Observed Litecoin confirmation times
A rolling study from our own Litecoin Core node: first mempool observation, first observed block inclusion, and every incomplete outcome.
Confirmation
In brief A transaction gains confirmations as blocks build on its inclusion, but those confirmations can fall if chain history changes.
A transaction receives its first confirmation when included in a block in the accepted chain. Each block then built on top adds another. A chain reorganization can reduce or remove the count. The recipient decides how many confirmations it requires. Litecoin targets an average 2.5-minute block interval; individual blocks can arrive sooner or much later.
For example A transaction in the latest accepted block has one confirmation; the next block raises that count to two.
Common mistake Confusing a wallet's sent message, a TXID or mempool visibility with the first confirmation.
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Block
In brief A group of transactions linked to the previous block under the network's rules.
A batch of transactions accepted under the network rules and linked to the previous block. Litecoin targets one new block every 2.5 minutes on average; a particular block may arrive sooner or much later.
For example Your payment may wait unconfirmed and then receive its first confirmation when a miner includes it in an accepted block.
Common mistake Treating the 2.5-minute target as a countdown or a maximum wait for your payment.
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Mempool
In brief One node's local collection of accepted but unconfirmed transactions, which may differ from other nodes' collections.
A node's local collection of unconfirmed transactions it currently accepts. Nodes can see, retain or remove different transactions, so there is no single global waiting room. Appearing in a mempool is not confirmation or a guarantee of later inclusion.
For example One explorer may see your unconfirmed transaction while another node has not received it or has already removed it.
Common mistake Assuming that absence from one mempool proves the payment was never broadcast or that a seen transaction must confirm.
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Data Coverage
In brief The share of a stated window or expected sample represented by usable records, which can still contain errors.
How much of a stated observation window or expected set is represented by usable records. The denominator may be scheduled polls, candle intervals or another declared sample. Coverage describes availability within that scope, not measurement accuracy or a complete view of the network.
For example If 90 of 96 expected price buckets are available, interval coverage is 93.75%; this says nothing about trades hidden inside those buckets.
Common mistake Reading missing observations as zero activity, or treating high coverage as proof that the sample is unbiased and error-free.
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Node
In brief A participant running network software; a full node checks rules but need not keep all old block files.
A participant running network software. A full node independently validates rules; a pruned full node can discard older block files after validation. Not every node stores the complete historical blockchain.
For example A pruned full node checks the chain but later discards old block files to reduce disk use.
Common mistake Assuming every node is a miner, or that pruning means it skipped consensus validation.
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Collecting observations
The observer is reading the node every 15 seconds. Existing mempool transactions at startup or after a gap are excluded from new timing measurements.
- Latest collector update
- 11 Nov 2026, 13:10 UTC
- Validated height / known headers
- 3,211,250 / 3,211,250
- Core version
- /LitecoinCore:0.21.5.8/
- Connected peers
- 10
Node values last read successfully: 11 Nov 2026, 13:10 UTC.
This page is a snapshot; reload to get a new update. Initial synchronization can take hours or days. A node's header count is its current view, not independent proof of the network's highest height.
Every sampled outcome counts
Rolling seven-day cohort, selected by first observation time. A transaction qualifies when the first eight hexadecimal characters of its txid, interpreted as an integer, are divisible by 16. This fixed rule selects roughly one in sixteen eligible txids.
| Outcome | Transactions | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Observed in a block | 61,518 | An eligible mempool observation was matched to the next observed block. |
| Still in the mempool | 7 | No block inclusion has been observed yet. The waiting time remains open. |
| Left the mempool without a matched block | 82 | Could be eviction, replacement, a conflict or a missed inclusion. The cause is not inferred. |
| Interrupted by a collection gap | 5,084 | Continuity was lost before an eligible confirmation observation. |
| Block membership awaiting recheck | 0 | Prior results are withheld while their confirming blocks are checked after an interruption or chain change. |
| Confirming block no longer canonical | 45 | The original observed confirmation is excluded from timing summaries. |
| Total sampled transactions | 66,736 | Unconfirmed and interrupted outcomes remain in the denominator. |
The CSV refreshes about once a minute and may lag this table. UTC timestamps are Unix seconds. It retains original observed inclusion details even when a record is later excluded; use the state column when analysing it.
