Bitcoin users will sooner or later come across one of their previous transactions that remains unconfirmed for an extended period of time. Alleviating this problem can be done through a procedure known as Child Pays For Parent or CPFP. Using this method will allow users to broadcast a similar transaction with a different fee, increasing its chances of getting picked up on the network.

Child Pays For Parent is A Viable Solution

There is nothing more annoying than seeing a bitcoin transaction remain unconfirmed for a long period of time. There are several reasons as to why this may occur, including network congestion or broadcasting the transfer with a fee that is too low. Solving the problem can be done through a process often referred to as child pays for parent, this method effectively increases the chance of the transfer getting picked up by miners so it is included in the next block on the network.

Creating a CPFP transaction is not as complicated as some people may think. The first step revolves around looking up the transaction ID of the unconfirmed bitcoin transfer. This can be done by looking at the bitcoin wallet, or one of the many bitcoin block explorers. Once you have obtained this particular transaction ID, it is time to get out the good old calculator. The one on your computer or mobile phone will do just fine, though.

To ensure the child pays for parent transaction gets confirmed quickly, one needs to calculate the appropriate transaction fee. Using a real time fee calculator like the one offered by 21.co is a smart option before sending a transaction which you would like confirmed asap. However, if you have already made the transaction take a look at the calculator anyway in order to figure out how much of a fee you need to get your transfer confirmed. Once this fee has been calculated, it is time to create  a new transaction which effectively spends the unconfirmed transfer to a different bitcoin address.

It is important to include the properly calculated fee as part of the second transaction being broadcast. Users will sign off on this transaction automatically once it is broadcasted through their client or wallet software. It is important that the users create a transaction out of unconfirmed outputs. For example, if you send 10 BTC to someone and used change addresses, you will have 2 unconfirmed outputs (the change address and the receiver address). Using a software like electrum you can spend from the address to which the unconfirmed transaction is coming to. When you create that child transaction make sure to add double the fee that you would require to get confirmed in the next block (based on the 21.co fee calculator).

It will still take about 10 minutes or slightly more until the new transaction is picked up. Once the transaction is picked up by mines, the next network block will automatically include both transactions at the same time – assuming the child transaction has enough fees to cover both itself and the parent.

Child pays for print transactions are quite appealing to bitcoin miners as well. After all, this method provides incentive to miners to confirm the parent transaction so they can collect the fees from the child transaction. It is also worth mentioning child pay for parent is not the same as replace-by-fee, which was introduced in the Bitcoin Core client a while ago. A child pay for parent transactions ends the same funds to a different address, whereas replace-by-fee revolves around funds being sent to the same address but at a higher fee.

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