Why is the duration of transaction confirmation increasing?

2016-12-21 00:00:00:

At the moment, given the state of the network, there are several reasons for the delay in Bitcoin transactions:

• Explicit congestion of the blockchain network. Unfortunately, the brilliant creator of the digital currency Satoshi Nakamoto did not foresee such volumes of Bitcoin popularity, therefore, numerous requests for transfers may be delayed. The banal workload of the system, based on the blockchain platform, leads to the fact that users are forced to wait in line when sending a financial transaction.
• The primary and so far standard block size is 1 MB. Bitcoin Foundation developers are trying to solve this problem, but it’s too early to talk about the results. Network participants often say that it is necessary to increase the volume of the block, but this goes against the ideology of the blockchain system, because the parameters are kept at their former positions.
• The complication of digital currency mining also plays a large role. Every four years, the issue of Bitcoins is complicated, which leads to a halving of the remuneration for generating the block. Of course, this also affects the speed of transaction approval.

The basis of the alternative digital currency Bitcoin is the universal blockchain technology launched by Nakamoto in 2009. This technology is also called a distributed registry. Under the terms of the system, a new block in the blockchain system should be generated every 10 minutes, but the current situation speaks differently. We observe that the average block creation time is 20–25 minutes, which contradicts the established algorithms.
The duration of the transaction confirmation has increased, which, of course, has led to discontent among the network members.
Be that as it may, the main reason for the delay is the banal congestion of the blockchain network and the block size.