In today's article, we will look into the technical side of Bitcoin and its transaction fees, where I am going to try my best to show you how you can quickly and elegantly solve the problem of a stuck transaction caused by a low transaction fee for miners through the CPFP method (Child Pays For Parent).

There's nothing worse than feeling helpless when your payment gets stuck in 'digital limbo' because you decided to save on fees for miners. Today, we'll explore why sometimes it's better to invest a little more to keep your transactions smoother.

We often desire to minimize costs and set the lowest possible fees for our transactions. However, reality often punishes us because this tactic may not always be the best option. When your transaction gets stuck, it demands not only time but also financial losses in the form of additional overpayments. Miners are happy to let you pay for the resolution of your mistakes.

Sometimes this can happen despite all your efforts to prevent it. In a situation where fees are at 15 sat/vB, and you set it to 18 sat/vB, immediately after sending your transaction, network congestion may increase, and fees can rise to 40 sat/vB or more. There have even been cases, especially with the introduction of BRC-20 tokens on the Bitcoin network (NFT), where fees reached up to 300 sat/vB. This situation persisted for weeks, even months, leaving many transactions in the network waiting long for confirmation.
So, how to proceed correctly if your transaction gets stuck in the network? My goal is to provide you with valuable advice to minimize the risk of a stuck transaction. First and foremost, it must be said:
Do not skimp on fees! It can backfire!
I read somewhere wisdom regarding transaction fees in Bitcoin: "You can pay less, but you risk time and nerves. Or you can pay a reasonable fee and have peaceful sleep."
However, if you are already at a point where it's too late to say not to skimp on fees, let's tackle the solution using the CPFP method. The simplest method is RBF (Replace-By-Fee), but this can only be done if you chose the option to use RBF for the original stuck payment. However, this particular method won't be our focus for today.

PROBLEM AND ITS SOLUTION

Imagine a situation where you consolidate balances in your wallet, and this transaction does not go through for a long time due to increased transaction fees for miners.
You send a transaction (T1) from address "A1" to address labeled "A2," and this transaction (parent) gets stuck. However, you want to expedite the transaction because it's stuck due to a lower fee. So, you send a transaction (T2) from a new address "A3" with, for example, 100 000 satoshis and send it with a high fee to the target address of the stuck transaction (T1), i.e., to address "A2." Transaction (T2) arrives at the target address "A2." Then, you generate a new address "A4," and then choose the total balance from address "A2," and send a transaction (T3) to the newly generated address "A4" with a double recommended fee at that moment, which you can check at www.mempool.space.

To simplify the process as much as possible, it would look like this:

1. You have the original transaction (T1) sent from address A1 to address A2 with a low fee, which gets stuck in the network.

2. You create a new transaction (T2), where you send, for example, 100 000 satoshis from the new address A3 with a higher fee to address A2.

3. This transaction (T2) from address A3 arrives at the target address A2, thereby replenishing resources for another transaction needed in the next step.

4. Then, you create a new transaction (T3), where you send all satoshis from address A2 (now there are resources from the previous step) to the new address A4 with a double recommended fee, and in this case, the transaction is considered a "child" of the original transaction.

5. When transaction (T3) to address A4 is confirmed, it causes the original stuck transaction (T1) heading to address A2 to also be confirmed because miners were motivated to mine both transactions (T1 and T3) due to the higher fees.

I firmly believe I have explained it the best way I could and helped you better understand the CPFP method.
Thank you for reading the article to the end, and I wish you smooth and fast transactions in the future.