What is Replace-by-fee (RBF)?

Replace-by-fee (RBF) is a mechanism in the Bitcoin network that allows a transaction to be effectively "replaced" by a new transaction with a higher fee. This is achieved by including a flag in the original transaction that indicates to the network that the transaction is replaceable.

The purpose of RBF is to allow a user to resend a transaction with a higher fee if the original transaction did not get confirmed in a timely manner. This can be useful in cases where the Bitcoin network is congested and the fee included in the original transaction was not high enough to get included in the next block.

RBF transactions are not guaranteed to be processed faster than non-RBF transactions. The fee increase may or may not incentivize miners to process the new transaction ahead of the original one. The effectiveness of RBF is dependent on the level of network congestion and the fees offered by other transactions at the time.

It's important to note that not all wallets and services support RBF transactions and some users choose to disable RBF for security and privacy reasons.

If you're interested in using RBF, you can take a look at our article on how you can enable RBF with Electrum wallet.