The amount was deliberately small.... 50c worth of BTC. I wanted to see how it would be treated by the network.
We are 6hrs 30 mins later and the transaction status is still unconfirmed.
The fee, 12c, is low, of course ... given the transaction amount (although not low compared to the trx amount) but does this mean my transaction may never make it onto the blockchain?
I'll leave it overnight and keep watching it tomorrow but how would I know it is time to do something to get it confirmed? And what should that something be?
I've heard, leaving my sending wallet open will usually keep broadcasting and also I heard that one might try adjusting the fee... is that correct?
You can wait and the transaction will eventually be confirmed. There is also a chance that it will be dropped after 72 hours.
Can you please expand on that ? I find it very interesting. I only know about double spending but don't know how it's done or how it works. These methods you speak of I have never heard of. Can't you out a brief summary of them instead of just listing them. Not all of us know about these things so maybe a small summary and link would be really great. You could start a thread about it actually as well. It will help others who are interested in the same thing.
Let me give you the basic idea behind it.
1. Transaction accelerator
Miners include the transaction and usually go for the ones with high fees. But they can hand pick them and put even zero fee transactions in if they want to. So there are services where you pay them or ask nicely and they will include you in the next block that they mine. The most popular will be this one: https://www.viabtc.com/tools/txaccelerator/
2. RBF Replace By Fee
The idea is to send the transaction that is awaiting confirmation a second time but with higher fees. The higher fee should make it more attractive to miners to put it in their next block. Not all wallets support this, so this is not possible in all cases.
3. CPFP Child Pays For Parent
The address that is receiving the funds can spend the not yet confirmed Bitcoins with a high fee. This will make the miners want to include this transaction, but in order to do so they will also need to include the first transaction. both should get confirmed.