In this track: From send to settlement
Pending, confirmed and finalized
Different stages answer different questions about a transaction.
An order can be received, packed and finally recorded as settled. The labels describe progress, not interchangeable guarantees.
Maya prepares an instruction: send 0.01 pretend ETH to Leo.
A local simulation. Nothing is signed or sent to a network.
Pending is a local observation
A node or service may know a submitted transaction that has not yet appeared in the chain it follows. Other nodes might have different pending views. A wallet’s pending label is an interpretation of available information.
Included means a block contains it
After inclusion, a receipt can describe success or failure and resource use. People often call this confirmed, sometimes counting additional blocks. Inclusion alone does not mean the execution was successful.
Finality concerns accepted history
Ethereum’s proof-of-stake process can finalize checkpoints under its rules and security assumptions. Recent unfinalized blocks can be replaced in a reorganization. Disruption can delay finality, so a fixed clock countdown is not an unconditional promise.
Ask the precise question
“Was it submitted?”, “Did execution succeed?” and “Is its block finalized?” require different evidence. Keep those separate when designing a status interface or reading an explorer. The animated journey deliberately labels all five stages.
Does inclusion alone prove that a contract call succeeded?
An included transaction can execute and revert. Check its execution status as well as chain finality.
Original explanations by EtherTools. Examples are educational and source-linked; this site is independent of the Ethereum Foundation. Our approach.