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My withdrawal is stuck. Can I cancel it or increase the fee?

You can use transaction accelerators or CPFP to increase your fee rate.

Bitcoin transactions cannot be canceled. When you broadcast a transaction to the bitcoin network, it must be mined into a block on the blockchain to become confirmed. Until it’s confirmed, it will wait with other unconfirmed transactions in the mempool. Miners prioritize the transactions with the highest fee rate (sats/vb). As the global demand to move bitcoin fluctuates, so do fee rates.

If you broadcast a transaction with a low fee rate, your transaction can get stuck waiting for confirmation, possibly for hours, days, weeks, or even longer. This isn't a concern from a security perspective, and if necessary, you can pay more to increase the prioritization of your transaction confirmation.

How to check if it makes sense to accelerate your transaction

  1. Sign in to your Unchained account at my.unchained.com.
  2. Navigate to your vault dashboard by clicking Vaults on the top navigation bar and selecting your vault that has a broadcasted withdrawal transaction.
  3. In the Transact box, select View Transaction.
  4. Click on the magnifying glass symbol to the right of your Transaction ID. This will open a new tab and show your transaction in mempool.space.
  5. Look for the section that says ETA. If it says “not any time soon” you may want to take steps to accelerate your transaction. You can also compare your transaction’s fee rate (in sats/vb) to the high priority fee rate shown on the mempool.space home page.



Method 1: Paying miners out-of-band

You can use a service such as Mempool Accelerator or ViaBTC transaction accelerator to pay additional fees directly to miners, who will accelerate your transaction.

Caution: Unchained is not affiliated with external transaction accelerator services, and we do not provide direct support for these services. Before you decide to use a service like this, please do your own research and proceed at your own risk.

For example, here are some steps if you decide to explore the Mempool Accelerator option:

  1. Sign in to your Unchained account at my.unchained.com.
  2. Navigate to your vault dashboard by clicking Vaults on the top navigation bar and selecting your vault that has a pending withdrawal transaction.
  3. In the Transact box, select View Transaction.
  4. Click on the magnifying glass symbol to the right of your Transaction ID. This will open a new tab and show your transaction in mempool.space.
  5. Look for the Mempool Accelerator section. Here, you will see the estimated cost and expected confirmation speed. You can select Accelerate to view payment options if you wish to proceed.

Method 2: Child Pays for Parent (CPFP)

For some withdrawal transactions, you can use child pays for parent, or CPFP. You can only utilize this method if your transaction includes change coming back to you. This is the most common situation unless you send your full vault balance at once. The goal of CPFP is to conduct another transaction that will spend the change from your original transaction with a higher fee rate.

Warning: Performing a CPFP is a technical operation requiring both of your keys (the Unchained backup key is not a good choice for time-sensitive transactions). Additionally, if the transaction doesn’t include change coming back to you, CPFP may not be able to be used.

To attempt a CPFP on your own, follow these steps:

  1. Load your vault into Caravan to perform the CPFP.
  2. Once you load your vault into Caravan, select the Transactions tab.
  3. You should see one or more transactions listed in the Pending section.
    Screenshot 2025-12-18 at 2.35.52 PM
  4. On the pending transaction you wish to accelerate, select the Accelerate button.
  5. For the fee bumping strategy, choose Child-Pays-for-Parent (CPFP). Note the additional fee that will be changed to perform this transaction, which pays not only for the new transaction but also effectively increases the fee on the original transaction. Select Next.
    Screenshot 2025-12-18 at 2.40.03 PM
  6. On the configure transaction step, choose the destination address for remaining funds. By default, it will choose a change address for the wallet you've loaded into Caravan, but you may manually choose an address yourself.
  7. Note the default fee rates calculated by Caravan will help ensure a successful acceleration. We don't recommend adjusting these values.
  8. Scroll down and select Create CPFP Transaction. 
  9. On the next page, scroll down and select Download PSBT V2, then Close.
  10. In Caravan, select the Send tab.
    Screenshot 2025-12-18 at 2.56.06 PM
  11. At the bottom, locate Import PSBT and then choose the Import Method as File Upload.
  12. Select Import PSBT File, and choose the file you downloaded in the earlier step.
  13. You may review the CPFP transaction, and follow the normal withdrawal steps to sign and broadcast it.
  14. You’re done! Both the CPFP transaction and the original transaction will now have an effective fee rate in relation to the recommended high fee rate, so they are confirmed sooner.