We offer a layer 1 blockchain efficiency comparability of 6 main blockchain platforms: Ethereum, Cardano, Solana, Avalanche, Algorand and Web Pc.
Earlier than we start with our comparability, it’s necessary to spotlight that scaling on layer 1 just isn’t the one means to enhance the scalability of blockchains. Tasks corresponding to Ethereum and Cardano are focusing plenty of consideration on scaling via layer 2 options that may deal with a bigger variety of transactions whereas leveraging the safety of the underlying layer 1.
On this article, we saved comparisons restricted to layer 1 efficiency, however it’s price retaining in thoughts that it doesn’t inform the entire story – for instance, Ethereum customers are already benefiting considerably from layer 2 options corresponding to Arbitrum, Optimism and Base, and layer 2 applied sciences are steadily enhancing and gaining adoption.
On the backside of the article, we offer a full checklist of sources used to make this comparability.
Evaluating the layer 1 efficiency of 6 main blockchains
Probably the most easy method to evaluate the efficiency of blockchains is to take a look at what number of transactions a blockchain is able to processing inside a given time interval. The most typical metric used for this function is TPS (transactions per second).
One other necessary side to think about is a blockchain’s time to finality. This metric refers to how lengthy it takes for a transaction to be thought-about irreversibly settled on the blockchain. There may be plenty of nuance to the topic of blockchain finality (in lots of blockchains, what’s thought-about as “ultimate” is as much as interpretation), however we’ve made our greatest efforts to seek out generally accepted time to finality figures for every of the blockchains we’re evaluating.
Ethereum
Ethereum can deal with 119 TPS in principle on layer 1, though the community is unlikely to ever method this determine, as it will require a really particular set of circumstances (for instance, all transactions being customary ETH transfers).
In apply, the Ethereum community is dealing with about 14 transactions per second on layer 1. The demand for transacting on the Ethereum blockchain is immense – in accordance with cryptofees.data, Ethereum customers are at present paying about $9.6 million in complete charges day by day.
Ethereum transactions are thought-about ultimate after a interval of roughly quarter-hour, which corresponds to 2 epochs (an epoch is a interval of 32 slots through which validators suggest blocks and attest to blocks). Ethereum’s roadmap features a idea referred to as Single Slot Finality (SSF), which would scale back the time to finality to mere seconds.
Cardano
Cardano’s present theoretical TPS restrict is at round 386 TPS. The Cardano blockchain is processing roughly 2 TPS on common on the time of writing this text, though it does have fairly a little bit of headroom to deal with a spike in demand for transactions.
The Cardano challenge can be engaged on numerous options corresponding to sidechains and layer 2s to dramatically enhance scalability. In all probability essentially the most notable growth right here is the Hydra layer 2 scalability resolution.
Relating to Cardano’s time to finality, there may be fairly a little bit of nuance. The Ouroboros Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol ensures finality after 2,160 blocks, which takes roughly 12 hours.
In most sensible situations, nonetheless, this diploma of finality just isn’t required earlier than a transaction might be thought-about as settled. In sensible situations, Cardano transactions might be thought-about ultimate in between 2 and 25 minutes. How lengthy to attend earlier than contemplating a transaction as ultimate finally is determined by the importance of the transaction to the transacting events.
Solana
Solana is a blockchain challenge that’s primarily centered on layer 1 enhancements to spice up scalability. Solana is already very performant when in comparison with most different blockchains available on the market in the present day. In testing circumstances, Solana has demonstrated the aptitude of dealing with round 65,000 transactions per second.
Presently, the Solana blockchain is processing simply over 2,000 transactions per second on common. Nonetheless, this metric additionally consists of vote transactions, which some don’t think about as “actual” transactions. If we exclude these transactions, Solana is processing just below 1,000 transactions per second on common in real-world circumstances.
So far as scalability enhancements are involved, the Solana group is wanting ahead to the upcoming mainnet launch of Firedancer, a extremely performant Solana consumer that’s being developed by Bounce Crypto. On account of its effectivity, Firedancer is poised to make Solana even quicker and extra cost-efficient as a layer 1 blockchain.
On Solana, transactions are thought-about ultimate after 31 block confirmations, which usually takes about 12 seconds.
Avalanche
Now we have beforehand been capable of finding claims of 4,500 theoretical TPS on numerous supplies on the official Avalanche web site, however the challenge doesn’t seem like claiming 4,500 theoretical TPS anymore in its official supplies. As of April 2024, we have been unable to discover a good benchmark for what number of transactions Avalanche can deal with in principle.
Transferring on to apply, Avalanche is at present processing roughly 3.5 TPS if we solely depend the C-Chain, which is the chain within the Avalanche community that’s tasked with dealing with EVM-compatible sensible contracts. If we additionally embrace Avalanche’s numerous subnets into the equation, the Avalanche community is processing roughly 15.5 transactions per second.
Avalanche’s Proof-of-Stake consensus protocol excels by way of time to finality, as transactions on Avalanche obtain finality in roughly one second.
Algorand
The Algorand blockchain can deal with round 6,000 TPS in principle following the three.9 improve, which elevated the block measurement to five MiB and lowered block latency to beneath 4 seconds. The challenge claims it has a key efficiency objective of attaining 10,000 TPS, which can primarily be completed via lowering spherical instances.
