Cryptocurrency bag holders often boast that their network transaction speeds are faster than mainstream payment methods, such as Visa or Paypal. As cryptocurrencies continue to rise in popularity, it will be important to determine which blockchain payment networks could eventually become the “new Visa.” While both sides continue to debate their arguments, we jumped through the hard data and created a unique visual to highlight transaction speeds across several different payment networks.
We chose to compare the transaction speeds of some of the largest cryptocurrencies by market-cap relative to Visa and PayPal. Each payment network is ranked largest-to-smallest based on the size of their balloon, which equates to the number of transactions per second. The larger the balloon, the more transactions their payment network can process per second. This allows for a clear and concise visual to show once and for all how some of the most popular crytpocurrencies stack up to more traditional payment methods.
Ripple Shows Potential, But Visa is Still the King of Speed
As you can see, Visa still has the fastest transaction speeds over any other payment networks measured, with 24,000 transactions per second. It was surprising to see Ripple come in second and beat out PayPal by a whopping 1,307 transactions per second. This shows that Ripple may have the capability to be a viable payment solution on a much larger scale.
PayPal had 218 million active users during the third quarter of 2017. PayPal is still among the most popular and well-known digital peer-to-peer platforms out there, but Ripple’s transaction speed dominance could be the key to a next-generation peer-to-peer payment platform that is not only faster, but also safer.
Our data shows that Bitcoin Cash has the second fastest transaction speed of the major cryptos. Maybe this will finally give Bitcoin Cash the proper respect and recognition as the second most viable crypto for transaction speeds. To be fair to Charlie Lee (Litecoin creator) and his loyal Litecoin followers, four transactions less per second is a close margin of speed and does deserve recognition.
Those of us who are actively vested within the cryptocurrency space are not shocked to see Dash, Bitcoin and Ethereum bringing up the rear. Crypto traders are consistently hit with transaction delays when they go to transfer their Ether or Bitcoin, as their growing popularity outpaces their network’s processing capabilities.
Here is a breakdown of the chart, which includes each network’s number of transactions per second data results:
1. Visa: 24,000 transactions
2. Ripple: 1,500 transactions
3. PayPal: 193 transactions
4. Bitcoin Cash: 60 transactions
5. Litecoin: 56 transactions
6. Dash: 48 transactions
7. Ethereum: 20 transactions
8. Bitcoin: 7 transactions
Overall, Visa continues to have one of the fastest transactions speeds across several different payment networks. Keep in mind that cryptocurrency and blockchain technology is still in the very early stages. Visa was founded in 1958 and has had 60 years to improve and grow its payment network capabilities. Imagine if we give Ripple, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin, and other cryptocurrencies 60 years to develop their networks, the data may not be so skewed in Visa’s favor. For now, cryptocurrency pioneers continue deeper into uncharted territory in search of faster speeds, improved network stability, and user adoption.
Data: Table 1.1