<p>I understand that a Bitcoin transaction, by design, will get one confirmation after an average of 10 minutes. Does that mean that a vendor that accepts Bitcoins will have to wait 10 minutes for a transaction to confirm? Let's say I am a sandwich shop and I decide to accept Bitcoins. A customer walks in and uses Bitcoin to pay for his sandwich. Do I, the sandwich shop owner, have to wait 10 minutes to confirm that he actually paid for the sandwich before I let him have the sandwich?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-26T16:49:17.533Z
http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/328/how-do-i-safely-accept-bitcoins-without-waiting-for-confirmations
MaxSan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-11-26T20:25:52.483Z
also similar to [How to accept bitcoin payments at a real world store?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/327/how-to-accept-bitcoin-payments-at-a-real-world-store)
dchapes
<face-to-face-payment>
Does a vendor have to wait 10 minutes before a transaction is confirmed?
athinggoingon
# Does a vendor have to wait 10 minutes before a transaction is confirmed?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-11-26)

I understand that a Bitcoin transaction, by design, will get one confirmation after an average of 10 minutes. Does that mean that a vendor that accepts Bitcoins will have to wait 10 minutes for a transaction to confirm? Let's say I am a sandwich shop and I decide to accept Bitcoins. A customer walks in and uses Bitcoin to pay for his sandwich. Do I, the sandwich shop owner, have to wait 10 minutes to confirm that he actually paid for the sandwich before I let him have the sandwich?

**Tags:** face-to-face-payment

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/328/how-do-i-safely-accept-bitcoins-without-waiting-for-confirmations  
> **username_2**: also similar to [How to accept bitcoin payments at a real world store?](http://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/327/how-to-accept-bitcoin-payments-at-a-real-world-store)  

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