Why is my transaction unconfirmed/stuck for hours/days? (2024)

Why transactions can take time to confirm

Wallets do not confirm transactions. The miners of each coin's network do.

The most common cause is making transactions with too low miner fees. While there are any transactions on the network paying miners higher fees, they have no incentive to confirm the ones paying them low fees. Too many transactions being sent worldwide can cause fees to increase, so low-fee transactions have to wait longer.

The second most common cause is having previous unconfirmed transactions. Generally transactions must confirm in order. New transactions usually can't confirm while there are other before it still unconfirmed. A transaction will confirm when there are no other transactions on the network paying miners higher fees.

How to prevent transactions from staying unconfirmed

The best way it to properly set the fees at the time of sending. Coinomi allows you to choose how much to pay for miner fees. For coins that give you the 3 dynamic options (low, normal, high), we recommend choosing the "high" priority fees for faster confirmation. Fee suggestions cannot predict the future, so may not be appropriate in case of a very sudden increase in congestion. You are always free to select the "custom" fee option and set the value yourself if you know which value to use.

How to make an unconfirmed transaction confirm faster

Incoming transaction: If you are receiving a transaction that is unconfirmed, your only option is to wait. Properly setting fees is responsibility of the sender. You may contact the sender to ask for higher fees to be used next time. The value of an incoming transaction will only count towards your balance after it confirms.

Ethereum: If you sent an unconfirmed Ethereum or token transaction, you can replace it with another transaction using higher fees. Step by step instructions can be found here.Making new Ethereum or token transactions without following the instructions will NOT make previous transactions confirm faster.

Bitcoin: If your Bitcoin transaction is unconfirmed, there are a number of services that claim to accelerate confirmations, for examplehttps://bitaccelerate.com and https://pushtx.btc.com. Coinomi is not in any way affiliated with those services and cannot guarantee their efficacy. You can search for a trusted service that works best for you.

You can also check if the outgoing transaction on the blockchain explorer. If it has 2 recipients, it means that one of those is change returning to your wallet, and you can complete the steps below to make it confirm faster. This is a technique called "child pays for parent" (CPFP)

1. Copy your own Coinomi BTC receive address
2. Paste the copied address in the send screen
3. Use the "max" button to send all funds
4. Proceed to the confirmation screen and select HIGH priority fee or a custom value even higher
5. Send and wait for the transaction to confirm

Other options like "Replace By Fee" (RBF) exist but currently aren't available in Coinomi and cannot be used.

How to cancel an unconfirmed transaction

Ethereum or token transactions: they can be canceled following the instructions here: https://coinomi.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/29000009773.

Other coins: transactions of other coins cannot be canceled. Eventually they will confirm and successfully send the coins to the destination address. You can also open the wallet of the coin in Coinomi and at the top corner select "... / Resynchronize" once. If the unconfirmed transaction disappears, you can send it again with higher fees. If it doesn't disappear, try again the next day. This will only work for transactions that have been unconfirmed for weeks.