user81044: I'm trying to find more information on this topic but I can't remember what this is called in order to look up more information on it.
Is there an easy way to see the "trusted" amount of confirmations? I've noticed many people consider 3 confirmations to be good, however for larger transactions 6 is better. I've heard that bitcoin has had separate chains goings for 3, maybe 4 blocks.

user95400: I think you mean a fork. Blockchain has forked if a block has got two or more children blocks. In bitcoin there is a longest-chain rule, that means that only the longest chain is valide.
At the same time, there is a possibility that an attacker can catch up from a given deficit of k blocks. But the probability that this will happen decreases exponentially with k.
In the white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto got some calculations. If an attacker has 10% of the network power, he can catch up to 6 blocks with a probability of less than 0.1%. That's why I think 6 blocks is something canonical. But some people and services wait less than 6 blocks. For example, some mixers may wait even 1 block.

81044: <p>I'm trying to find more information on this topic but I can't remember what this is called in order to look up more information on it.</p>
<p>Is there an easy way to see the &quot;trusted&quot; amount of confirmations? I've noticed many people consider 3 confirmations to be good, however for larger transactions 6 is better. I've heard that bitcoin has had separate chains goings for 3, maybe 4 blocks.</p>
 95400: <p>I think you mean a fork. Blockchain has forked if a block has got two or more children blocks. In bitcoin there is a longest-chain rule, that means that only the longest chain is valide.</p>
<p>At the same time, there is a possibility that an attacker can catch up from a given deficit of k blocks. But the probability that this will happen decreases exponentially with k.</p>
<p>In the white paper, Satoshi Nakamoto got some calculations. If an attacker has 10% of the network power, he can catch up to 6 blocks with a probability of less than 0.1%. That's why I think 6 blocks is something canonical. But some people and services wait less than 6 blocks. For example, some mixers may wait even 1 block.</p>
