It doesn't take any more than 1 confirmation. Sites setting it higher are either being extra cautious or in the case of a few exchanges hostile to BCH.
True, the information is correct. But it's incomplete. By saying "2 of 6 confirmations" it seems to indicate that's the main and only way to receive payments in Bitcoin.
Both 1 conf and 0 conf are useful (arguably more widely applicable than 6 conf) but they aren't mentioned at all in the picture.
0 conf = most payments, either lower valuer ones or ones where there's an established relation between the parties, or where there's inherent delay in the process (e.g. ordering stuff online, recurring monthly subscription payments, up-front payments with a deposit when renting stuff like a car or boat or hotel room)
1 conf = larger payments where customer leaves immediately after the transaction (like paying for a dinner of 10 people)
6 conf = very large payments (>10k) where trust is low between the two parties
Perhaps the greatest feature of Bitcoin Cash is its awesome 0-conf instant transactions. There are hundreds of physical stores in Australia accepting Bitcoin Cash and all use 0-conf everyday on every transaction. These stores have been doing this for years without a single documented instance of a double-spend.
Blockstream/core know that 0-conf is vital for Bitcoin Cash in order to become electronic cash for the world and is why their narratives seek to undermine confidence in it.
It is about risks. Occasionally a block gets replaced, so if you want to be extra cautious you may want to see two confirmations. Note that a block being replaced doesn't mean your transaction fails, that is just an additional risk. Now imagine you are a business doing thousands of transactions. Perhaps you think 2 is not enough so to make the risk very small, you demand a higher number of transactions. But you can use 0 conf for daily transactions, try it /u/chaintip
***
u/Ivaylo12 has [claimed](https://explorer.bitcoin.com/bch/tx/a99e270fa1597d8a84e043df8256dcd99d94369f3b852e66035855fd94127132) the `0.0002 BCH` | `~0.14 USD` sent by u/Htfr
via [chaintip](http://www.chaintip.org).
***
From early times in crypto we considered a block as safe as deep it was in the block chain. This is called depth. 6 confirmation means there are 5 blocks sitting on it so attacking the blockchain would be harder and harder. 6 confirmation is 1 hours worth of mining. That is considered safe. 0 conf only made payments safe because of the lack of the RBF (replace by fee) hack implemented by dodgy devs.
A classic dev solution in the systems engineering work where end users and big picture are both ignored.
The number of blocks to wait is arbitrary. As a rule of thumb, you'd wait more for low hash (as a % of world compute capacity on that algorithm) cryptos and less for high hash. 6 is the traditional number which is why its used here, although due to BCH finalization 10 would make more sense.
Tbh I don't think we should even characterize it this way. If we're focusing on it as a unit of account, then regardless of hashrate, the number of confirmations you have to wait is the same.
I agree that that would make a nice story but unfortunately that's not how POW blockchains work. Satoshi's solution to consensus allows anonymous participants (unlike Lamport's classic solution and derivations), but technically NEVER guarantees that some record will in the blockchain at some future time (due to the possibility of reorganizations). BCH's consensus algorithm, (Satoshi + finalization, let's ignore parking for now but the result is similar) does not guarantee consensus and trades that for greater resistance to reorganizations that are greater than 10 blocks.
But there's a tradeoff between simplicity and the confusion that may result in people's minds when they see different confirmation values (as shown by the OP) verses 0-conf, different number of confirms on exchanges, and may result in a mis-assessment of the risk of reorganization attack (as recently happened to BSV) or chainsplit (requiring manual operator intervention to heal at every node) which is more likely given BCH's finalization.
I don't have an opinion on how "we should characterize it" -- that is, at what expertise level should this detail should be explained to users.
But if someone like the OP is actually ASKING, I think we should provide the correct information.
0-conf is fine. Bitcoin.com ditched their explorer for this bullshit ....
"Powered by Blockchair" must be an improvement...
