Computing Transaction Processing Times

Table of Links

Abstract and 1 Introduction

2 Background and 2.1 Blockchain

2.2 Transactions

3 Motivating Example

4 Computing Transaction Processing Times

5 Data Collection and 5.1 Data Sources

5.2 Approach

6 Results

6.1 RQ1: How long does it take to process a transaction in Ethereum?

6.2 RQ2: How accurate are the estimates for transaction processing time provided by Etherscan and EthGasStation?

7 Can a simpler model be derived? A post-hoc study

8 Implications

8.1 How about end-users?

9 Related Work

10 Threats to Validity

11 Conclusion, Disclaimer, and References

A. COMPUTING TRANSACTION PROCESSING TIMES

A.1 Pending timestamp

A.2 Processed timestamp

B. RQ1: GAS PRICE DISTRIBUTION FOR EACH GAS PRICE CATEGORY

B.1 Sensitivity Analysis on Block Lookback

C. RQ2: SUMMARY OF ACCURACY STATISTICS FOR THE PREDICTION MODELS

D. POST-HOC STUDY: SUMMARY OF ACCURACY STATISTICS FOR THE PREDICTION MODELS

4 COMPUTING TRANSACTION PROCESSING TIMES

In this paper, we define the processing time of a transaction 𝑡 as the time elapsed from when a 𝑡 enters the pending state until 𝑡 enters the processed state (Figure 1). To compute the processing time of a transaction 𝑡, we thus need to determine two timestamps: the timestamp at which 𝑡 enters the pending state (henceforth pending timestamp) and the timestamp at which 𝑡 enters the processed state (henceforth processed timestamp). The processing time is then calculated by simply taking the delta between these two timestamps.

We compute transaction processing times by mining the pending timestamp and the processed timestamp from the Etherscan website. In particular, we highlight that the transaction timestamp, as recorded in the blockchain, is an imprecise representation of the processed timestamp and we thus refrain from using it. A detailed explanation of how we obtained the two aforementioned timestamps is described in Appendix A. All processing times reported in this paper are given in minutes.