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Is it possible in future to reduce the confirmation time of the transactions? Can it somehow be reduced to less than 10 minutes? Can it be made faster?

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Yes and no. Any change to the protocol is possible if and only if > 50% of the active nodes "agree" to it by adopting that protocol change.

Getting everyone to agree is very hard though. For example, Bitcoin Cash (BHC) exists as a fork of Bitcoin because of a dispute over increasing the block size. It seems likely such a push to lower the block time would lead to a similar messy debate and ultimately a split.

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    That’s not true. Why would >50% of active nodes need to agree?
    – Mike D
    May 7 at 15:00
  • My understanding is that the difficulty level is adjusted every 2 weeks by consensus (I.e. > 50%). It’s adjusted up or down with the goal of keeping the block time at 10 minutes. So if only some nodes wanted to create blocks faster they would create blocks at a lower difficulty level, which would mean they would have a different notion of what a valid block hash is. Part of the network would see those hashes as valid and part would not. The majority rules. The others must fall in line or exist as a fork.
    – noctonura
    May 8 at 16:40
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    The difficulty is not set by consensus; it is protocol rule. If miners produce blocks that do not follow the protocol's difficulty rule, those blocks are invalid - period. You need a fork of the system to adjust this rule, meaning a separate currency if both the old and new rules remain popular to some.
    – Pieter Wuille
    Jun 5 at 20:52

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