I

n today's internet driven economy, speed and cost matters. These factors apply equally to the world of cryptocurrencies.

In this guide:

Introduction

When it comes to comparing the benefits of different cryptocurrencies, discussions inevitably turn to transaction speeds and fees. Whilst these factors are important, it doesn’t tell the whole story. In this guide, we compare several of the most popular cryptocurrencies in respect of speeds and feeds.

Bitcoin

Despite being the gold standard in cryptocurrencies, the scalability issues associated with Bitcoin are well known. The proof of work mechanism (PoW) has limited transactions to seven per second at times of extreme usage. This competition for transaction completion leads to bottlenecks in processing resulting in higher fees and transactions delays.

At the time of writing, Bitcoin is trading at $BTC - $47,281 The average cost of completing a transaction in Bitcoin is approximately $2.

In fairness to Bitcoin, the rapidly growing lightning network addresses both the speed and fees problem. Fees are now negligible and transactions happen almost instantly. In theory, the lightning network supports over 7,000 transactions per second.

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Almond Yield Farming	Flexible		464%
OKEx Saving	Fixed (7 days)		52.0%
Raydium Yield Farming	Flexible		36.9%
Badger Yield Farming	Flexible		30.5%
Defy Yield Farming	Flexible		30.4%

Ethereum

The current form of Ethereum is capable of between 15 and 45 transactions per second. The long awaited ETH 2.0 upgrade (expected during 2022) could see an increase to as much as 100,000 transactions per second.

The high transaction (gas) fees associated with Ethereum have been long publicised, sometimes reaching as high as $35. Again, the launch of ETH 2.0 is expected to reduce these fees to near zero.

At the time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $ETH - $3,416.6

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		166,455%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		127,931%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		94,669%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		28,765%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		25,093%

Solana

Solana is a step ahead of many other cryptocurrencies being able to process upwards of 50,000 transactions per second. Transaction fees are similarly competitive costing an average of $0.00025.

At the time of writing, Solana is trading at $SOL - $124.46

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Tulip Yield Farming	Flexible		66.5%
Dfyn Yield Farming	Flexible		66.4%
OKEx Saving	Fixed (5 days)		62.0%
Apricot Yield Farming	Flexible		40.9%
Apricot Yield Farming	Flexible		40.9%

Polygon

Polygon is described as a layer 2 scalable solution capable of achieving upwards of 65,000 transactions per seconds. Fees for make transactions are an average of $0.002.

At the time of writing, Polygon is trading at $MATIC - $1.74

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Dfyn Yield Farming	Flexible		183%
OKEx Saving	Fixed (5 days)		123%
Beefy Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		62.6%
OKEx Saving	Fixed (7 days)		60.0%
Beefy Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		57.3%

Cardano

Cardano is still very much in development currently processing approximately 250 transactions per seconds. Planned upgrades have speculated they could eventually achieve as many as 1 million per second.

Presently transaction fees are an average of $0.31.

At the time of writing, Cardano is trading at $ADA - $1.22

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		308,550%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		147,944%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		103,205%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		78,967%
Biswap Yield Farming	Flexible		69,967%

Polkadot

Presently Polkadot is capable of achieving over 160 transactions per second. The forthcoming parachain functionality could see transaction speeds exceeding many thousands per second.

At the time of writing, Polkadot is trading at $DOT - $22.87

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
CafeSwap Yield Farming	Flexible		135%
PandaYield Yield Farming	Flexible		121%
PandaYield Yield Farming	Flexible		119%
Kebab Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		40.8%
Value DeFi Yield Farming	Flexible		38.2%

Dogecoin

Dogecoin is capable of transacting at an average of 33 transactions per second. The present transaction fee is approximately $0.40. 

At the time of writing, Dogecoin is trading at $DOGE - $0.1468

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Kebab Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		296%
Beefy Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		75.5%
PancakeSwap Yield Farming	Flexible		47.1%
THORSwap Yield Farming	Flexible		43.0%
Beefy Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		31.4%

Shiba Inu

Shiba Inu transacts at a rate of 13 transactions per second. Gas fees are paid to the Ethereum network and are thus not competitive.

At the time of writing, Shiba Inu is trading at $SHIB - $0.0000

Holders of this asset can generate returns by lending their asset to the following organisations:

Organization	Terms	Rating	APY Rate
Dfyn Yield Farming	Flexible		83.5%
Beefy Finance Yield Farming	Flexible		79.8%
BabySwap Yield Farming	Flexible		76.4%
BabySwap Yield Farming	Flexible		34.8%
JetSwap Yield Farming	Flexible		32.8%

Summary

Transaction and gas fees matter immensely as the plethora of growing demands on blockchains from NFTs, gaming, data record transmission and financial transactions has led developers to build faster and more competitive blockchains.

---

---