How to understand ETH transactions

How to understand ETH transactions
by Amelie Arras April 2023

What is Ethereum and how can I buy, sell and exchange it? Understand all there is to know about ETH transactions with our refer and share rewards programme.

Where are my ETH rewards?

If you recently participated in the Refer & Share rewards programme and are wondering where your rewards are, then this is the blog for you.

Although we do our very best to send ETH rewards to everyone that refers a friend to Zumo as quickly as possible, there are unfortunately external factors that affect how long it may take for you to receive your ETH rewards.

In this article we cover how ETH transactions work and why you may sometimes experience a slight delay.

Requirements for receiving your rewards

Before we look into the external factors affecting how long it takes for you to get your rewards, let’s first make sure that you and the person you refer meet all of the requirements for the Refer & Share rewards programme:

  • You are both UK residents and over 18 years old
  • You are both verified and have passed KYC
  • You have shared with them your unique referral code (Zumo username)
  • Your referee has entered this code during their account creation

If you and the person you refer have met all of these criteria and you’ve still not received your rewards then please don’t worry.

Although we do our very best to get your ETH rewards into your Zumo wallet as quickly as possible, there are several factors that Zumo can’t control that determine how long an ETH transaction takes — so sometimes there may be slight delays.

The lifecycle of an ETH transaction

In the cryptocurrency world, a transaction is the act of transferring a token or asset (in this case ETH) from one address to another, and comprises several stages.

  1. A transaction is created when someone uses their wallet to transfer or move assets from their wallet address to another wallet address or contract address.
  2. The transaction creator is assigned a transaction hash (also referred to as a Transaction ID or txhash) that anyone can refer to when searching for the transaction online using a block explorer such as https://etherscan.com
  3. The transaction is broadcasted to the Ethereum network, and waits for a miner to pick it up and verify it.
  4. The transaction is completed after it has been picked up and verified by the miners.

ETH TPS (Transactions Per Second)

The Ethereum network, which processes ETH transactions, can currently handle 15 transactions per second.

As you can imagine, with cryptocurrency becoming more popular this can lead to delays when thousands of transactions are all being made at the same time.

Transaction throughput has been an issue for Ethereum since its inception but Ethereum’s upcoming update, Ethereum 2.0, promises to solve this issue and has vastly increased the number of transactions that can be processed on the network to 100,000 per second.

What is network congestion?

Congestion in the cryptocurrency space refers to a situation in which transaction speeds are greatly reduced and the number of pending transactions increases.

Back in 2017 the Ethereum network suffered huge congestion, due to the popularity of a tamagotchi-style game called CryptoKitties, which saw thousands of people attempting to buy digital kitten collectibles with ETH at the same time.

CryptoKitties had the busiest address on the ethereum network at one stage, accounting for nearly 12% of all transactions and the number of unconfirmed transactions on the Ethereum network at one point rose to 15,000.

Gas fees

The waiting time for a transaction is also dependent on the Ethereum network’s current traffic and the gas fee set for the transaction.

When you send ETH to another wallet or address, you must pay for that transaction to be processed on the Ethereum network, just like you would pay for a successful transaction to be processed with traditional banks.

The payment for this transaction is calculated in and referred to as “Gas”, and is paid in ETH. You can choose how much Gas you want to spend when making a transaction in order to speed it up, and when the Ethereum network traffic gets congested miners will prioritise the transactions with the highest gas fees.

This means that transactions with lower or regular gas fees can experience longer waiting times to get verified, and can become “stuck” in pending status whilst transactions with large Gas fees receive priority service.

Will it ever get better?

The short and sweet answer is yes.

Some of the greatest minds in the world are working in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space, and the Ethereum team especially have been working tirelessly to address their transaction capabilities and speed issues. As we move into 2021, Ethereum 2.0 will no doubt improve waiting times as well as reduce transaction fees (something we will cover in a future blog).

In the meantime, the Zumo support team is always at hand to answer any questions or concerns you may have. We’re only ever an email away, and will do our very best to ensure that you recieve your ETH rewards in a timely manner.