In this track: From send to settlement
What happens after pressing send?
A wallet action begins a process with several observable stages.
Putting a letter in a mailbox starts its journey. It does not make the destination instantly receive and acknowledge it.
Maya prepares an instruction: send 0.01 pretend ETH to Leo.
A local simulation. Nothing is signed or sent to a network.
The wallet prepares and authorizes
A wallet assembles transaction fields and obtains the necessary authorization. The user may be asked to inspect a confirmation screen. Rejecting the request at that point is different from trying to undo an already authorized submission.
A service receives the submission
The signed transaction can be sent to a provider or other submission path. An accepted response does not prove worldwide propagation. The returned hash identifies the transaction that was prepared or submitted.
A block can include it
The transaction must satisfy the relevant conditions and be selected for a block. Nodes execute its effects and check the resulting state transition. Contract execution may succeed or revert.
The wallet updates its interpretation
A wallet or explorer can show a pending state, an inclusion result and later settlement information. Those labels depend on the data it sees. Our five-step animation keeps these concepts separate and uses no real signatures or network requests.
Does pressing send instantly finalize the transaction?
Signing, submission, inclusion, execution outcome and finality are separate stages.
Original explanations by EtherTools. Examples are educational and source-linked; this site is independent of the Ethereum Foundation. Our approach.