Monero has average 2 min blocks vs Bitcoin 10 min blocks so Monero does give a finer grains as to the number of confirmations to accept. "Settle" is in the eye of the recipient as to how many confirmations they accept. I have seen 15 for Monero so around 30 min, The issue with Bitcoin is that network is overloaded so it can take a while to get the first confirmation. My understanding is that Circle requires 4 confirmations for Bitcoin so in theory around 40 min; however since the network is overloaded it can take 2 hours to get the first confirmation ( I have heard of people waiting a day) hence the 2.5 hour wait time.
The key technical difference here is that Monero can scale the blocksize to meet transaction demand while Bitcoin with its fixed 1 MB blocksize cannot.
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Edit: Bitcoin currently has over 110,000 unconfirmed transactions.
https://blockchain.info/unconfirmed-transactions. It is hardly surprising that people have to wait a while for the first confirmation.
This analyses neglects the order(s) of magnitude difference in the networks' relative strength.
The Bitcoin network's PoW is backed by ASICs consuming more power than Bangladesh.
Monero's CPUs and GPUs might be using a medium sized city's worth of electricity.
So we can't do a valid minute to minute (apples to apples) comparison, because it would be tremendously easier to attack and orphan/reorder an hour's worth of Monero's blocks than Bitcoin's.
And regardless of today's Cosmic Background Spam level, Bitcoin is not "overloaded" so long as competitive fees prioritize their tx accordingly. Such panicky Chicken Little rhetoric
has been thoroughly rubbished by the socioeconomic majority, and is now relegated to being the subject of mirth and contempt.
Monero does not (nor should ever) unflinchingly accept every bit of data people wish to store on its blockchain.
It is a distinction without a difference to dwell on the fact Monero's block size cap is flexible rather than static like Bitcoin's, because both approaches ultimately exclude marginal (IE priced out) use cases.
This is due to Monero's block reward penalty for increased size, a feature that Bitcoin lacks and cannot implement without also adding a tail emission, which is practically impossible due to Bitcoin's wholly intentional eschewance of contentious hard forks.