In apply, the Algorand blockchain is dealing with just below 30 transactions per second, with customers solely paying about $0.0008 in charges per transaction on common.
The design of the Algorand blockchain permits it to realize “instantaneous” finality, though that is restricted in apply by the block time. Presently, Algorand is including blocks to the chain about each 3 seconds, which might be thought-about because the time to finality for a transaction on Algorand.
Equally to Solana, the Algorand challenge’s scalability roadmap is primarily centered on enhancements to layer 1 as an alternative of counting on layer 2 scalability options.
Web Pc
In its present configuration, the Web Pc platform can deal with about 11,500 TPS in principle. In apply, the Web Pc is dealing with roughly 6,000 TPS on the time of writing this text.
Transactions on the Web Pc platform have quick finality – subnets devoted to decentralized functions can obtain finality in about 1 seconds, whereas the finality for NNS (Community Nervous System) transactions is about 2 seconds.
Though charges on the community differ based mostly on the operation the consumer is making an attempt to carry out, sending the community’s native asset ICP solely prices about $0.0012 on common.
Whereas Web Pc gives spectacular scalability when in comparison with most blockchains, it’s necessary to needless to say the Web Pc makes fairly a couple of tradeoffs between decentralization and efficiency. For instance, becoming a member of the community as a validator requires permission. In the meantime, all the opposite blockchains we now have featured on this article are permissionless.
The underside line
Our intention was to offer a baseline comparability between main blockchains and to not decide which blockchain is the “greatest”. Hopefully, our layer 1 blockchain efficiency comparability has helped you resolve which L1 community is greatest in your wants. Whereas scaling is a really complicated subject, we centered on traits like transaction velocity, finality, scalability, node depend and power effectivity, that are among the many commonest metrics used to measure blockchain efficiency.
It’s necessary to know totally different blockchains are designed with an emphasis on totally different traits, so direct comparisons between chains shouldn’t be completed with out context.
For instance, if a blockchain sacrifices some decentralization to be able to enhance its transaction throughput, it will be unfair to label it as “higher” or “worse” than a blockchain which is extra decentralized however not as performant.
In the end, it is going to be fascinating to look past the efficiency metrics to see what the longer term holds in retailer for every of the blockchain networks mentioned above.
Within the meantime, you possibly can examine our collection of the most affordable cryptocurrency networks for transfers, which let you save on transaction prices and interact with DeFi and NFT services and products at an accessible value.
Sources
Listed below are the sources we used to reach on the knowledge factors utilized in our blockchain layer 1 efficiency comparability.
Ethereum
- Theoretical TPS: https://www.kiln.fi/publish/path-to-proto-danksharding-episode-i-ethereum-scalability-limitations
- Dwell TPS: https://chainspect.app/chain/ethereum?vary=7d
- Common transaction payment:
- https://www.theblock.co/knowledge/on-chain-metrics/ethereum/average-transaction-fee-on-ethereum
- Finality: https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/single-slot-finality/
- Ethernodes: https://www.ethernodes.org/
- Vitality effectivity: https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/
Cardano
- Theoretical TPS: https://eutxo.org/stats/data
- Dwell TPS: https://cexplorer.io/tps
- Common transaction payment: https://messari.io/challenge/cardano/charts/fees-and-revenue/chart/txn-fee-avg-ntv
- Vitality effectivity: https://cexplorer.io/power
- Transaction finality: https://twitter.com/_KtorZ_/standing/1482346836992180224
- https://cexplorer.io/article/understanding-transaction-finality
- Node depend: https://adapools.org/
Solana
- Theoretical TPS: https://solana.com/information/network-performance-report-july-2023
- Dwell TPS: https://chainspect.app/chain/solana?vary=7d
- Common transaction payment: https://solanacompass.com/statistics/charges
- Transaction finality: https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2022/02/20220222_FinalityReport_TheBlockResearch.pdf
- Node depend: https://solanacompass.com/statistics/decentralization
- Vitality consumption: https://solanaclimate.com/
Avalanche
- Dwell TPS: https://snowtrace.io/chart/tps
- Common transaction payment: https://dune.com/queries/1389077/2361423
- Transaction finality: https://www.avax.community/weblog/time-to-finality-ttf-the-ultimate-metric-for-blockchain-speed
- Node depend: https://subnets.avax.community/
- Vitality consumption: https://www.avax.community/weblog/ccri-report-2023
Algorand
- Theoretical TPS: https://developer.algorand.org/articles/algorand-boosts-performance-5x-in-latest-upgrade/
- Dwell TPS, Common transaction payment: https://metrics.algorand.org/#/protocol/#transactions
- Transaction finality: https://metrics.algorand.org/#/protocol/#blocks
- Node depend: https://metrics.algorand.org/
- Vitality consumption: https://twitter.com/JohnAlanWoods/standing/1628781089853415424
Web Pc
- Theoretical TPS: https://medium.com/dfinity/the-internet-computers-transaction-speed-and-finality-outpace-other-l1-blockchains-8e7d25e4b2ef
- Dwell TPS, common transaction payment: https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/
- Node depend: https://www.icpexplorer.org/#/datacenters
- Transaction finality: https://internetcomputer.org/docs/present/developer-docs/multi-chain/faq/cketh-faq
- Vitality consumption: https://medium.com/dfinity/internet-computer-footprint-assessing-ic-energy-consumption-and-sustainability-4a4dcf10707a