Introduction and methods

Avalanche is a blockchain that promises to combine scaling capabilities and quick confirmation times through its Avalanche Consensus Protocol.

Avalanche has sevelar important benefits that make it one of the most promising crypto chains:

• Interoperability is the capacity to trade and interact with other forms of cryptocurrency and data from other platforms. Avalanche is highly interoperable, as it allows for the creation of different subnets, with its blockchain serving as a common platform. This structure enables different blockchains to interoperate with each other, and share assets and data.
• Scalability: Many other blockchains currently on the market are not scalable, and those that are, lose functionality when trying to scale. It’s a long-running and well-documented issue for older blockchain models. Take Bitcoin (BTC), as an example. Each transaction uses enormous energy and computing power to complete. Ethereum, on the other hand, is not much faster — it can only process 15 transactions per second. These limitations make these blockchains difficult to scale. But Avalanche was built to overcome this very problem, and even boasts more validators than other networks, plus speeds of 4,500 transactions per second (TPS). This makes the Avalanche blockchains potentially infinitely scalable. And, it achieves this without compromising its decentralization — thanks to its three-blockchain system and interoperability with multiple blockchains.
• Usability: mainly, how easy it is to adopt and implement for various applications and uses. For both dApp developers and casual traders, Avalanche has proven in multiple cases to be extremely user-friendly. Avalanche’s blockchain system allows all users and organizations who wish to utilize their tech to deploy their L1 and L2 blockchains.
• Transaction fees: To make each transaction secure, and to prevent spam orders, each transaction made on the Avalanche blockchain requires a payment of a transaction fee. This is similar to Ethereum’s gas prices and is paid in AVAX. This transaction fee is automatically deducted from the address you control.

Sources:

1. Avalanche introduced in Coindesk
2. Avalanche network webpage
3. Main Avalanche benefits
4. Avalanche features comparison against other chains

As said, Avalanche promised to process around 4,500 TPS. Transaction throughput is the rate at which valid transactions are committed by a blockchain in a defined time period. The throughput of a given blockchain is defined by the number of transactions per second (tps). Some of the notable blockchains and their throughput are: Bitcoin can support 7 tps, Ethereum can support 14 tps, and Avalanche can support 4500+ tps. But... it this statement true?

In this dashboard we are gonna explore if some of the main benefits Avalanche can provide are currently being accomplished or not. The main features we are gonna analyze in both terms hourly and daily are:

• The average TPS per second by hour.
• The average number of transactions per block.
• The max number of transactions in a block and the minimum?
• The average time between blocks over time.
• The transaction gas price over time.

Results

In the first chart, we can see the hourly number of transactions and the average TPS over time since June 20th. As it can be seen, because the TPS is correlated with hourly transactions, both trends are the same. For this reason, we will focus our comments on the TPS.

Looking at it, we can see how it seems like fluctuates between 2 and 3 TPS over time. However, there are an specific hour when the average TPS reached around 4.5 value. If we take into account this highest value and the current average TPS, we can see how the number decreased 49% approximately.

In the second chart, it can be seen the average time between blocks hourly and the average fee per transaction. The first variable has been calculated in seconds.

On the one hand, considering the average time per block, we can see that the trend seems constant over time, staying in a range closer to 2 seconds between blocks in average. However, while the fluctuation was higher during the firsts analyzed hours, the volatility decreased during the past hours. It is to say that it was a heavy peak on June 24th when the average time between blocks spiked to 10 seconds. Taking into account the lowest average time value, the current average time between blocks is 4% higher.

On the other hand, the average fee per transaction seems to be decreased during the first hours from 0.008 to 0.006 AVAX. However, since June 23rd, the average has been similar fluctuating between 0.006 and 0.007 AVAX. It is curious because of there were 2 days when the average transaction fee were doubled to 0.012 AVAX. Considering this value, the current value is 55% lower.

The above charts shows the same metrics by day. The first one is about the average TPS, average time between block and the average transaction per block, and the second one about the daily fees per transaction.

Regarding the first image, we can see how in a daily basis, the average TPS and the average transactions per block show similar trends. There is a positive correlation between these metrics. Both experimented a downtrend over the past week decreasing around 11/12 % from the initial numbers. On the other hand, the average time per block seems to be negatively correlated with these previous metrics. In this case, the average time per block increase when the other metrics decrease and on the other way around. Then, in this case, the average time per block increased 4% from its initial value.

Finally, the daily average transactions fee seems to be correlated with the average TPS and the average transactions per block. In this case, the fees decreased from 0.0071 to 0.0063 AVAX.

Finally, in this last chart it is shown a comparison between Avalanche TPS and other important chains like Ethereum and Solana.

As can be seen, the TPS of Avalanche network is far from the numbers of Ethereum and above all Solana. While Avalanche is around 2.5 TPS, Ethereum is around 11 TPS, which is between 4 and 5 times more, and Solana is around 400 TPS, which is more than 100 times more.

Therefore, we can say that the promise of processing around 4,500 TPS does not seem to be fulfilled as of today.

Conclusions

In this dashboard we have analyzed the main Avalanche metrics in terms of transactions and blocks. We have carried out a deep analysis about Avalanche TPS and Avalanche blocks, as well as transaction fees.

The main insights extracted are:

• The average TPS of Avalanche network fluctuates between 2 and 3 TPS over time.
• The average time per block seems constant over time, staying in a ranges closer to 2 seconds between blocks in average.
• The average fee per transaction seems to be decreased during the first hours from 0.008 to 0.006 AVAX.
• There is a positive correlation between the average TPS and the average transactions per block. The same occurs with the average transaction fee.
• The average time per block seems to be negatively correlated with the average TPS and the average transaction fee.
• Since June 20th, the minimum amount of transactions per block has been 1 while the maximum has been 64.
• The TPS of Avalanche network is far from the numbers of Ethereum and above all Solana. While Avalanche is around 2.5 TPS, Ethereum is around 11 TPS and Solana is around 400 TPS.

Annex (data source for results):

Another important thing to evaluate is the minimum and maximum transactions per block. Since June 20th, the minimum amount of transactions per block has been 1 while the maximum has been 64. It is not a good signal due to the standard deviation seems to be high comparing the big difference amount of transaction between one block and another.