CPFP in Bitcoin: How Child-Pays-For-Parent Transactions Speed Up Confirmations

When a Bitcoin transaction gets stuck, CPFP, or Child-Pays-For-Parent, is often the fastest fix. It’s not a magic trick—it’s a simple, on-chain workaround where you send a new transaction (the child) that spends the output of the stuck one (the parent), and you attach a higher fee to the child. Miners see the combined fee and are more likely to pack both into the next block. This works because Bitcoin miners prioritize transactions by fee rate, not by order of arrival. CPFP doesn’t change the original transaction—it just gives miners a financial reason to include it.

CPFP is especially useful when the mempool, the pool of unconfirmed Bitcoin transactions waiting to be mined is backed up. If you sent a transaction with a low fee during peak usage, it might sit for hours—or even days. Instead of waiting, you can use a wallet that supports CPFP to create a new transaction that pays more. Wallets like Electrum, BlueWallet, and Phoenix make this easy. You don’t need to understand complex fee estimation tools—you just need to know that the new transaction must spend the output of the stuck one. The higher the fee on the child, the faster both transactions clear. This method is used daily by Bitcoin users who need reliability over convenience.

CPFP also ties into how Bitcoin transaction fees, the cost paid to miners for including a transaction in a block work as a market mechanism. Fees aren’t fixed—they rise and fall based on demand. When the network is busy, users compete by bidding up fees. CPFP gives you a second chance to win that bid. It’s not the only way to speed up a transaction—RBF (Replace-by-Fee) is another—but CPFP works even if the original transaction didn’t signal RBF. That makes it more universally reliable. Many users don’t realize CPFP is an option until their payment is delayed. But once you know it exists, you can use it proactively, especially before big events like Bitcoin halvings or major exchange deposits.

There’s a limit to how much CPFP can help. If the original transaction is too old or the mempool is flooded with higher-paying transactions, even a large child fee might not be enough. But in most cases, a well-placed CPFP transaction cuts confirmation time from hours to minutes. It’s a practical tool for anyone who uses Bitcoin for real payments, not just speculation. You don’t need to be a developer or a miner to use it. Just a wallet that lets you manually create transactions and adjust fees.

Below, you’ll find real-world guides and case studies on how CPFP fits into broader Bitcoin workflows—from DeFi interactions to cross-chain bridges and wallet security. These posts show how small tweaks in transaction design can prevent big delays, save money, and keep your funds moving when it matters most.