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Right now each transaction takes about 30 minutes or longer. Previously it was said that the increasing number of transactions (even empty spam) are good for the network and are improve the transaction time. However, two weeks ago the developers asked to stop the spamming (due to DDoS?). Is it still a certainty that transaction times will go down over time? What are the caveats of that?

And related: I often read that IOTA is a solution for near-instantaneous transactions. However, this seems only possibly with a flash channel? Otherwise a transaction will always take many minutes till it is propagated throughout the network, no? Is it possible to reach near-instantaneous transaction time based on the core protocol without using flash channels?

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The issue with the spammer was that it was spamming a single (and commonly used) node and wasn't intelligent enough to distribute transactions among nodes, so it was just overwhelming that one node.

This is also the issue some people are having with transactions -- using overloaded nodes. On top of this, the coordinator limits throughput, so there is an "artificial" cap on the speed of transactions that can be processed.

Based on the simulations that have been done by the team, transaction times will go down over time. The caveat is that we need better node discovery, which is coming with the new UCL wallet, as well as the removal of the coordinator, which is forthcoming as the network matures.

Transactions don't necessarily take many minutes -- transactions need to be confirmed by being referenced by other transactions. The more transactions occurring, the faster this can happen. I can attest that when I did transactions earlier this year when IOTA was less popular, it would take no longer than 1 minute, and often times far less, as low as 10 seconds.

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  • Thank you for that answer. Once the new wallet comes out, will it come with a new spammer, so that we can help the network? Or is spamming discouraged in general from now on?
    – Muppet
    Dec 1, 2017 at 21:27
  • It is currently recommended, that you only spam your own node.
    – Oyren
    Dec 1, 2017 at 21:47
  • Why can’t a wallet target its own transaction with a follow up zero sum transaction so it is instantly confirned?
    – Spamalot
    Dec 4, 2017 at 2:32
  • If in the begining it took 10 secs and now it takes 30 minutes how can you say that more transactions speeds things up? Its clearly going to opposite way.
    – Spamalot
    Dec 4, 2017 at 2:34

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