Ethereum Network Handles Record transactions Without Congestion
The Ethereum network has set a record number of transactions, achieving good speed and low fees, showed blockchain statistics.
The Ethereum network manages to handle nearly 500,000 transactions every 24 hours, a significant increase since the levels before the summer. The uptick in volume was significant right after the Byzantium hard fork passed on October 16th.
Currently, experts believe the Ethereum network can handle up to 2 million transactions, although congestions have seen problems in the past. The next milestone may be 1 million transactions per day, before scaling issues become more pressing. Some believe the network must transition to proof-of-stake for that to happen.
But with the latest uptick in activity, Ethereum handles a larger transaction volume compared to Bitcoin:
It is conceivable that the Ethereum network is busier, given that it handles not only payments and transfers, but also some smart contracts, a few decentralized apps and the general movement not only of ETH tokens, but also all ERC-20 tokens.
The problem with the Ethereum network is that for some services, transactions are not that easy and fast. While sending Ethereum is easy and sometimes even free of gas fees, for other tokens gas limits and gas price must be increased, and even then transactions cannot be completed.
Currently, one of the biggest Gas users, EtherDelta, has fallen to position two and around 29% of the gas on the network is consumed by one token address, belonging to the ATMChain token, a system running a smart contract to distribute token rewards for ads.
EtherDelta consumes around 13% of the Gas. Several other smart contracts also use up gas. So the question remains whether Ethereum can scale to become a broad enough ecosystem for distributed apps which would work without congestion. While Bitcoin handles only one type of transactions, Ethereum has the more ambitious task of expanding the usage of blockchain – and the speed and smoothness of the network would be key.
The Ethereum market price has remained relatively stable, with a short spike toward $350, but a drop to $300, the levels of the past few weeks.
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