What a confirmation actually is

A confirmation is one block mined on top of the block containing your transaction. Zero confirmations means the transaction is broadcast but not yet in a block. One confirmation means it has been included once. Each further block makes reversing it exponentially more expensive.

How many confirmations you need

The threshold is a risk decision, not a technical constant. Larger amounts warrant more blocks:

• Small amounts — one confirmation is usually enough
• Mid-size transfers — three confirmations
• Large transfers — six or more, the long-standing convention
• Chains with fast blocks — proportionally more, since each block is worth less work

Bitcoin

Blocks arrive roughly every ten minutes, so six confirmations is about an hour. That interval is an average, not a schedule — two blocks can land a minute apart, or forty minutes apart.

Faster chains

Networks with second-scale blocks reach the same confidence in far less wall-clock time, which is why a stablecoin transfer often clears while a Bitcoin deposit is still pending.

Waiting for confirmations is not the network being slow. It is the network being certain.

What to do if a deposit is stuck

Work through these in order before contacting anyone:

1. Find the transaction hash in your sending wallet
2. Look it up on a block explorer for that network
3. Check whether it has been included in a block at all
4. If it is unconfirmed, check the fee you paid against the current going rate
5. If it is confirmed but not credited, send the hash to support — that is the only detail they need

Common misconceptions

Sending a second transaction does not speed up the first, and it usually creates a second problem. A low fee delays inclusion but does not lose the funds. And a transaction that never made it into a block cannot be cancelled — only replaced, and only on networks that support replacement.