Is ETH better than BTC for payment?

[Little Mouse]

Very often we see people sugget to use ETH or any alternative coin for cheap and faster tx. I am going to share some information which will proof that it is no better. I may be wrong too, I am not an expert here. Just sharing what I have got.

BTC Avg. Block time- 10 minutes
ETH Avg. Block time- ~14 seconds (now)

So, ETH will get around 43 blocks = 1 BTC block

BTC block size- 1 MB (Let's say we use Legacy only)
ETH Block size- 20 to 30 kb (Let's say 25kb on average)

How much byte can both proceed within 10 minutes?
Both BTC and ETH will be able to proceed 1 MB tx data on average.

Is not both same in term of handling tx? Sometimes BTC is even better with segwit.
Just sharing some random thoughts, I am not expert technically. So, I may be wrong in many ways.

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[jackg]

I normally suggest ltc, it's not perfect but it has segwit and a 1mb block every 2.5 minutes.

Eth txs are definitely cheaper than btc though srull from when I last used them...

[Blank-Head]

When it's about Bitcoin and Eth I always suggest Eth for payment because of its fastest block time and lower transection fees.But My personal suggestion for payment is to use Nano coin.
Because it's the fastest and Nano has zero transection cost or fee.

Again Neo has also faster transection feature which is only 15 seconds required to process a transection on avarege for the next neo block.

[pooya87]

when you speak of confirmation you should first define what it means. confirmation does NOT JUST mean included in a block even though that is the literal definition. when speaking of confirmation we care about the number when the transaction becomes irreversible. in bitcoin a transaction with 1 confirmation is considered already irreversible because of how extremely difficult and costly it would be to reverse that 1 block. there is no altcoin in existence that shares the same number. majority of them have to have a chain that is thousands of blocks long before the transaction is considered irreversible. you can take a quick look at the number of confirmation exchanges require before funding the user's account as an inaccurate but good example.

additionally confirmation has another meaning to it which is immutability. in simple terms it means when the blockchain is created it must not be changed. that is not true for many altcoins including ethereum. their blockchain has changed in the past due to decisions that their owners made with rollbacks, ... and there is nothing stopping them from doing the same in the future. that is another downside of being centralized!

[witcher_sense]

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Is not both same in term of handling tx? Sometimes BTC is even better with segwit.
Just sharing some random thoughts, I am not expert technically. So, I may be wrong in many ways.

Both are perfectly fine for payments, I would say. However, it still depends on what you are currently holding. I mean, if a person uses bitcoin as store of value, then he might choose to make payments in the same asset. Otherwise, he will need to exchange it for another cryptocurrency like Ethereum to make a transaction. It requires some time and fees to make it happen. If there is a convinient way to switch assets quickly then I don't see a problem. But again why would he do that if he can make payment with bitcoin. You might say that what if he is holding several assets to make payments. Yes, but that doesn't work when we are talking about storing of value. Ethereum, in this case, must be also considered as store of value, in order for a person not to lose his money while waiting for a good time for a fast transaction.

[cryptoaddictchie]

Speed comparison as I used both. Eth is relatively faster regardless of size. Ive been using both on our third party app and I always received and sent first with the ethereum network.

Let say sending both USD equivalent from one btc to another wallet same goes for eth, having the block time for both could tell you which one will be efficient but as you mentioned Segwit sometime is better, I believe with the use of lightning network it can be comparable now to eth speed.

_{I like both but I tale advantage sometime which transaction fee can make me spend cheaper before doing any such payment and usage of eth and BTC}

[NavI_027]

Both are perfectly fine for payments, I would say. However, it still depends on what you are currently holding. I mean, if a person uses bitcoin as store of value, then he might choose to make payments in the same asset. Otherwise, he will need to exchange it for another cryptocurrency like Ethereum to make a transaction.

Yup unless you got a wallet which holds mulitiple coins. It decreases the time and hassle you spend from the process of converting through the use of an exchange. But to be honest, I still stick to btc though I am using such kind of wallet. I don't actually mind if eth is the obvious better option here because I already got used to btc. I'm satisfied with its speed and I can't feel the fees also. For me a 1% fee is not so big. Well, I guess maybe that's because I only withdraw small amount of money and my opinion change once I withdraw bigger .

[Twinkledoe]

Both are perfectly fine for payments, I would say. However, it still depends on what you are currently holding. I mean, if a person uses bitcoin as store of value, then he might choose to make payments in the same asset. Otherwise, he will need to exchange it for another cryptocurrency like Ethereum to make a transaction.

Yup unless you got a wallet which holds mulitiple coins. It decreases the time and hassle you spend from the process of converting through the use of an exchange. But to be honest, I still stick to btc though I am using such kind of wallet. I don't actually mind if eth is the obvious better option here because I already got used to btc. I'm satisfied with its speed and I can't feel the fees also. For me a 1% fee is not so big. Well, I guess maybe that's because I only withdraw small amount of money and my opinion change once I withdraw bigger .

I think that's one factor why many people are still using btc even if eth has lower tx fee. If they have btc in hand and suddenly they need to pay or buy something, instead of going to convert it to eth first, they will just directly use btc as converting will consume time, so it is more of convenience that we are talking here. But if you already have eth available, why not?

[bakasabo]

As this is beginners section, lets imagine that beginners are using popular and easy-to-create wallets - online wallets. When you use BTC online wallet, most of the time you can change transaction speed, but online wallet will charge his % as an addition to fee. As a ETH wallet, 99% of new users will use myetherwallet, where you pay only transaction fee. So for me and new users, ETH seems to be a better option for payment.

