making a transfer. When choosing Regular there will be a regular commission, and the money will arrive only after a few hours; when choosing Priority, the commission is higher, but the money will arrive faster, within an hour. Of course, you can set the commission yourself, there is a corresponding link, but don’t really expect to save money.
Why doesn't Bitcoin arrive in my wallet?
Sometimes the Bitcoin blockchain is heavily overloaded.
This means that there are so many transactions on the network that a queue has formed (mempool) and in order to receive your coins you have to either wait longer than usual or increase the commission to quickly be included in the confirmed group.
In this case, confirmation may take a day or longer. All that remains to do is wait.
Even if the sending is not confirmed for some reason, the bitcoin will not be lost and will definitely return to the sender’s wallet.
Then you can try to transfer bitcoins again.
go
How is the balance replenished on Hydra?
New users often have a question: how is it possible to top up the balance on the exchanger? The technology is quite simple. In order to top up your balance, you need to go to the “Balance” section. Each user, when registering for the first time, receives a Hydra Bitcoin wallet at his disposal. All accounts on Hydra have such wallets.
If you transfer Bitcoins from another wallet to the specified wallet, then the balance of the Hydra wallet will be replenished after a certain period of time when the transaction is confirmed by the user. Usually it takes no more than 10 minutes to top up your balance. The service works quite quickly, there are almost no delays.
Natural duplication protection
Copy-protected unspent outputs are a very effective way to protect against duplicate transactions.
All you need is one copy-protected UTXO to join in one transaction to another that is not yet protected. A UTXO may have very little value since the amount does not matter. What will likely end up happening is that both networks will offer each user a small amount of copy-protected UTXOs, which you can use to make sure your transaction isn't duplicated.
You can also expect exchanges, merchants, and other Bitcoin companies to use this method to avoid accidentally sending an equivalent amount of other coins to their customers. In other words, you will be able to receive copy-protected UTXOs from exchanges, merchants, etc., shortly after the hard fork since it is in their interest to have copy protection.
