Confirmations, and why waiting is normal

Most people who think a deposit failed are watching a system work correctly. Understanding what is happening removes the urge to intervene, and intervening is what turns a wait into a problem.

What a confirmation is

Your transaction is broadcast, picked up into a block, and then buried under further blocks. Each block on top is a confirmation. A payment with one confirmation could still in principle be undone, which is why a market waits for several before treating the money as settled.

Timing by coin

Why the ranges are wide

Block times are averages rather than schedules, and the fee attached to your transaction affects how quickly it gets picked up. On Bitcoin especially, a low fee during a busy period can leave a transaction waiting well beyond the usual range.

Where to look

Your own wallet, not the market. The wallet shows the transaction and its confirmation count immediately. If the wallet shows it progressing, the payment exists and the market simply has not credited it yet. If the wallet shows nothing at all, the transaction never left, which is a different and much simpler problem.

When it is genuinely stuck

On Bitcoin, a transaction with a fee too low for current conditions can sit for hours. Some wallets can replace it with a higher fee version. That is a wallet operation rather than something the market can help with, and it is the one case where doing nothing does not resolve itself quickly.

Verified addresses

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