[Little Mouse]

in bitcoin a transaction with 1 confirmation is considered already irreversible because of how extremely difficult and costly it would be to reverse that 1 block.

That's a good point. How many confirmation in ETH considered as irreversible, provided that ETH once has once faced rollback back in 2016 by Vitalik. It would be good to know and compare better.
Reference- https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5242048.msg54262172#msg54262172

[joniboini]

That's a good point. How many confirmation in ETH considered as irreversible, provided that ETH once has once faced rollback back in 2016 by Vitalik. It would be good to know and compare better.

Can't say for sure, but according to this[1], range around 12 to 30ish. It might change due to the difference in hashrate and stuff like that.

But considering the risk of another rollback in ETH is higher, I'd still use Bitcoin if I need to make an important tx.

[1] https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/319/what-number-of-confirmations-is-considered-secure-in-ethereum

[hd49728]

BTC Avg. Block time- 10 minutes
ETH Avg. Block time- ~14 seconds (now)

Most of platforms require about 12 confirmations on ETH network to credit users' balance so it takes much lesser than 10 - 30 minutes with BTC transactions (platforms tend to require from 1 to 3 confirmations with BTC).

Is not both same in term of handling tx? Sometimes BTC is even better with segwit.
Just sharing some random thoughts, I am not expert technically. So, I may be wrong in many ways.

It does not only relate to the size of transactions, but it relates to the confirmations. The more confirmations one transactions have on networks, the less risks for transactions and people who have trade deals with those transactions.

[Mauser]

That's quite interesting, it's true that the block  size for BTC is fairly large.

Personally, I haven't used  ETH for payment yet. For larger amounts I just use BTC and for smaller payments I use Bitcoin Cash BCH.

What are your thoughts on BTC vs ETH?

[Pffrt]

You can't compare fee and speed both at once. Fee is certainly high for BTC and will be high forever as long as you are doing on chain tx. ETH still have more tx pending than BTC I think. If BTC had such pending tx, I think fee would be crazy high.

For larger amounts I just use BTC and for smaller payments I use Bitcoin Cash BCH.

As jackg said, it's thousand times better to use Litecoin if you somehow want to use an altcoin. Bitcoin Cash is totally a centralized shit.

[Greatdev]

Very often we see people sugget to use ETH or any alternative coin for cheap and faster tx. I am going to share some information which will proof that it is no better. I may be wrong too, I am not an expert here. Just sharing what I have got.

BTC Avg. Block time- 10 minutes
ETH Avg. Block time- ~14 seconds (now)

So, ETH will get around 43 blocks = 1 BTC block

BTC block size- 1 MB (Let's say we use Legacy only)
ETH Block size- 20 to 30 kb (Let's say 25kb on average)

How much byte can both proceed within 10 minutes?
Both BTC and ETH will be able to proceed 1 MB tx data on average.

Is not both same in term of handling tx? Sometimes BTC is even better with segwit.
Just sharing some random thoughts, I am not expert technically. So, I may be wrong in many ways.

OP your points here are talking about the speed of transfer not the coin use case or reliability, if that's the case many coins out there beats both ethereum and Bitcoin in terms of speed, even ripple beats this two hands down

[Lucius]

In my roughly 6 years as I am in the crypto world I have never used ETH to pay anything, and I used LTC, DOGE and BCH when I wanted to get rid of it and the BTC blockchain was under constant spam attack, and the fees for the next block confirmation are jump to $50. It was also the case before that more or less all online merchants only accepted Bitcoin, so ETH never really came to life as a means of payment.

when speaking of confirmation we care about the number when the transaction becomes irreversible. in bitcoin a transaction with 1 confirmation is considered already irreversible because of how extremely difficult and costly it would be to reverse that 1 block. there is no altcoin in existence that shares the same number...

Very important information that should definitely be remembered from the aspect of security. What benefits do we get from a cheap and fast transaction that someone can change at any time in the future? I think a lot of people have no idea how hard or almost impossible it is to manipulate BTC transactions when we get only 1 confirmation, compared to more or less all altcoins.

[KaratX]

For payment you would want to use a faster blockchain, you don't want to wait around for block verification after paying at a vendor or store right? Many options are on coinmarketcap, way better and faster than bitcoin and ethereum

[Tomohisa]

ETH kinda in the middle. If people want a lightweight, fast, and low tx fee, they go for LTC. Now everyone was talking, I don't remember that I ever use ETH for payment at all. I only use ETH to transfer token or deposit/withdraw from my balance. Weird, I brought an online sms to verify service and although it cost me $50, I used BTC as payment instead of ETH.

[tsaroz]

Yes, scalability has been a problem for Ethereum but they are trying to solve it with the next update. Another advantage of Ethereum payment would be it's lower fees. With a much higher supply than of bitcoin, we can expect a unit of Ethereum coin's price to remain a lot cheaper than bitcoin on anytime as bitcoin's supply is fixed while Ethereum is ever rising. Solve the scalability problem, ETH would be the best transacting coin.

[Towerbreeze]

Many will make choice base on lower fee and some will choose speed over lesser fee but there are other better close that has less fee and faster speed too but since this post is about Ethereum vs Bitcoin I will prefer Bitcoin, maybe if ethereum fixed their scalability problem in future