How to measure TX confirmation latency

Question

Blockchaininfo has datahere on the confirmation times for transactions. Unfortunately it is unclear how they collect the data, nor if one could get similar data from say Namecoin.

I'd like to include that data in a research paper or collect similar data myself. However, without their methodology, I cannot use their data or nor can I duplicate the techniques.The trivially obvious solution of sending test transactions and measuring how long they take to be confirmed would seem to offer a rather incomplete picture.

Answer 1

Use can use command getrawmempool from bitcoin-qt console (or through JSON-RPC). This command shows all transactions, that are not confirmed yet. You can run this command every second, and save the time, when each transaction appears. After that you wait for blocks, and check when these transactions will be included in blocks. You can also use -blocknotify=<cmd> command-line option, to execute some external application, when new block appears.

Example:

-> getrawmempool
<- 
[
"007077f621011fd63f13104e602d079120be93be97a4f78cb4f5f7e442894b38",
"00996e6ff49096ff1e2a39866717dcdc3ebd24a57b9f1d7c0681549fc231ffa2",
"00f66dc8026d3489c6db2b5a500338bdad76ce25b1eaba6b7449d324fd8d975c",
.....
"fed72f15d234148a1d0db1b3372e65688de907555d6843a5fe4a32f92cade522",
"ff23d3ee0970698659437f32a1270a05062db7bd92e1ce737ee81cc9d604fb7f",
"ff8b2f12547d7e102ef5788fba78405cca4d2609deb60d32cf4ccbb48d06d100"
]

If you need more info about specific tx:

-> getrawtransaction 007077f621011fd63f13104e602d079120be93be97a4f78cb4f5f7e442894b38
<- 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
-> decoderawtransaction 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
<- {
"txid" : "007077f621011fd63f13104e602d079120be93be97a4f78cb4f5f7e442894b38",
"version" : 1,
"locktime" : 0,
"vin" : [{
    "txid" : "1ae188e3e8faa77a27e6a52087485efeb6a9fc9ec143cb4da8338c7f12a94f4c",
    "vout" : 1,
    "scriptSig" : { ... },
    "sequence" : 4294967295
}, {
    "txid" : "9e6339aafa0c5cf19aced3ad718174cb2ddcb5b616c0f1c2e500761514592760",
    "vout" : 0,
    "scriptSig" : { ... },
    "sequence" : 4294967295
}, {
    "txid" : "918f83cddb05b83c37d35d16d954d998fcf452cf93a4a1314eed9800c9770ae3",
    "vout" : 1,
    "scriptSig" : { ... },
    "sequence" : 4294967295
}],
"vout" : [{
    "value" : 0.03131114,
    "n" : 0,
    "scriptPubKey" : {
        "asm" : ...,
        "hex" : ...,
        "reqSigs" : 1,
        "type" : "pubkeyhash",
        "addresses" : ["1Hvvdri3r6iXzgtzdbt9uBmas8iprcmKyk"]
    }
}, {
    "value" : 0.01324172,
    "n" : 1,
    "scriptPubKey" : {
        "asm" : ...,
        "hex" : ...,
        "reqSigs" : 1,
        "type" : "pubkeyhash",
        "addresses" : ["1LZkPGswXmwZuHYi3Xt6uFRCsCgTa4WfCD"]
    }
}]}