Fees and confirmations
What a fee pays for and why six confirmations matter. Seven minutes.
Paying for space in a block
Each block has limited space. When many people send at once, they offer higher fees to be included sooner; when the network is quiet, fees fall. The fee depends on how much space your payment takes, not on how much you send.
After your payment is in a block, every new block added on top is one more confirmation. The more there are, the harder the payment is to reverse.
In short
A fee pays for
Space in the next blocks
It depends on
How busy the network is
It does not depend on
The amount you send
What “6 confirmations” means
The same strip our stories use, for a payment: each square is one more block added after the block with your payment.
0 of 6 Seen by the network, waiting in line. It can still be dropped or replaced.
1 of 6 In a block. Most small payments are treated as received here.
3 of 6 Three blocks on top. Reversing it would take enormous computing power.
6 of 6 Six blocks on top: what many exchanges wait for before they count a deposit.
On bitcoin a block is added about every ten minutes, so six confirmations take about an hour. Other networks differ.
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