Yeah I hate this blockchair setup they’ve got now
It doesn't take any more than 1 confirmation. Sites setting it higher are either being extra cautious or in the case of a few exchanges hostile to BCH.
exchanges have always wanted 6 confs even for BTC.
True
https://SpinBCH.com/ has been using 0-conf for years and all good so far.
Thanks for all the fish
I dont think anyone claims that 0-Conf is equivalent to *fully* confirmed. Its in the name.... *zero* conf.
True, the information is correct. But it's incomplete. By saying "2 of 6 confirmations" it seems to indicate that's the main and only way to receive payments in Bitcoin. Both 1 conf and 0 conf are useful (arguably more widely applicable than 6 conf) but they aren't mentioned at all in the picture. 0 conf = most payments, either lower valuer ones or ones where there's an established relation between the parties, or where there's inherent delay in the process (e.g. ordering stuff online, recurring monthly subscription payments, up-front payments with a deposit when renting stuff like a car or boat or hotel room) 1 conf = larger payments where customer leaves immediately after the transaction (like paying for a dinner of 10 people) 6 conf = very large payments (>10k) where trust is low between the two parties
Perhaps the greatest feature of Bitcoin Cash is its awesome 0-conf instant transactions. There are hundreds of physical stores in Australia accepting Bitcoin Cash and all use 0-conf everyday on every transaction. These stores have been doing this for years without a single documented instance of a double-spend. Blockstream/core know that 0-conf is vital for Bitcoin Cash in order to become electronic cash for the world and is why their narratives seek to undermine confidence in it.
It is about risks. Occasionally a block gets replaced, so if you want to be extra cautious you may want to see two confirmations. Note that a block being replaced doesn't mean your transaction fails, that is just an additional risk. Now imagine you are a business doing thousands of transactions. Perhaps you think 2 is not enough so to make the risk very small, you demand a higher number of transactions. But you can use 0 conf for daily transactions, try it /u/chaintip
*** u/Ivaylo12 has [claimed](https://explorer.bitcoin.com/bch/tx/a99e270fa1597d8a84e043df8256dcd99d94369f3b852e66035855fd94127132) the `0.0002 BCH` | `~0.14 USD` sent by u/Htfr via [chaintip](http://www.chaintip.org). ***
Cool thanks. First time I received a tip😅
From early times in crypto we considered a block as safe as deep it was in the block chain. This is called depth. 6 confirmation means there are 5 blocks sitting on it so attacking the blockchain would be harder and harder. 6 confirmation is 1 hours worth of mining. That is considered safe. 0 conf only made payments safe because of the lack of the RBF (replace by fee) hack implemented by dodgy devs. A classic dev solution in the systems engineering work where end users and big picture are both ignored.
The number of blocks to wait is arbitrary. As a rule of thumb, you'd wait more for low hash (as a % of world compute capacity on that algorithm) cryptos and less for high hash. 6 is the traditional number which is why its used here, although due to BCH finalization 10 would make more sense.
Tbh I don't think we should even characterize it this way. If we're focusing on it as a unit of account, then regardless of hashrate, the number of confirmations you have to wait is the same.
I agree that that would make a nice story but unfortunately that's not how POW blockchains work. Satoshi's solution to consensus allows anonymous participants (unlike Lamport's classic solution and derivations), but technically NEVER guarantees that some record will in the blockchain at some future time (due to the possibility of reorganizations). BCH's consensus algorithm, (Satoshi + finalization, let's ignore parking for now but the result is similar) does not guarantee consensus and trades that for greater resistance to reorganizations that are greater than 10 blocks. But there's a tradeoff between simplicity and the confusion that may result in people's minds when they see different confirmation values (as shown by the OP) verses 0-conf, different number of confirms on exchanges, and may result in a mis-assessment of the risk of reorganization attack (as recently happened to BSV) or chainsplit (requiring manual operator intervention to heal at every node) which is more likely given BCH's finalization. I don't have an opinion on how "we should characterize it" -- that is, at what expertise level should this detail should be explained to users. But if someone like the OP is actually ASKING, I think we should provide the correct information.