Confirmation is a status assigned to blockchain transactions or blocks. It is the result of a process that involves multiple nodes. These nodes assess transactions and blocks for safety and validity before issuing a confirmation.
This article explains the important concept of confirmation. It also tells you how to view the number of confirmations of your transaction within a network.
What are Confirmations in Blockchain?
Confirmations in blockchain involve a two-step process—the okaying of transactions and the addition of a block containing these transactions.
Miners are responsible for seeing this through. They stand as gatekeepers, protecting the network from suspicious or invalid transactions. Their activity—through confirmations—also helps the network grow.
Essentially, with this, confirmations add a new block to the network. The miners involved get rewarded. The chain or ledger becomes longer.
Understanding Confirmations
Blockchain networks follow some peculiar processes. The most popular ones are smart contracts and consensus. Another is confirmation.
All of these processes facilitate blockchain security. They also help foster trustlessness, a core value of the system.
As confirmations facilitate security against compromise, they also help strengthen trustlessness, a core value among network participants.
The most popular blockchain system protocols are smart contracts and consensus. Another is block confirmations. That right there is the focus—let’s delve right in.
Confirmation of Individual blocks
Each and every transaction in a blockchain network undergoes validation. When multiple transactions scale through, a block is formed to contain them. The block itself is also validated.
In summary, transaction validation precedes block validation. Block validation then results in a confirmation. This is important since only confirmed blocks are added to an existing chain. So, let’s get down to it.
Individual block confirmation
Confirmation permits a block to be added to an existing chain.
Blockchains use this as a critical protocol for their growth. It works just right since it minimizes risk and falsehood.
Validation is done for individual transactions. And when multiple transactions scale through, a block is formed to contain them. The block itself is also validated.
Passing this means the block has received confirmation and can be added to the chain.
Miners are responsible for fostering confirmations. They go through every transaction, checking that they are valid and digitally safe. Interestingly, a block will get rejected if a single transaction within it fails this check.
Further confirmations
There’s more beyond individual block confirmations. Each additional block after the first adds more confirmations to previous ones. This further secures the transaction.
Failed confirmations
What if a confirmation fails? What if it never happens? Well, the answer is that the transferred tokens are returned.
The funds are reversed—returned to the sender’s wallet, including any gas fees deducted, and can be spent again.
How to Check Confirmations on Your Transaction
Just like with a waybill, you can track your blockchain transactions. This includes viewing how many confirmations have been made.
Step 1: Make your transaction
Confirmations only occur on active transactions. Therefore, you’ll need to send some tokens to see these values.
Step 2: Find and Copy the transaction ID/hash
Transaction ID or hash is a reference produced for your transaction. Digital systems such as wallets and exchanges automatically create these references. They are used to identify and track the status and flow of funds during a transaction, as well as the participants and the systems involved.
Find the transaction history page to locate your transaction ID (Tx ID).
Transactions on the history page are usually displayed in a list view. The most recent ones appear at the top. Clicking on this topmost item should reveal details of your last transaction.
Once open, you should see multiple pieces of information. It often includes the time of the transaction, the sender and receiver’s wallet addresses, gas fees, token type, and finally, the transaction ID.
In some settings, this page will display the number of confirmations for the transaction. However, if it doesn’t, you can move on to the next step. Be sure to copy the transaction ID first.
Step 3: Paste the transaction ID/hash in an Explorer
An explorer is software that monitors a specific blockchain. Users access it to see reports or data on blockchain activities. For instance, there are explorers for the Bitcoin blockchain.
There are also explorers for Ethereum, Solana, and so on.
Many other blockchains you can think of.
So, if you’ve made a Bitcoin transfer, you must find a relevant explorer to see the confirmations.
After accessing an explorer, paste your copied tx ID (transaction ID) in the search bar. The result will display the transaction details.
This will typically include the current confirmation count.
The Usefulness of Blockchain Confirmations
Confirmation in blockchain technology is simple and useful. In this section, we speak on its importance.
Let’s run through the good in blockchain confirmations.
Ensuring Blockchain Safety
“Blockchain confirmation is more or less a review. Blocks are added or rejected depending on whether they fail or pass this process.
Blocks that fail confirmation must have something odd in them. It could be a suspicious transaction. It could be an invalid or inappropriate transaction or a technical malfunction.
Whatever it is, confirmations are done to keep the blockchain safe and secure.
Building Chain Integrity
In a blockchain, blocks are built on top of each other. This is like any real chain. It explains how the decentralized ledger gets longer and longer.
The block-on-block structure reduces the tendency for record manipulation. Why? Because rewriting block data impacts the data in all other blocks.
This increases the integrity of the entire chain.
That’s how the ledger gets longer and longer. Considering that each of these blocks receives confirmations, the integrity of the overall system is significantly increased.
Fostering the Integrity of Older Blocks
Imagine that a blockchain network so far has 100 blocks. Of course, each block from the first block to the most recent would all receive confirmations. But the confirmation of a block ahead in the chain also covers those before it.
This means that when the 100th block receives a confirmation, the 1st block is confirmed 99 additional times.
In the same scenario, the 2nd block is confirmed 98 additional times. The 3rd block is confirmed 97 additional times.
Clearly, by having more and more confirmations, the integrity of older blocks becomes undeniable.
Mitigating Problematic Transactions
We talked about how confirmations enhance blockchain security. One of the ways this happens is by mitigating problematic transactions.
Confirmations halt the addition of unusual or invalid blocks. For instance, if two blocks are found with the same transactions, both blocks may be rejected. This protects the blockchain from double-spend attacks.
Conclusion
We’ve said so much about the positives of confirmations in blockchain networks. But aren’t there any downsides? Of course, there are.
Confirmations can slow blockchain network speeds, and in turn, transaction time increases. This is experienced in networks where lots of confirmations are required. For instance, a single transaction can get up to 1,000 confirmations in certain blockchain systems.
Generally speaking, however, accurate and successful confirmations build blockchain trustworthiness. They also increase the integrity of previously formed blocks.
