how to upgrade or cancel a pending low gas transaction

Question

I sent a transfer of an ERC20 token from my wallet to an exchange wallet with the lowest gas (5 Gwei). It's now been 1 day 6hrs and still shows as pending. Is there a way I can upgrade or cancel this pending low gas transaction? Thank you!

Answer 1

to cancel just make another txn but configure the nonce = the txn you wanna cancel's nonce, but make sure not to pay the minimun Gwei price

Answer 2

Just to supplement @Thiago's valid answer.

Transactions can't be directly cancelled or upgraded. The only thing you can do is send a new transaction with the same nonce but with higher gas price. If your new transaction get mined first (as it probably will as it has higher gas price) then the old transaction becomes obsolete as it has the same nonce.

Depending on your client you may not be able to set the nonce manually. If that's the case your only option is to use another client which allows you to modify the nonce manually.

Or you can always just keep on waiting and it will get mined eventually when the network is less congested. It might take a day or a year...

Answer 3

A year to wait is nice option.... I guess it depends on the wallet. Metamask has an option to change the nonce, but most of the other wallets do not...

Answer 4

I had this problem myself, and resolved it via the following steps:

Must allow option in Metamask to change the nonce, then:

(1) Then jack up the priority fee (even if its well beyond market value)

(2) Try making transaction

If (2) fails, then repeat steps (1) and (2) until success is achieved

This Youtube video explains beautifully:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szP3ShLluyc&lc=UgyXzaVp7OT_8YnExAN4AaABAg

Enjoy!