dApp Developers Have Need for Speed but Which Blockchains Can Deliver?

In the world of decentralized applications, there’s an essential need for speed that goes beyond simple convenience for users. When it comes to dApps, be it in decentralized finance, gaming, or SocialFi, any delay becomes utterly intolerable, making all of the difference in terms of profitability and coming out on top.

dApp transactions need to be fast. When trading digital assets, the prices never stand still and any delay can be disastrous for high-speed traders looking to arbitrage on the minimal price differences between different protocols. And in fast-paced blockchain games, any delay in purchasing that all-important weapon could spell disaster instead of victory, and rewards.

Fortunately, blockchains have long since surpassed the frustrating delays associated with Bitcoin BTC $95 363 24h volatility: 0.2% Market cap: $1.89 T Vol. 24h: $83.35 B and Ethereum ETH $3 611 24h volatility: 0.5% Market cap: $435.02 B Vol. 24h: $41.97 B transactions. The world’s top two blockchains are renowned for their slow transaction speeds, with simple payments very often taking more than an hour to be confirmed, making them highly unsuitable for dApps that need to respond in real time.

What Makes a Blockchain Fast?

One of the most critical factors in blockchain speed is TPS, or “transactions per second”, a measure of how many transactions a network can process in one second, and it’s critical for scalability.

In terms of TPS, some newer blockchains are blazingly fast. A study by Coingecko in early 2024 analyzed the real-world performance of more than 50 blockchains in order to compile a list of the top ten speediest networks, and those at the forefront performed exceptionally well.

Top of the tree was Solana, which hit a daily average of 1,054 TPS, with the exact number fluctuating somewhat based on network usage. Solana achieved this record-breaking speed thanks to its unique Proof-of-History consensus mechanism, which timestamps transactions before they are processed, enabling them to be confirmed much faster than they are on other networks. As such, Solana has become a popular network for dApps that need to support high transaction volumes, such as DeFi protocols and blockchain games.

Next on the list is the Sui blockchain, which hit an impressive 854 TPS thanks to its parallel transaction processing features. Sui’s network uses technology that’s similar to another fast network, Avalanche, but it distinguishes itself by minimizing the complexity of how validators coordinate with one another. This has the effect of streamlining how consensus is achieved, boosting its efficiency and therefore its scalability, so it can maintain high throughput even when the network experiences heavy traffic.

Binance Smart Chain is quite a bit slower, supporting just 378 TPS, but that’s still far from sluggish. BSC, as it’s known, runs concurrently with the Binance Chain, which was designed specifically to ensure rapid transaction finality and sacrifices the ability to support resource-hungry smart contracts to achieve this. However, it turns out that it’s still possible to run a sidechain that does support smart contracts atop of Binance Chain, while taking advantage of its high speed. That’s exactly what BSC does.

Another noteworthy example of a fast blockchain is Polygon, which is a Layer-2 network that sits above Ethereum, offloading transactions so they can be bundled together and processed as one.

Polygon’s main purpose is to reduce the strain on the Ethereum network and it does a very good job of that. It relies on a proof-of-stake consensus mechanism that completes the transaction confirmation process in a single block, enabling it to support up to 190 TPS.

Can We Go Any Faster?

Blockchain is a world where innovation never stops, and there are reasons to be optimistic that the likes of Solana and Sui can soon be surpassed. One of the most compelling prospects is the EOS Network, which recently claimed to hit a significant milestone with its Spring 1.0 update, the first release to integrate its new Savanna consensus mechanism.

Announced in September 2024, Savanna has the effect of reducing blockchain finality to just one second, representing a dramatic improvement on every network that came before.

Savanna does this by enabling transactions to be finalized, or confirmed, within just two blocks, which take only a second to create. According to EOS, it’s an entirely new approach to block-based consensus that utilizes aggregated BLS signatures and other cryptographic techniques to enhance scalability. It’s said to improve the time to the finality of EOS by 100 times, ensuring irreversible transactions can be confirmed in the blink of an eye.

A second highly promising innovation comes from Supra, the decentralized blockchain oracle that has evolved into its very own Layer-1 network. The Supra blockchain is unique in the way it integrates its consensus algorithm with its smart contract functionality and data management layer into a single, cohesive platform. It’s designed so that each of the three elements can function together, harmoniously, speeding up transaction processing times without sacrificing security.

Supra released its blockchain earlier this year, and it has already built on that achievement with the launch of Supra Containers, which aims to combine the advantages of L2s with so-called AppChains, or application-specific chains, while avoiding problems such as high infrastructure costs and liquidity fragmentation. The unique thing about Supra Containers is that each one operates its own, dedicated execution space, known as a DappSpace, where the transactions of each dApp can be executed independently of other dApps. It’s designed to address problems around broken composability while ensuring the blazing-fast finality times associated with L2s.

Faster Finality for dApps

A number of dApps on EOS are already benefiting from the Savanna upgrade to deliver enhanced performance to their users. For instance, the AtomicHub NFT marketplace on EOS and WAX supports instantaneous transactions, so that users will see their NFTs in their wallets the moment they purchase them, even if using a relatively slow cryptocurrency like ETH, which is supported thanks to the EOS EVM.

AtomicHub’s interoperability with WAX has helped to make it one of the most popular NFT marketplaces for blockchain game assets. WAX is a network that’s tailored to support blockchain games, and many of its developers have embraced AtomicHub so their gamers can enjoy seamless transactions when buying and selling in-game assets.

Perhaps the best-known dApp on EOS, is Upland, the popular metaverse-based land-trading and city-building game, which claims to have more than five million users globally, making it the most populous metaverse worldwide. For a game that’s based on the trade of assets, rapid transactions are critical to its success, so players can instantly take ownership of the land or objects they buy and put them to use, without any delays.

EOS is also the home of DefiLlama, the popular DeFi analytics website that provides comprehensive data on thousands of decentralized applications across hundreds of networks. Given that people come to rely on Defillama to provide the utmost accuracy in its reports, it needs to be able to access up-to-the-minute information from dApps on every network, and EOS’s blazing-fast transaction speeds support it in this.

Of course, EOS also has its fair share of DeFi applications too, including Meson, a unified stablecoin bridging protocol that supports cross-chain transfers of assets such as USDC, USDT, and BUSD. By building on EOS, Meson can take advantage of its rapid finality to instantly confirm any cross-chain asset swap, giving DeFi users greater confidence that their assets are always secure.

Speed Matters

Speed is of the essence for almost every kind of decentralized application, and the exciting achievements of EOS and Supra are likely to see those networks become more relevant among developers.

For dApps, fast finality is critical because it means they can offer users guarantees in terms of transaction validity. This helps to increase trust in those dApps and boost user security, providing reassurance that their transactions won’t be reversed or altered in any way.

Disclaimer: Coinspeaker is committed to providing unbiased and transparent reporting. This article aims to deliver accurate and timely information but should not be taken as financial or investment advice. Since market conditions can change rapidly, we encourage you to verify information on your own and consult with a professional before making any decisions based on this content.

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