From broadcast to confirmed
When you send a transaction it first enters the mempool — a waiting room of unconfirmed transactions. A validator picks it up and includes it in a block. That inclusion is confirmation one. Every subsequent block is another confirmation.
- 0 confirmations — broadcast, in the mempool, reversible
- 1 confirmation — included in a block
- 3–6 confirmations — treated as settled by most services
Why more confirmations mean more safety
Rewriting a block requires redoing all the work stacked on top of it. Each additional block multiplies that cost, so the practical probability of a reversal drops away quickly. This is why high-value transfers wait longer than small ones.
Bitcoin averages a block roughly every 10 minutes, so six confirmations is about an hour. Many chains finalise in seconds, which is why deposit times differ so much between assets.
Why your deposit is still pending
- Fee too low — the transaction is sitting in the mempool
- Network congestion pushing out block space
- Exchange requires more confirmations than the chain has produced
- Transaction sent on a different network than expected
Speeding things up
Some wallets support replace-by-fee, letting you rebroadcast the same transaction with a higher fee. Where that is unavailable, the only option is to wait — congestion clears, and low-fee transactions eventually get included or are dropped and returned to your wallet balance.