How does block/transaction confirmations work?

+5 votes

multichain-cli chain getblock {blocknumber} 4


{"method":"getblock","params":["{blocknumber}",4],"id":1,"chain_name":"chain"}

{
    "hash" : "{blockaddress}",
    "miner" : "{mineraddress}",
    "confirmations" : 1

}

Based on this example, how does block/transaction confirmations work?  This block in question has only one transaction in it  - the miner transaction.

I am getting for example a block with 20 transactions but each transaction is confirmed only twice or once and on others its 21 or 25 times confirmed.

Not quite clear on how this works or is being determined.

asked Aug 4, 2017 by RobertJ

1 Answer

+2 votes
 
Best answer
The number of confirmations of a block or transaction is simply a count of the number of blocks that the transaction or block is buried under in the chain, plus one (for the block itself or the block in which the transaction is embedded). So as time goes on, the number of confirmations for anything that happened in the past increases.
answered Aug 5, 2017 by MultiChain
selected Aug 7, 2017 by RobertJ
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