Blockchain confirmations are crucial for maintaining the security and integrity of the blockchain. This process ensures that transactions are securely verified, preventing fraud and double-spending. However, the number of confirmations also directly impacts the time it takes for a transaction to complete and for the funds to become available in your wallet. The higher the number of required confirmations, the longer it takes for the transferred amount to be accessible.

Whether you aim to speed up transaction flow by reducing the number of confirmations or enhance security by increasing them, follow the recommendations below for an effective setup.

Reduce the Number of Confirmations When:

Receiving transfers from well-known sources.

A low number of blockchain confirmations should only be set for transactions coming from well-known and trusted sources. This is advisable when the origin of the transaction is your connected exchange account, a trusted counterparty, or even a transaction between two vault accounts within your workspace.

Increase the Number of Confirmations When:

Receiving transfers from unknown sources.

A low number of blockchain confirmations should NOT be set for transactions arriving from unknown external addresses, or from addresses that you do not control or do not have a well-established, trusted business relationship with.

Fireblocks Deposit Control and Confirmation Policy

The Deposit Control and Confirmation Policy lets you specify how many blockchain network confirmations are required for incoming and outgoing transactions to clear so their funds can be credited to a wallet.

After the transaction clears, its deposit amount is accounted for in the wallet’s currently available balance. Additionally, for UTXO-based blockchain networks, the transaction's outputs become immediately spendable.

Default Confirmation Policy

Each workspace in Fireblocks has a default configuration policy that specifies the number of confirmations required for each blockchain to complete transactions and make the funds available in the wallet.

To learn about the default values for each supported blockchain, read the following article

Custom Deposit Control and Confirmation Policy

You can define your own confirmation policy based on your organization’s business needs. Learn more about the Custom Confirmation Policy in the following article.

Dynamically Overriding the Required Number of Confirmations

Fireblocks allows you to manually/dynamically confirm transactions and override your workspace's confirmation policy for specific transactions.
This immediately updates the transaction status to Completed in your Fireblocks workspace.

For doing so manually via the console, please read the following article
For doing so via API, please go here.