So, when sending a transaction to the Ethereum network you have set the gas price too low. What's next?

Understanding the Gas

Understanding Gas

Understanding the Nonce

In a cryptographic communication, a nonce is an arbitrary number used only once. This is to avoid re-entry attacks, double-spend, and other dark arts that mathematicians will understand.

In Ethereum, the first transaction of any given address will have the Nonce 0. The next one will have the nonce 1. The nonce will be sequential (increased by +1) with each new transaction.

Because the information is not propagated to all the nodes at exactly the same time, the nodes cannot process a transaction without respecting the sequence. As a more concrete example:

If the transaction with the nonce 2 is pending, all the transactions after that one will remain pending, regardless of the Gas price that you set.

What do I do?

For the transaction to be included in the blocks and confirmed you can:

<aside> ☝ The network use might never be lower than the gas price in your transaction; so your transaction would be pending forever.

</aside>

<aside> ⚠️ To do this, you will need the nonce of your stuck transaction.

</aside>

1) Get the Nonce of the stuck transaction

The Nonce of the transaction should be on the transaction report. Go to "Explore with EtherScan" in your wallet and you should be redirected.

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/secure.notion-static.com/2d4c53c3-864d-40ad-9009-f49312cc77c3/Nonce_on_EtherScan.png

2A) Send 0 ETH to yourself

<aside> ☝ This should be the safest way (lowest risk) and easiest.

</aside>

A) Send 0 ETH to yourself