Stuck or Pending Transaction? How to Speed Up or Cancel (ETH and BTC)

By the GasNow team · Updated October 9, 2026

Why transactions get stuck

A transaction stays pending when the fee it offers is below what block producers currently accept. On Ethereum, that means your max fee is below the current base fee, or your tip is too low during congestion. On Bitcoin, your fee rate in sat/vB is below what miners are filling blocks with. Nothing is lost: the funds have not left your wallet. The transaction is just waiting in the mempool.

Ethereum: understand the nonce first

Every Ethereum account sends transactions with a sequential number called the nonce. Transaction 15 cannot be included before transaction 14. If transaction 14 is stuck, everything after it is stuck too. The fix is to submit a new transaction with the same nonce and a higher fee. Only one transaction per nonce can ever be confirmed, so the higher-paying replacement wins.

Speeding up an Ethereum transaction

1. Open the pending transaction in your wallet and choose "Speed up". The wallet rebroadcasts the same transaction, same nonce, with a higher fee.
2. Nodes require a meaningful bump to accept a replacement, typically at least 10% higher on both max fee and priority fee.
3. Check the live base fee on the gas tracker and make sure the new max fee is comfortably above it.

Cancelling an Ethereum transaction

"Cancel" in a wallet sends a 0 ETH transaction to your own address using the same nonce and a higher fee. If it confirms first, the original can never be included. It costs a normal 21,000-gas transfer. If the original confirms first, the cancel simply fails to apply.

Bitcoin: Replace-By-Fee (RBF)

RBF lets you broadcast a new version of an unconfirmed transaction that spends the same inputs with a higher fee. Modern Bitcoin Core nodes accept replacements by default. Most wallets expose this as "bump fee". The replacement must pay a higher absolute fee and a higher fee rate than the original.

Bitcoin: Child-Pays-For-Parent (CPFP)

If you are the recipient, or your wallet does not support RBF, you can spend an output of the stuck transaction in a new transaction with a high fee. Miners evaluate the parent and child together as a package, so a generous child fee pulls the parent into a block. Use the Bitcoin fee tracker to choose a package fee rate that clears.

Or simply wait

Fee spikes are usually temporary. On Ethereum, once the base fee drops below your max fee, the transaction goes through. On Bitcoin, unconfirmed transactions eventually drop out of node mempools after an extended period, which returns the funds to a spendable state in your wallet.