OPINION: Final Confirmation of Bitcoin Transactions Now Takes More Than a Week Due to Mining Centralisation

Bitcoin Core developer Luke Dashjr has raised concerns about the finality of Bitcoin transactions, stating that the widely accepted six-block confirmation rule no longer applies. According to him, transaction finalisation now takes more than a week, which questions Bitcoin's ability to resist scrutiny.Dashjr argues that due to the increasing centralisation of Bitcoin mining pools, the traditional standard no longer applies. He explained that he tried to update the six-block confirmation target in Bitcoin Knots, an alternative to Bitcoin Core. However, his calculations show that due to Antpool's significant share of the network's hash rate, it now takes more than 800 blocks to achieve 95 per cent security - the equivalent of about 5.5 days.