When a customer sends a crypto payment, the transfer goes through stages. Knowing them helps you decide when it is safe to deliver.
1. Broadcast and seen
The customer’s wallet broadcasts a transaction. Nodes that hear about it keep it in a waiting area called the mempool. At this point the payment is detected: it exists, but nothing guarantees it will be included in the chain.
2. Included in a block
Miners or validators pick transactions and bundle them into a block. Once the transfer is inside a block, it has one confirmation.
3. Buried by more blocks
Every new block built on top adds another confirmation. Replacing a transaction that sits under many blocks becomes progressively harder, so each confirmation increases confidence.
4. Final enough for your risk
There is no universal number. A small digital purchase may be fine with fewer confirmations than a large one. FeitPay lets each network define a confirmation policy, and the payment only becomes confirmed when that policy is met.
What can still go wrong
- Reorganisation: occasionally two blocks compete and one is discarded. Transfers in the discarded block return to waiting, or disappear. FeitPay reports this as
reorgedinstead of hiding it. - Replacement: on some networks an unconfirmed transfer can be replaced by another paying a different address. That is why unconfirmed payments are never treated as final.
The practical rule
Ship when the payment is confirmed — not when it is detected — and let the webhook, not a timer, tell you.