The Impact of Ethereum Throughput and Fees on Transaction Latency During ICOs

Abstract

The Ethereum blockchain has gained popularity for its ability to implement Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), whereby a buyer enters a market order agreement with a seller in order to purchase cryptographic tokens at an agreed price. The popularity of ICOs in 2017 has created an increasingly adversarial environment among potential buyers, who compete for what is often a fixed supply of tokens offered for a limited period of time. We study the impact of a series of ICOs in order to understand the relationship between transaction fees, throughput and latency in Ethereum. Our analysis considers the effects on both Ethereum’s service providers, known as miners, and users who issue transactions in the network. Our results show that while buyers incentivise miners generously to include their transactions during ICOs, the latency of these transactions is predominantly determined by the levels of supply and demand in the network.