Hold the phone, Bitcoin is absolutely flying and is looking to become worth even more in November. But, alas, that’s not the reason we’re here today. Instead, we’re here to help you understand why your Bitcoin deposits and withdrawals are taking a little longer than normal.

Unfortunately, when Bitcoin goes up or down in value really quickly, also known as increased market volatility, things get a bit congested. This simply means that your Bitcoin transactions are going to take a little longer than normal – there’s no need to panic.

With that being said, we’re going to explain why it happens in really simple terms, we promise to keep the technical jargon down to a minimum, and we’ll give you some tips on how to keep your transactions moving as fast as possible.

Why is My Transaction Still Pending?

One of the only drawbacks of Bitcoin is that the network can only process 7 transactions per second. Now, on a normal day where nothing special is happening, it can cope fairly well and your transactions will clear in a few minutes. But, when there’s something big happening, like a major price rise or decrease, more people start to make transactions to and from exchanges to trade.

This in turn clogs up the network and makes transactions take longer. Think of it like traffic on your way to work. The more people that want to drive down the road at a particular moment, the more congested the road gets and the longer it takes to get where you’re going – it’s the same with Bitcoin.

Instead of cars, in Bitcoin you’ve got transactions. In this example, work is a price rise or decrease. The more the price rises, the more offices are in the area, meaning more traffic. Hopefully you get where we’re going with this.

How Can I Skip the Traffic Jam?

When you’re driving in your car, there are lots of shortcuts you can take to skip traffic, and fortunately, you can do this in the world of Bitcoin too – who knew. We’re going to apologize right here as there’s a technical word coming in – mempool.

The mempool is basically every Bitcoin transaction that’s been made, but hasn’t been included in a block yet and processed. Now, when you go to make your Bitcoin transaction, you can actually check the mempool to see how congested it is and you can take action accordingly to keep your money moving nice and quickly.

Think of the mempool as traffic cameras or a radio report telling you there’s heavy traffic this morning.

Blockchain.com has a free and really easy to read graph that you can use to do this. Simply click this link and you’ll open up the graph. From there, the higher the blue line currently is, the busier it gets. The lower the blue line, the quieter is it. And voila, you suddenly know when you need to crank your fees up to high.

When the mempool is filling up and getting congested, you can toggle the fee setting on your transaction to high. This means you’re willing to pay a little more to get your transaction completed quickly – think of it like paying a toll booth to use a quiet road.

The higher your fees, the more likely a miner is to pick your transaction to go in the next block and get your Bitcoin moving to its final destination. Virtually all Bitcoin wallets have this feature, just look for the Network Fees option and you can usually adjust it there.

It Cuts Both Ways

Here’s yet another Bitcoin trick that you can use on the other end of the scale, when the mempool is nice and quiet. When there’s no traffic you can put your foot to the floor and go as fast as you like, the same for Bitcoin transactions.

Before you make your Bitcoin transaction, check the mempool and if there aren’t many transactions waiting, you can drop your fees down to low. This will still get your transaction in the next block AND you’ll save yourself some Bitcoin in the process – double win!

Don’t Panic

So, if during this next bull run you find your transactions going a little slow, do check the mempool size and see how many other transactions are pending. Your transactions will get to their intended destination eventually, it just might take a touch longer than normal.

Unfortunately, this is completely determined by the network and it’s not something we have any control over, so you’ll have to bear with us and the Bitcoin network while the congestion dies down.

If you’re sat waiting for your deposit to arrive, why not try out some of our latest games in fun mode. Getting that practice in before your deposit arrives will give you the skills to really ace that pick and click bonus mode or trigger a jackpot once the funds hit your account!

Good luck and remember, check the mempool!