Is your crypto transaction pending? Read on to understand why we sometimes label your incoming transactions as Pending within the wallet.
If you need a self-custody crypto wallet to send and receive transactions, you can download Exodus.
In this article:
- What does pending mean?
- What is actually happening with a pending transaction?
- How long do I have to wait for a pending transaction?
- What does a pending transaction look like in my wallet?
- Web3 Wallet
- Desktop
- Mobile
What does pending mean?
Incoming transactions show up in your account right away (typically within a minute after they are broadcast) but will be tagged as Pending until there has been at least one network confirmation. The time it takes a transaction to be confirmed depends on the fee used by the sender and the overall network traffic. It can also depend on the asset used.
Once a transaction is verified on the network, the pending tag will be removed. This lets you know the transaction cannot be reversed and the funds can be sent.
What is actually happening with a pending transaction?
This verification process is similar to the 2-3 day hold traditional banks put on check deposits waiting for funds to clear. Digital asset networks have a similar system except the time spent waiting is reduced to hours (and sometimes even minutes with faster networks like Ethereum) instead of days.
Occasionally, transactions are not accepted by the network and remain marked as Pending for 2-3 days. Typically these transactions will never confirm. These problem transactions are typically caused by four main reasons:
- Receiving a transaction with insufficient fees.
All transactions require a miner fee to be confirmed by the asset network. If the sender did not use a sufficient fee, your deposit might never confirm. - Spending unconfirmed assets.
If you are trying to send assets that appear as pending in your account, your transaction will also remain in a pending state until your deposits are confirmed. You can think of this as a waterfall effect. Until the funds you receive are properly confirmed, all of your sent funds will be marked with this same pending state. - The network is experiencing a high volume.
Sometimes there is a high volume of digital currency being sent globally, and there are more transactions than there is space available in each new block to include the transaction. - Slow block times.
Due to the nature of how blocks are confirmed, there can be times when blocks are confirmed slower than usual, resulting in prolonged block times. This is particularly true for Bitcoin, which has an estimated block confirmation time of 10 minutes but can occasionally be as high as 40+ minutes, due to variability in mining difficulty.To learn more about how blocks are confirmed on different networks, please see our article: How do consensus mechanisms like proof-of-work (PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) work?
Transactions that do not get confirmed by the network are usually dropped and returned to the sender. If you have a dropped transaction in your wallet that continues to show as pending, you can often manually remove this by refreshing your wallet. A refresh updates your wallet to the latest information from the network.
How long do I have to wait for a pending transaction?
| Asset | Typical time pending |
|---|---|
| Bitcoin | 60 minutes or less |
| Monero | 20 minutes or less |
| Dash | 15 minutes or less |
| BNB | 5 minutes or less |
| Ethereum | 5 minutes or less |
| Cardano | 5 minutes or less |
| Solana | 5 minutes or less |
What does a pending transaction look like in my wallet?
Web3 Wallet
On Web3 Wallet, you can use a blockchain explorer to check if your transaction is still pending.
For more information on how to do this, you can visit: I sent funds but they are not in the destination wallet - how do I check my transaction?
Desktop
On Desktop, pending transactions will have a Pendingtag in the transaction details.
Mobile
On Mobile, pending transactions will have a Pending tag above the transaction details.
