You know that feeling. If one transaction gets stuck, all other transactions get clogged up as well. No doubt it’s a frustrating experience we’ve all faced before. Here’s why it happens and how to resolve it.

Contents

1. Why is it stuck?

2. Setting the Right Gas Fees

3. Speed up/ Cancel a Transaction on Metamask

Why is it stuck?

Ethereum transactions must be verified by the ‘miners’ of the chain. Each miner is rewarded with a small sum for their efforts: the gas fees you offer. It’s an incentive program that keeps the Blockchain decentralized.

Gas fees can fluctuate based on user activity at the time. If more users are setting their gas fees high for whatever reason, standard gas fees also go up.

So if your transactions are stuck, it’s likely because your gas fees are lower than the accepted average at the time. Eventually, your transaction may be approved but it may A) Take forever, B) Result in a failed transaction. Fortunately, there are workarounds.

Setting the Right Gas Fees

Before making a transaction, find out what the accepted Gas Fees are at the time. By setting the GWEI (Gas Price) to a volume miners will accept, you save yourself the hassle of dealing with a stuck transaction.

Here are 4 Easy Steps:

Step 1. Visit ETH Gas Station to check current rates

Step 2. Start your transaction and select Advanced Settings

Step 3. Set Gas Price equal to or above Safe Low

Step 4. Hit confirm.

If you feel gas fees are too high, we suggest waiting for it to drop before making a transaction.

Note that even though two transactions share the same GWEI, their cost when converted to USD can still vary. This depends on how complicated or ‘heavy’ a transaction task is.

For example, claiming a Crab NFT reward in CryptantCrab’s Arena costs more than claiming Daily Rewards, because it is a ‘heavier’ task.

Speed up/ Cancel a Transaction on Metamask



Image Source: ETH Gas Station

To declog your pending transactions, try to speed up or cancel the first transaction that got stuck. Each wallet operates differently, but Metamask is the easiest to do this on. Links are provided below for other wallet users.

Open up your browser with Metamask installed and click on the icon. Then look for a stuck transaction with the options to ‘Speed Up’ or ‘Cancel’.

Select ‘Speed up’

You will be prompted to readjust the transaction’s gas fee. Bring up ETH Gas Station again and set the GWEI equal to or higher than the Safe Low volume.

Select ‘Cancel’

You will prompted to confirm your cancellation with a minimal cancellation fee. These fees are fixed, usually much lower than your initial gas fee — which will not be charged once the cancellation has processed.

Disclaimer

Keep in mind both procedures take a bit of time to process, so it is actually possible for your stuck transaction to be approved before changes are made.

Other wallets

How to resolve Pending Transactions on other wallets:

Trust Wallet

Coinomi

MyEtherWallet

CryptantCrab is an Ethereum based Battle collectible game, where players can collect, battle, mutate and trade their Digital Crabs for ETH.