Crypto payment confirmations: how long to wait before you ship

A blockchain transfer is not final the instant it is broadcast. It becomes final as more blocks are added on top of it. Each new block is one more confirmation, and the more you wait the harder it is to reverse. A gateway decides for you when a payment is confirmed enough to close the invoice.

Why the wait differs

Bitcoin produces a block roughly every ten minutes, Litecoin about every two and a half, Dogecoin about every minute. TRON adds a block every few seconds, and Solana, TON and most layer-2 networks confirm within seconds. That is why an invoice in Bitcoin can take minutes and one in USDT on a fast network can take seconds.

What to do on your side

• Ship when the invoice is paid, not when the customer says they paid.
• Use the webhook or a status request. A browser event is only a hint for the user.
• Tell the customer to keep the page open, or send them the payment link by email so they can return to it.

Late, partial and wrong-network payments

Every invoice has its own address and a lifetime you set. A transfer that arrives after the invoice expired, a transfer for less than the amount, and a transfer on a different network than the one shown may not be matched automatically. A transfer on the wrong network does not arrive at the invoice address at all. Contact support with the transaction id; recovery is not guaranteed, so make the network clear on the payment page.

A new invoice always gets a new address, so payments for different orders never mix.