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I'd say it's because bitcoin transactions are not instant. To fully 'verify' that a transaction has taken place, they need 6 confirmations. The transaction may within a few seconds show up on the bitcoin blockchain, but it can't be fully trusted until it has at least 6 confirmations. Waiting for that can take some time.


I'm pretty sure Bitcoin payment processors like Bitpay aren't waiting for 6 full confirmations.


yeah. Looks like it's configurable.

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/12033/how-many-c...

https://bitpay.com/downloads/bitpayApi.pdf “transactionSpeed” - "medium" An invoice is considered to be "confirmed" after 1 block confirmation (~10 minutes).


BitPay doesn't wait for anything; it's the merchant that chooses how many confirmations to wait for (and incurs the risk of this choice).




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