MY TRANSACTION IS STUCK! HELP ME!!!
If you have ever sent Bitcoin before then you know the wait times can be nerve racking! Especially if you needed that Bitcoin to arrive in a timely fashion and the network is congested like it is right now. Lucky for you there are solutions to this problem!
Confirmtx.com (http://confirmtx.com/ and also cloned at https://btc.help/) is a Bitcoin transaction accelerator service that can help speed up the confirmation of a "stuck" transaction. Their service is free if your transaction size is under 400 bytes, which you can check by entering the transaction ID or Bitcoin address into a block explorer (such as blockchain.info). Anything over that size they charge $4 to accelerate, which is cheaper than another site that I saw was charging $10.
There IS a way to boost your own transaction manually but I do not recommend it for beginners... AT ALL. I won't even outline it here since it is such a complex process and could lead to the loss of coins if done incorrectly.
Another option is the completely free accelerator provided by ViaBTC (https://www.btcaccelerator.net/), but they are currently down:
It seems the network congestion has been getting pretty serious...
Let's take a look at https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions where you can see the live data on Bitcoin's blockchain:
The network congestion seems to be growing daily as more Bitcoin users get into the space and the fees continue to increase. The only preventative solution is to increase your transaction fee since blocks are filled by priority and this is determined by FEE DENSITY. The higher your fee the higher the likelihood it will be picked up and confirmed quickly by the network. This has caused a bidding war for fees which will further increase the pressure to develop and roll out the lightning network for Bitcoin.
LONG STORY SHORT:
There are other websites out there that may or may not charge for you to speed up a stuck transaction however you should always try the free options first and then pay as a last resort. If you are lucky you will get a boost at no cost to you!
*Never invest more than you are willing to lose and always do your own research before making any investment decisions.
(All pictures are free domain images from snappygoat.com or created by myself.)