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i know that the lower the gas price you set the longer it takes your transaction to be validated by the miners,, sometimes they don't even validate it when the price is too low.

But is there a relation between gas price set to a transaction and the number of confirmation the transaction needs to be validated??

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    Hi there. Do you mean is there a relationship between the gas price and the number of confirmations that are considered secure once the transaction has been mined in a block?
    – Richard Horrocks
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 19:34
  • yes, this is what i mean exactly
    – Jamal N
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 19:40

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But is there a relation between gas price set to a transaction and the number of confirmation the transaction needs to be validated??

Once a transaction is part of a block that has been successfully mined, the gas price of that transaction has no effect on how secure that block is.* The next blocks will be added to the chain regardless - the gas price has no effect on difficulty.

Note that there isn't a specific number of confirmations that all people would consider secure anyway. It will depend on the opinion - or perhaps risk profile - of the particular person.

See the following thread for the differing values that people suggest: What number of confirmations is considered secure in Ethereum?

*However... This doesn't include the potential secondary effects of the likelihood of chain reorganisations, given that most miners would opt not to put low-priced transactions in their blocks, so other competing chains being mined at the same time would be less likely to include them. (I'm going to ignore this effect in this explanation though.)

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  • Your footnote intrigued me: the gas price for a transaction might influence the security of other blocks in the same block and subsequent blocks. Imagine if a block on the main chain included a transaction whose fee totalled 5000000 ether (one million times the current mining reward). If the price of ETH were high enough, this would create substantial incentive to attempt a 51% attack to roll back the blockchain and mine a block that includes this transaction. Any transactions included with or after this block are in jeopardy. In theory, an attacker could go back further, but less incentive.
    – lungj
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 20:04
  • Thanks for the answer Richard, so, "securing the transaction" or the number of confirmations means how many times it has been mined ?? or what ?? if not than What is the difference between mining(validating) a transaction & securing it ??
    – Jamal N
    Commented Jul 20, 2017 at 21:35
  • Hi @JamalD. The number of confirmations is the number of subsequent blocks that have been added after the block with your transaction. Your block gets added to the chain (i.e. mined), then another, then another, and so on. With each additional block it becomes harder to remove your block, so it becomes more secure.
    – Richard Horrocks
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 10:55
  • Hi @lungj. I have to admit I was struggling to fit what I was thinking about in my brain :-) I think in the case you're outlining, things would be limited by the gas block limit. As long as blocks are relatively full, then there'd be less incentive to roll things back to "steal" expensive transactions. Perhaps in times when blocks aren't as full there might be more incentive to do what you're suggesting.
    – Richard Horrocks
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 11:01
  • Hi @RichardHorrocks, I know there's a gas limit; is there also a gas price limit? (Or maybe I should post this as another question). I couldn't find anything definitive and a quick scan of the Geth source didn't reveal anything. I'm thinking one specific transaction could be valuable in terms of the tx fee, not the aggregate value of transactions in a block. Something like what happened with some high gas prices during some ICOs.
    – lungj
    Commented Jul 22, 2017 at 15:20

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