Blockchain platform performance is critically important for financial transaction applications. This article presents a case study comparing Ethereum, a public blockchain, with Hyperledger Fabric, a permissioned blockchain, for modeling financial transactions. Key performance metrics evaluated include throughput, latency, transaction cost, and finality. Our findings show that the Ethereum network achieved approximately 15 transactions per second (TPS) with a latency of ~12 seconds and incurred transaction fees of a few U.S. dollars. In contrast, Hyperledger Fabric sustained ~2000 TPS with sub-second latency and negligible cost. Fabric’s deterministic consensus also provides near-instant finality (~1–2 s), contrasting with Ethereum’s probabilistic finality, which requires ~1 minute. The detailed empirical results in Figures and summary Tables comparing core metrics reveal that Hyperledger Fabric offers superior throughput and efficiency for enterprise financial scenarios, while Ethereum’s performance is constrained by its decentralized consensus overhead. All measurements are based on an internal case study deployment without simulation. These insights inform platform selection for financial applications requiring high transaction volume and low latency.
Dennis Deladem Kwadzode (Mon,) studied this question.