How Agile is your Chain? - Top Digital Currencies - Transaction Per Second Comparison

in steem •  8 years ago 

How does your chain's Transactions Per Second compare against the most popular digital currencies

Today i would like to comparing the current Transactions Per Second for the most popular digital currencies in an effort to compare Steem's current Transactions Per Second with it's peers.
This comparison is on current usage of the network and compares the following currencies

  • Bitcoin
  • Ethereum
  • Steem
  • Doge
  • Litecoin

Sadly i could not find the relevant data to include Ripple in this comparison

The results

The charts below clearly show that Bitcoin is currently leading the Transactions Per Second race although STEEM has show significant growth in the past 2 weeks; If this trend continues Steem will soon outpace bitcoins Transactions Per Second. In my opinion at the rate of growth that we have seen recently i think surpassing bitcoins current ~3 Transactions Per Second will occur before the end of August and to my knowledge will be the first blockchain in history to accomplish such growth.

30 day - Transactions Per Seconds

30 day - Transactions Per Day

7 day average - Transactions Per Seconds

Maximum Theoretical and practical Transaction Limits

Bitcoin

Bitcoin uses a Proof of Work consensus mechanism. You may notice that bitcoin transaction limit is flat and not trending higher; Bitcoin is undoubtedly the most popular digital currency but in it current iteration it has reached its transaction limit based on the size of blocks and the average size of transaction.

Theoretically bitcoin could process 6.8 transactions per second based off the smallest possible 1 input 1 output P2PKH transaction and 10 minute blocktimes with a 1mb blocksize; based on today's average sized transaction (550 bytes) it can realistically process 3.1 transactions per second.

The TPS of bitcoin (same with Dogecoin and Litecoin) is being reduced due to inflated transaction sizes. Bitcoin is a Tx in/Out systems and as such every transaction need to reference at least 1 input and 1 output or OP_RETURN and if the output does not received the full amount of the input minus transaction fee there will likely be a change address also included as an output.
Each Input's required a previous TX hash, index and a valid signature scriptSig
Each non OP_RETURN Output requires a locking script known as a scriptPubKey.

Given that inputs are not divisible; it is often the case where you will need multiple inputs and/or output for a simple Alice -> Bob transaction.
Until this block size issue is resolved; bitcoin will be constrained to roughly 2.5 - 3 Transaction Per Second

Ethereum

Ethereum uses a Proof of Work consensus mechanism and has a different method of determining blocksize; it is limited by a GAS limit which can be adjusted over time; this gas limit restricts the amount of transactions based on the amount GAS being expended per block. Ethereum has been tested on a public test-net at 25 Transaction Per Second. Theoretically this could be higher relative to the GAS limit being raised over time.

Ethereum is a ledger based system so simple Alice - Bob transaction do not suffer to the same degree from the transaction size complexity that plague the TX input/Output systems. therefore 25 will be it's realistic Transactions Per Second rate with the current Gas limit.

Dogecoin

Dogecoin uses a Proof of Work consensus mechanism and Theoretically can process 33 Transaction Per Second based off the minimal transaction size, but similar to bitcoin given that transactions are not generally single input single output transactions and therefore take up more space leaving it with a more realistic 16 Transactions Per Second.

Litecoin

Litecoin uses a Proof of Work consensus mechanism and theoretically can process 28 Transaction Per Second but similar to bitcoin given that transactions are not generally single input single output transactions and therefore take up more space leaving it with a more realistic 14 Transactions Per Second.

Steem

Steem uses a Delegated Proof of Stake consensus mechanism and is built on the Graphene toolkit which has been shown to sustain 10,000 Transaction Per Second on a public distributed test net and theoretically can process 180,000+ Transaction Per Second on well spec'd nodes.

Comparision

I had to make a graph without Steem so that the comparison would actually show meaningful data. In the charts below the Blue series represents the current utilisation based on Transactions Per Second and the Orange series represents realistic or tested Transaction Per Seconds capabilities.

