Electrum: Unconfirmed parent transaction in Bitcoin

In this article we are going to describe what “unconfirmed parent” transaction status means in Electrum Bitcoin wallet. And how we can push this transaction (if we can at all).

Sometimes you can receive a Bitcoin transaction and it will be shown like the one below.

What does it mean and how to can make it confirmed?

Basically the status says for itself. This transaction was sent from the Bitcoin balance which has not been confirmed as well. User A receives a Bitcoin payment from user B. This payment is still not confirmed by the network. While so, user B still sends another payment to user C. This creates a transaction with “unconfirmed parent” status.

In order for this transaction to be confirmed, first the parent transaction should be confirmed and then the later one.

Can you speed up parent transaction?

There is a function in Electrum called CPP – child pays for parent. But generally we can use it, when transaction is unconfirmed, having the parent transaction confirmed. Lets try to use CPP for the unconfirmed parent transaction.

This transaction send unconfirmed output back to yourself but with a higher fee. So basically, we resend same “unconfirmed unconfirmed (yes two times:) parent” transaction but with even more fees hoping that some miner would like to grab our fees and confirm both transactions.

Update 1: After about two days of waiting our unconfirmed parent transaction in Electrum is still unconfirmed. In the same time transaction which I have sent with even lower fee already went through. Network load went up and down but still.