Vitalik Buterin: Network Speed under Test Conditions is Misleading

Transactions are piling up on the Ethereum network, and some projects are boasting much higher transaction speeds. But according to Ethereum’s creator, those speed tests under ideal conditions are misleading.

Projects that boast great transaction speeds include IOTA, EOS and other attempts at a real-time, decentralized network for a much higher number of transactions.

The Ethereum blockchain works through around 13 transactions per second, whether financial or related to some form of smart contract or distributed computing. The presence of even a few distributed apps such as decentralized exchanges or the game CryptoKitties seriously hamper the network, by creating transaction backlogs.

Buterin went on to perform an analysis on gas price for transactions, coming up with a rather complicated story where it is not trivial to optimize fees and the type of transactions. And sometimes, a block may be produced handling many low-fee transactions, while other blocks would remain empty with high-fee transactions.

At the moment, the CryptoKitties fad seems to have subsided, with less than 10% of the gas burned for transactions. EtherDelta remains the single biggest gas guzzler.

Slower transactions happen for various reasons independent of the central features of the project. While in theory the IOTA tangle promises to work through as much as 100,000 transactions per second, in reality connections are much slower to establish, and the current internet infrastructure slows down the network, while users take long to discover their IOTA balance.

At the moment, the Ethereum network has between 10 and 13,000 pending transactions, while Bitcoin is stuck with more than 150,000 unverified transactions for days, mostly related to trading.

Still, the Ethereum network seems to grow well, recently reaching a record level of daily transactions:

A tool to track the progress of Ethereum was created by Etherchain, and lauded by Buterin for the thorough information. Ethereum is gaining more price support as its growth took it above $700 where it has stabilized for now.

Source: cryptovest