Abolishing a bitcoin transaction is complicated and sometimes impossible. The nature of digital currency protocols makes it hard for a transaction to be canceled once it’s initiated. You can avoid the hassle by double-checking the details of your transaction to make sure it’s accurate. The good news is that bitcoin transactions that aren’t yet confirmed can be canceled. The only instances a bitcoin transaction can be unconfirmed are if it was made less than 10 minutes ago,when there is an overflow in bitcoin networks, and when you don’t include the amount of fee required for the transaction to go through. If you discover that you made a mistake and decide to make amendments, here are the two processes on how to cancel bitcoin transaction.
The Replace By Fee Process
This process allows you to resend any transaction broadcasted from your wallet that is not yet confirmed but with a higher fee and to the address you used earlier. To cancel and re-amend your wrong bitcoin transaction this way, you must have made the first transaction replaceable by clicking on the opt-in checkbox that pops up before the payment is sent. The replace by fee canceling process depends on the wallet you used. If you are using the bitcoin core wallet, you can easily cancel your transaction by going to the list of transactions you have ever made and click on the one that is unconfirmed and abandon it. In the event the “Abandon transaction “option is greyed out, search for the Bitcoin Core data dir and ensure you clear out the mempool.dat file. Once done, you have to restart your bitcoin core wallet and the “Abandon Transaction” grey tick will be removed to allow you cancel your transaction that way. In case of failure, you have to use the zap wallet txes option to delete all the transactions that are yet to be confirmed by your wallet. Once the transaction is canceled, you can now go ahead and resend it. Ensure the transaction fee is higher than the one you entered previously.
Double-Spend Process
If the above fails to cancel bitcoin transaction, you should consider using the double-spend with a higher fee bitcoin transaction process. In order to cancel your transaction, you will have to initiate a new transaction and input an amount equal to the one on the original transaction and send the transaction to yourself. For this canceling process to be successful, you must ensure that the transaction fee you enter is higher than the one you entered on the original transaction. In some instances, you will be required to use specialized software or a wallet different from the one you used previously. The software or wallet you use should allow do double-spending for a transaction to be broadcast in a network. If this succeeds, other miners will select your newly made transaction and you will get your bitcoins back. But since some wallets and miners have protection against double-spending, this method may not always be successful.
Conclusion
We strongly believe that one of the methods we outlined above will work for you. In case both methods fail, you have to consider waiting for the transaction to be marked as confirmed.