Although bitcoin aims to generate a block every 10 minutes, in practice it usually takes longer than that. As I'm writing this, the last block[0] took 30 minute

Although bitcoin aims to generate a block every 10 minutes, in practice it usually takes longer than that. As I'm writing this, the last block[0] took 30 minutes to mine (sometimes it spikes to hours though[1]). Most importantly, a transaction needs[2] to be confirmed 4-6 times[3] meaning it should be 4-6 blocks in the past, so you're looking at a 1-2 hour transaction time. On top of that, if you want to pay less than a certain transaction fee[4] (right now it's $1.62[5]) you probably won't get into the next block, see https://bitcoinfees.github.io https://bitcoinfees.github.io. Recall that 1 block = 20 minutes and add that on top of the confirmation time. [0] https://blockchain.info/block/0000000000000000005f0e639f66af0e85c767bfd5cb75cf3fd1ebe8557c68f6 https://blockchain.info/block/0000000000000000005f0e639f66af... look at the Timestamps of this block and the Previous Block [1] https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespan=1year https://blockchain.info/charts/avg-confirmation-time?timespa... [2] https://youtu.be/bBC-nXj3Ng4?t=18m41s https://youtu.be/bBC-nXj3Ng4?t=18m41s [3] https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf page 8 [4] https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees [5] https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ https://bitcoinfees.21.co/ (a satoshi is 0.00000001 BTC, 10,000 satoshi is 40 cents right now) https://www.gwern.net/Bitcoin-is-Worse-is-Better https://www.gwern.net/Bitcoin-is-Worse-is-Better