A crypto payment is seen within seconds of the customer sending it, but a merchant should treat it as final only after the network has added enough blocks on top of it. At Crypto Merchant that takes about 5 seconds on TON and the XRP Ledger, under a minute on Tron, Solana, BNB Smart Chain, Base and Arbitrum One, about 2 minutes on Ethereum and Polygon, about 15 minutes on Litecoin and about 20 minutes on Bitcoin. Ship the order when the invoice is paid (the invoice.paid webhook), not while it is confirming.
Last checked: 9 November 2026. The confirmation counts below are read from the same list our payment watchers use, so they match coins and networks.
What is a confirmation?
A blockchain groups transactions into blocks. A payment gets its first confirmation when it is included in a block, and one more each time another block is added on top. The more blocks above it, the harder it is to reverse the payment through a chain reorganisation. Networks differ a lot in how often they make blocks and in how final one block is, so 6 confirmations means something very different on Bitcoin than on Polygon.
How long does each network take?
Crypto Merchant waits for the confirmation counts below before it marks a payment as paid. The typical wait is the number of confirmations multiplied by the network's normal block time. Real waits can be longer when a network is busy or the customer paid a low fee.
| Network | Coins accepted | Confirmations required | Normal block time | Typical wait |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| XRP Ledger | XRP | 1 | about 4 seconds | about 5 seconds |
| TON | GRAM | 1 | about 5 seconds | about 5 seconds |
| BNB Smart Chain | BNB, USDT, USDC | 15 | about 1 second | about 15 seconds |
| Arbitrum One | ETH, USDT, USDC | 20 | about 1 second | about 20 seconds |
| Solana | SOL, USDC, USDT | 32 | about 1 second | about 30 seconds |
| Base | ETH, USDC | 20 | about 2 seconds | about 40 seconds |
| Tron | TRX, USDT | 19 | about 3 seconds | about 55 seconds |
| Polygon | POL, USDT, USDC | 64 | about 2 seconds | about 2 minutes |
| Ethereum | ETH, USDT, USDC | 12 | about 12 seconds | about 2 minutes |
| Litecoin | LTC | 6 | about 2.5 minutes | about 15 minutes |
| Bitcoin | BTC | 2 | about 10 minutes | about 20 minutes |
Sources: our chain registry, also shown on coins and networks and in llms-full.txt. Solana counts as confirmed when its block is finalized, which is about 32 confirmations. Whether each network is running normally today is on network status, checked every hour.
Which network should I offer for fast checkout?
For a customer waiting at a counter or for a download, offer a network that confirms in under a minute: USDT on Tron, Solana or BNB Smart Chain, USDC on Base, Solana or Arbitrum One, or TON and XRP. Bitcoin's 20 minutes is fine for orders that ship later, but slow for instant delivery.
Speed is only half of it. The network also decides the gas fee for moving the payment afterwards: USDT on Tron confirms in under a minute but costs more to move than USDT on most other networks. See today's figures on network fees and the worked example in what a $20 USDT payment on Tron really costs.
When should a merchant ship the order?
| Invoice status | What it means | Ship or deliver? |
|---|---|---|
awaiting_payment | A coin is chosen, the deposit address is assigned and the rate is locked | No |
confirming | A payment was seen on-chain and is waiting for confirmations | No. Tell the customer their payment arrived and is confirming |
paid | Paid and confirmed. The amount, minus the fee, is in your balance | Yes |
underpaid | Confirmed, but short by more than your underpayment tolerance | No, until the customer pays the rest |
With the API, fulfil orders on the invoice.paid webhook. invoice.confirming arrives as soon as the payment is seen and is useful for telling the customer it arrived, but it is not final. See webhooks, the guide to webhook retries and reconciliation and delivering digital products after a crypto payment.
What if the payment is still confirming when the invoice timer runs out?
The invoice timer only has to cover the moment the payment is seen. If the payment is first seen while the invoice is open, the locked rate applies, even if the confirmations finish after the countdown. If time runs out before any payment is seen, the invoice expires. Its address is still watched for at least 24 hours, and a customer who paid can report the payment from the invoice page so our support team can check it. See checkout.
Why does Bitcoin need only 2 confirmations but Polygon 64?
Each Bitcoin block takes about 10 minutes of mining work, so two blocks are already costly to reverse. Polygon makes a block about every 2 seconds, and fast chains can reorganise several recent blocks, so more blocks are needed for a similar level of safety. On TON and the XRP Ledger a block is treated as final once it is made, so one is enough.