Layer-1 Performance: Comparing 6 Leading Blockchains

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 vital to spotlight that scaling on layer 1 is just not the one manner to enhance the scalability of blockchains. Tasks resembling Ethereum and Cardano are focusing loads of consideration on scaling by 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 stored comparisons restricted to layer 1 efficiency, however it’s price preserving in thoughts that it doesn’t inform the entire story – for instance, Ethereum customers are already benefiting considerably from layer 2 options resembling Arbitrum, Optimism and Base, and layer 2 applied sciences are steadily bettering and gaining adoption.

On the backside of the article, we offer a full record of sources used to make this comparability.

Evaluating the layer 1 efficiency of 6 main blockchains

Probably the most easy approach to evaluate the efficiency of blockchains is to have 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 objective is TPS (transactions per second).

One other vital facet to contemplate 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’s loads of nuance to the topic of blockchain finality (in lots of blockchains, what’s thought-about as “remaining” 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 idea on layer 1, though the community is unlikely to ever method this determine, as it could require a really particular set of situations (for instance, all transactions being normal ETH transfers).

In follow, 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 response to cryptofees.data, Ethereum customers are presently paying about $9.6 million in whole charges day-after-day.

Ethereum transactions are thought-about remaining after a interval of roughly quarter-hour, which corresponds to 2 epochs (an epoch is a interval of 32 slots wherein validators suggest blocks and attest to blocks). Ethereum’s roadmap features a idea referred to as Single Slot Finality (SSF), which would cut 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 undertaking can also be engaged on numerous options resembling sidechains and layer 2s to dramatically enhance scalability. Most likely essentially the most notable improvement right here is the Hydra layer 2 scalability resolution.

In terms of Cardano’s time to finality, there’s 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, nevertheless, this diploma of finality is just not required earlier than a transaction might be thought-about as settled. In sensible situations, Cardano transactions might be thought-about remaining in between 2 and 25 minutes. How lengthy to attend earlier than contemplating a transaction as remaining in the end depends upon the importance of the transaction to the transacting events.

Solana

Solana is a blockchain undertaking 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 at the moment. In testing situations, Solana has demonstrated the potential of dealing with round 65,000 transactions per second.

At the moment, the Solana blockchain is processing simply over 2,000 transactions per second on common. Nonetheless, this metric additionally contains vote transactions, which some don’t contemplate as “actual” transactions. If we exclude these transactions, Solana is processing just below 1,000 transactions per second on common in real-world situations.

So far as scalability enhancements are involved, the Solana neighborhood is wanting ahead to the upcoming mainnet launch of Firedancer, a extremely performant Solana consumer that’s being developed by Soar Crypto. Because 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 remaining after 31 block confirmations, which usually takes about 12 seconds.

Avalanche

We now have beforehand been capable of finding claims of 4,500 theoretical TPS on numerous supplies on the official Avalanche web site, however the undertaking doesn’t look like claiming 4,500 theoretical TPS anymore in its official supplies. As of April 2024, we had been unable to discover a good benchmark for what number of transactions Avalanche can deal with in idea.

Transferring on to follow, Avalanche is presently processing roughly 3.5 TPS if we solely rely 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 when it comes to 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 idea following the three.9 improve, which elevated the block dimension to five MiB and decreased block latency to underneath 4 seconds. The undertaking claims it has a key efficiency aim of reaching 10,000 TPS, which is able to primarily be achieved by decreasing spherical occasions.

In follow, 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 follow by the block time. At the moment, 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 undertaking’s scalability roadmap is primarily centered on enhancements to layer 1 as a substitute 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 idea. In follow, 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 fluctuate 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 offers spectacular scalability when in comparison with most blockchains, it’s vital to understand that 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’ve featured on this article are permissionless.

The underside line

Our intention was to supply 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 advanced matter, we centered on traits like transaction pace, finality, scalability, node rely and vitality effectivity, that are among the many most typical metrics used to measure blockchain efficiency.

It’s vital to know completely different blockchains are designed with an emphasis on completely different traits, so direct comparisons between chains shouldn’t be achieved with out context.

For instance, if a blockchain sacrifices some decentralization with the intention to improve its transaction throughput, it could be unfair to label it as “higher” or “worse” than a blockchain which is extra decentralized however not as performant.

In the end, will probably be fascinating to look past the efficiency metrics to see what the long run holds in retailer for every of the blockchain networks mentioned above.

Within the meantime, you may verify our choice of the most affordable cryptocurrency networks for transfers, which let you save on transaction prices and interact with DeFi and NFT services at an accessible value.

Sources

Listed here are the sources we used to reach on the information 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
• Stay TPS: https://chainspect.app/chain/ethereum?vary=7d
• Common transaction charge:
• https://www.theblock.co/information/on-chain-metrics/ethereum/average-transaction-fee-on-ethereum
• Finality: https://ethereum.org/en/roadmap/single-slot-finality/
• Ethernodes: https://www.ethernodes.org/
• Power effectivity: https://ethereum.org/en/energy-consumption/

Cardano

• Theoretical TPS: https://eutxo.org/stats/information
• Stay TPS: https://cexplorer.io/tps
• Common transaction charge: https://messari.io/undertaking/cardano/charts/fees-and-revenue/chart/txn-fee-avg-ntv
• Power effectivity: https://cexplorer.io/vitality
• Transaction finality: https://twitter.com/_KtorZ_/standing/1482346836992180224
• https://cexplorer.io/article/understanding-transaction-finality
• Node rely: https://adapools.org/

Solana

• Theoretical TPS: https://solana.com/information/network-performance-report-july-2023
• Stay TPS: https://chainspect.app/chain/solana?vary=7d
• Common transaction charge: https://solanacompass.com/statistics/charges
• Transaction finality: https://www.tbstat.com/wp/uploads/2022/02/20220222_FinalityReport_TheBlockResearch.pdf
• Node rely: https://solanacompass.com/statistics/decentralization
• Power consumption: https://solanaclimate.com/

Avalanche

• Stay TPS: https://snowtrace.io/chart/tps
• Common transaction charge: https://dune.com/queries/1389077/2361423
• Transaction finality: https://www.avax.community/weblog/time-to-finality-ttf-the-ultimate-metric-for-blockchain-speed
• Node rely: https://subnets.avax.community/
• Power consumption: https://www.avax.community/weblog/ccri-report-2023

Algorand

• Theoretical TPS: https://developer.algorand.org/articles/algorand-boosts-performance-5x-in-latest-upgrade/
• Stay TPS, Common transaction charge: https://metrics.algorand.org/#/protocol/#transactions
• Transaction finality: https://metrics.algorand.org/#/protocol/#blocks
• Node rely: https://metrics.algorand.org/
• Power 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
• Stay TPS, common transaction charge: https://dashboard.internetcomputer.org/
• Node rely: https://www.icpexplorer.org/#/datacenters
• Transaction finality: https://internetcomputer.org/docs/present/developer-docs/multi-chain/faq/cketh-faq
• Power consumption: https://medium.com/dfinity/internet-computer-footprint-assessing-ic-energy-consumption-and-sustainability-4a4dcf10707a