Comparing Settlement Times and Transaction Speeds of Stablecoins
3 min readTable of Contents
Essentially, cryptocurrencies were designed to act as digital currencies and were intended to replace transactions traditionally made with fiat money. However, ensuring faster transaction speeds and faster settlement times through blockchain technology has proven to be challenging for many cryptocurrencies. Various stablecoins in the current market differ by a significant margin in their transaction speeds and settlement times. Noticeable differences also exist in the operating costs of each of these stablecoins.
Before looking at the different settlement times and transaction speeds of other stablecoins and comparing them to Samecoin’s SameUSD (SUSD), let us analyze what settlement times and transaction speeds mean in the stablecoin market.
What is settlement time in crypto?
Settlement time in crypto is the amount of time it takes to verify a transaction made with a cryptocurrency. Typically, traditional payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard had longer processing times – from 24 hours to three days for debit and credit cards. Within these settlement periods, a possible chargeback could take place, allowing total reversal of the funds.
This is one major risk that companies that accepted Visa and Mastercard payments faced.
With blockchain, after a transaction has been verified, it becomes impossible to alter it, reducing the possibility of a chargeback.
What is transaction speed in crypto?
Transaction speed on a blockchain is a measurement of how fast a particular transaction takes to be settled. Different blockchains can handle different amounts of transactions per second. The famous BTC network could only handle about 4.6 transactions per second, with confirmations/settlements lasting up to 30 – 60 minutes. However, many stablecoins have managed to reduce their transaction speeds significantly. Those depending on the ETH network may take 5-15 mins to settle, and it can be longer when there is congestion.
Below, we will look at how stablecoins like SameUSD perform with regard to transaction speed and settlement times.
How various stablecoins perform
Ever wondered why new stablecoins and cryptocurrencies are being released when BTC (BTC), Ether (ETH), and stablecoins such as Tether USDT, and USDC already exist? Well, the answer is, none of these cryptocurrencies are perfect. There is massive potential for growth and improvement – certainly in the stablecoins market.
Tether (USDT) is the largest stablecoin by market capitalization, followed closely by other USD-backed stablecoins such as USDC, Paxos Standard (PAX), and Binance USD (BUSD). Yet, all these stablecoins have serious weaknesses concerning their reserve assets, transaction speeds as well as overall stability.
Although most of these stablecoins have consistently recorded faster transaction speeds and shorter settlement times than regular cryptocurrencies, could there be stablecoins with even faster transaction speeds than the existing options?
How SameUSD performs
SameUSD (SUSD) is one of the many stablecoins developed by the Samecoin protocol. The stablecoin can be used comfortably through SamePay, a crypto exchange, and payment platform under the Samecoin ecosystem. When using SameUSD within SamePay, users enjoy significantly reduced transaction fees, industry-leading near-instant transaction speeds and settlement times.
The entire Samecoin ecosystem is designed to facilitate more convenient online payments. For this reason, SameUSD and other stablecoins from Samecoin record incredibly fast transaction speed unmatched anywhere else in the current market. Ultimately, these stablecoins remain a much stable value compared to other similar coins, owing to their unique stability mechanism. Unlike other stablecoin, SameUSD is backed by a basket of other major stablecoins.
