Unconfirmed Transaction

An Unconfirmed Transaction refers to a blockchain transaction, such as buying, selling, or transferring a cryptocurrency, that hasn’t been permanently recorded to the blockchain.

An unconfirmed transaction status means that the network of miners or validators hasn’t completely examined the transaction in full, to determine that there aren’t any pending transactions involving the same cryptocurrency being used.

In the event that a cryptocurrency sender removes or reduces transaction fees or doesn’t increase fees on a congested network, miners and validators may simply ignore the transaction.

Once a transaction has remained unconfirmed for a long time, the transaction is not added to a block, and the network may simply drop it completely.

Related Terms

Genesis Block

The very first block or first few blocks recorded on a blockchain or blockchain-based protocol. The genesis block is often called Block 0 or Block 1. The genesis block sets the foundation for the rest of the blocks that are added to form a chain of blocks. That’s where we get the word “blockchain”. The most famous genesis block, and the very first Bitcoin block, called the Genesis Block, was created on January 3rd, 2009, by Bitcoin’s infamous and mysterious creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Some consider this date to be the start of the cryptocurrency revolution – the start of it all!

Network Fee

A fee you pay to a blockchain network for transferring a digital asset on that network. The fees go to the miners or validators of that blockchain network who win the right or are chosen by the validation mechanism to ultimately confirm your transactions and add to the blockchain.

Transaction Fee

Fees charged by a blockchain network to execute and validate transactions on that blockchain network. Fees are used to incentivize miners to complete complex and expensive cryptographic problems to validate transaction blocks to the leger of a blockchain.

Blockchain

Blockchain networks are at the heart of cryptocurrencies. A blockchain is a database, or digital ledger, made up of a series of interconnected blocks containing transaction data created on the network over some period of time. Each block in a blockchain also contains a unique identifier unlike any other block in the chain called a hash. Think of the hash as a fingerprint identifying that block for all other blocks. Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is another name frequently used in relation to blockchains.

Validator

Much like miners in a Proof-of-Work(PoW) network, they are network nodes that operate in Proof of Stake (PoS) blockchains, also validating transaction blocks to the blockchain. Validators are generally picked at random, based on the amount of cryptocurrency they are willing to stake or lock up in a smart contract, to win the rights to validation. This is different than the competition-style mechanism like Proof-of-Work (PoW)