What is a Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator?

Bitcoin (BTC) transactions can become very slow if the network is congested. This is why a Bitcoin transaction accelerator can help with this issue. In this guide, we will share with you all the information you should have about how a bitcoin transaction accelerator works. 

Bitcoin Network Congestion

The Bitcoin network allows users to send and receive transactions. You can send BTC, pay a small fee to miners, and get your funds delivered to another person. Although this should take just a few minutes and cost less than $2, not always is like that. 

In periods where the market surges or where lots of transactions are processed, the network becomes congested. When that happens, Bitcoin holders prefer to use other networks such as Litecoin (LTC) or Ethereum (ETH). In these two networks, transactions are faster and also cheaper, which can be an advantage. 

This is why people use a Bitcoin transaction accelerator. To make it faster to send a BTC transfer. However, this is not the only good thing of free Bitcoin transaction accelerator services. In the next sections, you will be able to get all the necessary information about it. 

What is a Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator?

A Bitcoin transaction accelerator allows you to understand which is the optimum price at which your transaction will be processed in the shortest period of time. When we send a BTC transfer, we are able to select the fee we pay. The higher the fee, the easier it will be for our transaction to be included in the next block. 

As we have explained in our Bitcoin Mempool guide, miners select the transfers with the highest fees. This allows them to process those transactions that would provide them with the largest earnings. However, it is not possible to certainly know which is the level of fees that a user has to pay in order for the transfer to be processed efficiently. 

With a free Bitcoin transaction accelerator, you will be able to send your transaction and be sure that it will be processed as soon as possible. Take into consideration that transactions with very low fees might not be processed by miners at all. In some cases, however, they can take some few days to be picked up by miners. 

In order for a Bitcoin transaction accelerator to work, users have to pay a small processing fee. If the service is for free, then you will just be able to avoid paying the fees. You will get your transfers processed faster. 

In many cases, the Bitcoin transaction accelerator services are provided by miners themselves. This allows them to process the transfers and get a small fee paid to them for this service as well. At the moment, there are several Bitcoin transaction accelerators in the market. Some of them will be for free, while others would include a small fee. 

BitAccelerate

BitAccelerate is one of the best options in terms of processing times. This Bitcoin transaction accelerator will allow you to process your BTC transfer in just minutes. Users will have to share their ID and basic information in order to process the transfer. 

Most of the recognized services would require you to share your private information. This is why it might not be a great solution for users that value their privacy. Although this is just one of the transaction accelerator Bitcoin users are enjoying, it can be a great tool if you need to send a fast BTC transfer. 

BTC.com

BTC.com is the next Bitcoin transaction accelerator free of charge. This solution would increase the possibilities of your transfer to get added to the next block to 75%. This is quite high. Bitcoin blocks are processed every ten minutes by the Bitcoin network. 

Thus, you can have 75% possibilities of having your funds delivered within the next ten minutes. Nonetheless, you need to take into consideration that some exchanges or wallets would not accept a transaction with just one confirmation. In general, the waiting time goes to 3 blocks before a transaction is processed. 

The platform claims that within 4 hours, the possibilities of your transfer being added to a block grow to 98%. This is great news if you want your funds to reach another wallet in a short period of time. 

ViaBTC

ViaBTC is perhaps the most popular Bitcoin transaction accelerator service in the market. They have been working for several years now. Indeed, they released these services to the market in 2017. At that time, Bitcoin transaction fees were very high. In some cases, they surpassed $50 per transfer. This was certainly unacceptable for small users. 

This works in the same way as with the previously mentioned services. Users will simply have to register on the platform and provide their ID. This is certainly necessary as governments are increasing their pressure on crypto platforms to comply with KYC and AML policies. 

It is worth mentioning that they are now offering users with the possibility to send as much as 100 accelerations per hour. Thus, this is a great choice if you are searching for a free Bitcoin transaction accelerator. 

Be Cautious

It is always important to check some of the reports released by the Bitcoin community regarding these services. Some of these firms and of the Bitcoin transaction accelerators might not work as they claim they do. 

Moreover, in some cases, you would send the transaction to the company and your funds could not arrive. Remember that Bitcoin transactions are not refundable. You cannot complain if your funds are sent to the wrong wallet. 

Once you click “Send” your funds will be gone forever. If you sent them to the right wallet, you should expect your funds to reach it. If you sent it to an anonymous wallet, you will never recover the BTC. 

Pros and Cons of Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator

There are several pros and cons of these crypto services. This is similar to what happens with other platforms. When using these services we should always analyse which are the positive and negative aspects. 