Time to the first observed block inclusion
This distribution includes only 61,518 currently matched confirmations. It excludes pending and interrupted outcomes listed above, so it cannot estimate how long every payment will take. Very fast transactions that enter a block between polls may never enter the cohort.
| Observed duration | Confirmed sample count |
|---|---|
| 0–60 seconds | 15137 |
| 61–150 seconds | 19957 |
| 151–300 seconds | 16208 |
| 301–600 seconds | 8655 |
| Over 600 seconds | 1561 |
Among these confirmed observations: median 135.0 seconds; 90th percentile 390.0 seconds. These conditional figures omit open and censored waits.
Embed the observed confirmation sample on your site.
What was observed within 1, 5 and 10 minutes?
One frozen daily snapshot, rather than today’s live cohort. Outcomes recorded as of 11 Nov 2026, 00:02:53 UTC. First-observation window: 4 Nov 2026, 00:00:00 UTC to 11 Nov 2026, 00:00:00 UTC, end excluded.
Every included record was first observed at least 600 seconds before that snapshot: first_seen ≤ 2026-11-10T23:52:53Z. The same 66,637 eligible records are used at all three thresholds. Newer entries are held out equally from all three rows.
| Threshold | Matched by threshold | First matched later | Unresolved in snapshot | Same denominator |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 minute ≤ 60 seconds | 66 0.10% of all eligible records | 283 | 66,288 | 66,637 |
| 5 minutes ≤ 300 seconds | 211 0.32% of all eligible records | 138 | 66,288 | 66,637 |
| 10 minutes ≤ 600 seconds | 317 0.48% of all eligible records | 32 | 66,288 | 66,637 |
Only a complete record still marked confirmed in this snapshot supplies a matched observation. A censored, disappeared, pending or ambiguous record stays unresolved, even if its closure time is later than a threshold. “First matched later” describes this observer’s recorded inclusion time; it does not prove when a miner first included the transaction.
Inspect unresolved records, exclusions and archived coverage
| Recorded outcome | Eligible records |
|---|---|
| Still pending in the snapshot | 0 |
| Left the mempool without a matched inclusion | 81 |
| Interrupted by a collection gap | 4,755 |
| Block membership awaiting recheck | 61,407 |
| Confirming block no longer canonical | 45 |
| Incomplete or ambiguous record provenance | 0 |
| Unrecognized record state | 0 |
Outside the selected first-observation window: 301,338 exported records. Held out because their age is under 600 seconds: 36. Unusable first-observation time: 0; those records cannot be assigned to this cohort. Other invalid fields keep an otherwise eligible record unresolved rather than removing it.
| UTC date | Continuous covered hours |
|---|---|
| 2026-11-04 | 23.85 |
| 2026-11-05 | 23.77 |
| 2026-11-06 | 23.84 |
| 2026-11-07 | 23.80 |
| 2026-11-08 | 23.83 |
| 2026-11-09 | 23.84 |
| 2026-11-10 | 23.84 |
A missing export is not counted as zero coverage. Coverage describes the observer’s continuous recording, not the health of Litecoin.
Single-node descriptive sample, not a network-wide chance of confirmation or a merchant’s acceptance rule. Time begins at first mempool observation, rather than sender broadcast; 15-second polling and missed fast entries affect the sample. Later reorganizations can change outcomes after this snapshot.
Method lw-confirmation-deadlines-20261014-v1 · ZIP SHA-256: 820e66e48e929c982cb257f4d16f5523eb91b02331fcfd25dee48f758eed431d. The ZIP’s internal cohort and poll hashes were also checked. Archive coverage figures above are the index’s reported values.
Collection coverage
Only consecutive valid snapshots at most 30 seconds apart contribute observed time. Syncing, disconnected periods, restarts, inconsistent reads and jumps over more than one block create gaps. The table includes the current partial UTC day; the oldest day can also be partial at the rolling window boundary.
| UTC date | Recorded polls | Covered hours | Excluded baseline entries |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-04 | 2,600 | 10.75 | 752 |
| 2026-11-05 | 5,761 | 23.77 | 1,634 |
| 2026-11-06 | 5,761 | 23.84 | 1,504 |
| 2026-11-07 | 5,756 | 23.80 | 1,812 |
| 2026-11-08 | 5,758 | 23.83 | 1,365 |
| 2026-11-09 | 5,760 | 23.84 | 815 |
| 2026-11-10 | 5,763 | 23.84 | 1,152 |
| 2026-11-11 | 3,162 | 13.07 | 795 |
Baseline exclusions count mempool entries at each new baseline, not unique transactions. A full day has 24 hours. Intervals are assigned to the day in which their ending poll occurs, with up to 30 seconds of boundary imprecision.
