When making purchases with bitcoins, we often have to wait up to 6 confirmations before the merchant considers the transaction complete and safe for them. US payment provider Bitnet offers its customers instant transactions that do not require any confirmations. How is this possible ? When shopping with bitcoins we often have to wait up to 6 confirmations before the merchant considers the transaction complete and safe for him. Bitnet, a US-based payment provider, offers its customers instant transactions that do not require any confirmations. How is this possible? One of the key features of cryptocurrency technology is the grouping of transactions into blocks, which are then cryptographically secured before being placed on the chain. Just placing a transaction in a block essentially prevents the same coins from being issued twice, and each subsequent block further secures the transaction. On the bitcoin network, blocks are issued on average every 10 minutes, and a transaction secured by at least six consecutive blocks is considered completely irreversible. While 10 minutes seems like a small amount of time, in today's fast-paced world no one wants to wait, especially when the payment amount is small. Especially since 10 minutes is an average time, there were times when you had to wait for a block even an hour. Some merchants who accept small payments take the risk, requiring only one block, or even accept the transaction as soon as it is announced on the network. However, not everyone wants to take the risk and not everyone sells only cheap goods after all. U.S.-based payment provider Bitnet has decided to take this risk as part of its expansion by offering merchants instant payment confirmation and conversion of bitcoin into traditional currency. As a result, from the paying customer's point of view, his payment is accepted in a time similar to the propagation of transactions on the network (usually a few seconds). Of course, Bitnet's risk must be under control, which is why the operator has partnered with BlockCypher, a company specializing in blockchain and BTC network monitoring tools. Every transaction that a trader submits to Bitnet is captured on the network and analyzed for the added commission and propagation rate on the network, allowing it to assess its chances of being included in the next block. Akif Khan, Bitnet's chief commercial officer describes it as follows: Most transactions are propagated through the bitcoin network at a predictable speed. If this does not happen, it means that the transaction in question is being rejected by some nodes. This is usually due to that transaction being considered non-standard. For whatever reason, slow transaction propagation increases the chance that another transaction will appear in the network reissuing the same bitcoins and reach mines before the original transaction." For such special concern transactions, Bitnet doesn't reject the payment, but it doesn't accept it outright either, waiting for a block confirmation. The vast majority of transactions are typical, however, and these settle immediately. The operator uses other ways to reduce the risk of immediate acceptance, but does not disclose them, treating them as his trade secret. Hardly surprising, the competition between BTC payment operators is intensifying, and the instant acceptance service allows Bitnet to come to the fore in this race. However, it can be assumed that other operators will not stand aside and will also expand their offerings. Customers will gain speed and convenience, and Bitcoin itself will hopefully gain increasing acceptance among merchants. Tags bitcoin Blockchain btc e-commerce payments confirmations confirmation payment processor transactions
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