Positive Things About Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator:

• They can be very helpful to process transactions faster
• Some of them can be used for free
• It can be very useful in times when there are congestions on the Bitcoin network
• These services can help us use BTC rather than other digital currencies
• We could be sure the funds will be sent in a short period of time

Negative Things About Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator:

• Some of the sites require us to provide ID 
• They might not be good for privacy reasons
• Users usually complain about the services offered by these sites
• The services offered may not be as they claim 
• You can find some Bitcoin Transaction Accelerators where you will have to pay

Of course, you will also have to understand which are your pros and cons. Every single person and Bitcoin holder has a different need. This is why you should make your own analysis and understand which are the main positive and negative aspects of a Bitcoin transaction accelerator. 

Bitcoin Processing Times

Bitcoin is the largest blockchain network in the market. This is a fact. We can see this reflected on its hash rate. There is no decentralized network as secure as Bitcoin. Miners process transactions, they get rewarded with block rewards and transfer fees, and users can feel safe sending and transferring their funds. 

Nonetheless, the network works with a mechanism of blocks that can be found every around 10 minutes. Each of these blocks includes the information on transactions. However, there is a 1MB limit on these blocks. That means that the network would have a limit on the number of transfers that can be processed. 

The Bitcoin network is able to process between 3 and 7 transactions per second (TPS). Although this seems a low number compared to VISA, PayPal or even other blockchain networks, we need to remember that Bitcoin is the safest decentralized blockchain network in the world. 

As blocks get full when congestion grows, fees also increase. This is why using a standard or low fee transaction during periods of high load might not be the best idea. Your transfer can get stuck in the Mempool for several hours, days or even weeks if you do not pay a higher fee. 

This is why Bitcoin transaction acceleration services are helping users. Rather than selling their BTC for faster coins such as Litecoin (LTC), it is possible to accelerate our transfers. As we have seen in the previous sections, individuals can simply use a Bitcoin transaction accelerator. 

Bitcoin Transaction Accelerator Competitors

As you notice, these Bitcoin transaction accelerator services work with on-chain transactions. Everything is processed using the main Bitcoin network. In recent years, there have been new developments that are allowing Bitcoin to become much more efficient. 

The Lightning Network

One of these solutions is called the Lightning Network (LN). The Lightning Network is one of the main competitors to Bitcoin Transaction Accelerators. This is an off-chain and second-layer solution that allows BTC transfers to be processed almost instantly (seconds) and for almost no fee (close to 1 satoshi per transfer). 

Although the Lightning Network is now in a beta stage, there are some platforms that have already embraced it. Nonetheless, not every single BTC user feels comfortable using off-chain solutions to perform their BTC transfers. 

One of the many use cases of the LN is to enable fast and cheap small transfers. Nowadays, you would have to pay more for sending $1 worth of BTC than the value you are transferring. With the LN this problem gets solved. 

However, the BTC network could continue working as the main chain to process large transfers on the network. The small transfers would be processed using the LN. Large transfers could still use Bitcoin transaction accelerators. 

Faster and Cheaper On-Chain Transfers

If Bitcoin becomes a store of value, only large transactions are expected to take place on-chain. Meanwhile, smaller-cap coins that work faster could be used as a day-to-day method to send and receive transfers. 

One of the cryptocurrencies that could be adopted by the Bitcoin community is Litecoin (LTC). This could be bad news for free Bitcoin transaction accelerators. The Litecoin cryptocurrency is one of the closest to Bitcoin. This is true in terms of how it was built and also for the communities of these two virtual currencies. 

Bitcoin transfers could be processed using the LTC network for smaller payments. The LTC network works faster than Ethereum (ETH) and it is compatible with Bitcoin. That means that there are many different liquid ways to sell LTC and get BTC and vice-versa. 

In the future, atomic-swaps could help users exchange BTC for LTC, make a transfer, and receive BTC back on-chain with another swap. This could be a Bitcoin transaction accelerator killer. 

However, a transaction accelerator Bitcoin users would like to use would be the one that would offer the fastest services for the lowest fees. In the future, Bitcoin transaction accelerators could change the way in which they work. Rather than accelerating a BTC on-chain transaction, they could adopt LTC and atomic swaps to send BTC to other users in just seconds. 

It is worth pointing out that this solution has not yet been developed and this is just speculation on how Bitcoin transaction accelerators could behave in the future. 

Final Considerations on Bitcoin Transaction Accelerators

Bitcoin transaction accelerators can be a great way for users to send BTC and know the funds will arrive in just a few hours. There are several platforms that are offering these services right now, but some of them might not offer large improvements in terms of speed. 

In the future, new ways of sending and receiving Bitcoin could be created. This is why Bitcoin transaction accelerators should think a way to offer better services and adapt to these market changes. The Lightning Network, for example, is one of these challenges or competitor to these solutions. 

Meanwhile, Atomic Swaps and other virtual currencies such as Litecoin could also be used to make Bitcoin transactions faster.