This graph shows all coins without Steem

This graph shows all coins including Steem

Graphene; a world class scalable blockchain solution

Steem as with Bitshares, Peer Plays, Muse and Play is built on a high performance industrial grade blockchain that has been battle tested with incredible results; it has been built from the ground up by the team to Cryptonomex being lead by the Co-Founder of Steemit Dan Larimer and boasts incredible scaleability and 3 second blocktime's.

It is this remarkable back-end that allows application like Steemit and the Decentralised Exchange built into Bitshares to function at speed's of their centralised alternatives and the reason why some of the people here on Steemit don't even know they are using a blockchain backend!

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!
Sort Order:  

I believe this is mooncandy. Cool to see all of the coins compared. I had no idea steem had so many transactions already!

It turns out a lot !

Awesome, great way to visualize the potential in that last graphic.

I wonder why people buy Doge. It has not seen any change in months I think.

Bitcoin for me is the clear loser.

Bitcoin is a dinosaur wearing lipstick, but it wont last forever. Right now we still need it though until something has a larger and more stable marketcap.

Until you start comparing actual value and security of transactions. Which are not important to STEEM, granted, so both have their role in the digital ecosystem. Social spam goes well with steem blockchain, actual value transfers should be made on bitcoin blockchain.

We in the Bitshares community have known the power of the Graphene tech. It's nice to have a platform like Steemit that showcase it's power.

Really impressed about the Steemit backend. We are going to start more cross-chain references and integrations with ElectriCChain. If you are looking for maximum transactions per second, look no further than IOTA. That is crazy cool stuff.

GREAT WORK! Thank you for sharing this novelty of information in such a timely fashion too... Namaste :)

so bitshares is a good investment to get into then?

In theory most blockchains could scale A LOT, even Satoshi mentioned it, however it would require serious centralization in 5-10-20 data centers instead of, say, 10.000 nodes. It's kind of a tradeoff.

Image of steemish

  ·  8 years ago (edited)


But seriously... exciting times in this platform we are living in.

took time waiting for that information, thanks @steempower !

where do you get all that chart data?

bitshares will win its the ultimate goal of the devs :)

I think that will win Steemit absolutely all !

it's amazing. So many transactions. I had no idea.

I feel smarter now. Thanks

What are you think about Monero (XMR)?

Does Steem use its own blockchain or does it use the same one as bitshares?

It has its own blockchain since so many of the mechanics and operations are different from Bitshares.

This is a perfect way to really get a grasp and understand the scalability of the Steemit blockchain. I bet more than 90% of the people here don't entirely understand blockchains (as is my case), but the beauty of it is that we don't have to be blockchain experts to be a functional part of the Steemit community. Thanks @steempower for making this so easy to understand.

Thanks. This was really interesting!

to be fair you're comparing Steem which is POS to the other coins which are POW. POS is always faster and more scalable than POW, and thats why ethereum will switch to POS (Casper) at some point. even the soon to come Bitcoin Lightening Network is essentially POS.
if you had included other POS coins in the comparison doubt the difference would be so marked.
a fully scalable blockchain for socialmedia I don't think it exists yet. in Steem I believe only text goes on the block chain but pics and videos need to be hosted elsewhere . it's the best that can be done for now.

Great to see that the steem backbone is already ready for the steem future!

Any chance of comparing NEM?

nice infographics

Very good info, thank you for share

Steem is excellent illustration of POS advantages before POW. But the question of real POS decentralization is still open.

The nubmer of transactions per second that Steem has is amazing. I would have never guessed that high.

Thank you @Dan for making this happen.

I would say that sometimes bitcoin transactions are really slow.
Once i was waiting for my 0,3 btc to get on my wallet,it was like 9 hours till it got there.
Really annoying, but we cannot do anything about this :(

Great post, cool
thank you info @steempower

Wow!!! The others do not even come close! This feature will come in hand when the other Social Networks migrate...Thanks for the Info:)

At this point, what's really surprising to me is that no one has realized this or if they have realized this they are somehow still hesitant about the technology. Graphene is the real deal and there are dozens of things that you can do with this blockchain that you just can't do with other blockchain is because it scales so well.

You know, for example replace the current Financial system in its entirety.

Great post, op! Loving the graphics.

  ·  8 years ago Reveal Comment

Nicely put!

I want to see these numbers tested! We probably will soon!