The first 30-day study
Fixed cohort period: 2 Oct 2026 through 31 Oct 2026, UTC. 30 of 30 calendar days have ended. A day with gaps stays in the period; it is not replaced with a better day.
Download the frozen 30-day report · JSON. It includes every sampled outcome and daily coverage. Read the coverage before using a timing statistic.
The live table covers seven days; the working database retains 90 days. Closed UTC days receive immutable ZIP exports containing raw polls, a retained-cohort snapshot, the actual export time and SHA-256 checksums. A daily snapshot can repeat earlier transactions. Use the last snapshot for outcomes and each day's polls for coverage; do not add the cohort files together.
| UTC day | Covered hours | Export |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-10 | 23.84 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-09 | 23.84 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-08 | 23.83 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-07 | 23.80 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-06 | 23.84 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-05 | 23.77 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-04 | 23.85 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-03 | 23.86 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-02 | 23.79 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-11-01 | 23.80 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-31 | 23.81 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-30 | 23.86 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-29 | 5.79 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-28 | 0.00 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-27 | 0.00 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-26 | 3.01 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-25 | 23.77 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-24 | 23.86 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-23 | 23.81 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-22 | 23.84 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-21 | 23.72 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-20 | 23.86 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-19 | 23.87 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-18 | 23.83 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-17 | 23.89 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-16 | 23.80 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-15 | 23.88 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-14 | 23.88 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-13 | 23.81 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-12 | 23.86 | Download ZIP |
| 2026-10-11 | 23.85 | Download ZIP |
An export records states when it was written, not a reconstruction of midnight. Later reorganizations can change confirmations; frozen reports are historical observations. Files are held on this server, not described as an independent off-site backup.
How to read this study
Our private, pruned mainnet node has no wallet. Polling measures when this observer detects a transaction and a block, not when a sender broadcast it or a miner found the block. Each endpoint can lag its event by a polling interval; relay delays and the node's mempool policy also affect the sample. This is one observer, with no guarantee that another node sees the same mempool.
Only transactions exposed by Core's public mempool and block transaction lists are eligible. Private MWEB transfers are not measured individually. Reappearing sampled txids keep their first record within the 90-day retention period; a lost observation is not restarted as a shorter wait. No conclusions about fee recommendations, exchange crediting, attack probability or network-wide payment speed follow from this chart alone.
Confirmation study analysis
Frozen 30-day cohort: 2 Oct 2026, 00:00 UTC to 1 Nov 2026, 00:00 UTC. Outcomes recorded as of 1 Nov 2026, 00:03 UTC. Coverage: 87.30% of the fixed calendar period.
| Outcome | Count | Share of sample |
|---|---|---|
| censored gap | 18,652 | 7.06% |
| censored reorg | 145 | 0.05% |
| confirmed | 244,953 | 92.77% |
| left mempool | 292 | 0.11% |
Matched confirmations: 244,953 / 264,042. The median among these confirmed records is 135.0 seconds; P90 is 375.0 seconds. These conditional statistics exclude unresolved and censored waits. They do not tell a merchant the probability of confirmation by a deadline.
Report SHA-256: 4a96b1d754818d315c54fc31c322b98089fe15c9254ec2cedc9c040442872aae. Download the frozen report; download its archive index.
What we will and will not infer
The measured delay begins when this node first sees a sampled transaction and ends at its first matched block observation. It is not the sender’s broadcast time. Fifteen-second polling adds observation uncertainty. A merchant’s confirmation threshold and receiving-service credit are separate events.
Pending, disappeared, gap-censored, reorg-censored and recheck-required outcomes stay in the denominator. Gaps and synchronization are not replaced by the 150-second target interval. A confirmed-only median can look favorable when difficult waits remain unresolved; the coverage and full outcome table must be read together. The data do not justify a network-wide fee recommendation or a promise of finality.