Blockchain Payment Index

I have developed a system for determining the payment efficiency of chains.
The Blockchain Payment Index evaluates 12 public blockchains across five weighted categories to determine their suitability for real-world payment scenarios - P2P transfers, remittances, merchant payments, and fintech infrastructure. Each blockchain receives a composite score from 0 to 10.
Top 5 blockchains:
1/ @solana has the highest overall score across all five categories. It has the most balanced performance, without any critical shortcomings, unlike other blockchains. It ranks third in terms of stablecoin liquidity and fourth in terms of speed.
The main weakness is stablecoin liquidity: $16B supply and $500B monthly volume are solid but lag behind Ethereum and Tron.
2/ @0xPolygon has excellent performance in terms of cost, speed, and reliability, and the highest adoption rate. The only problem so far is low stablecoin liquidity, but this indicator is growing very quickly, making Polygon one of the most interesting blockchains for payments.
Polygon is the most underrated payment chain in standard datasets @Dune -specific payment dashboards reveal the full picture. 50+ payment integrations including @Revolut, @CoinflowLabs, @blindpay, @raincards, @stripe, and @aveniaio.
3/ @StellarOrg punches well above its profile. The lowest fee of any chain in the index $0.00001, 5-second finality, 1,000 TPS, and 99.99% uptime create a near-perfect technical foundation for payments. It was purpose-built for cross-border transfers and remittances.
The key constraint is ecosystem scale: only $2B stablecoin supply, $10B monthly volume, and 3M active wallets. Strong institutional adoption @MoneyGram, @Mastercard, @PayPal but limited retail-facing payment projects.
4/ @trondao dominates in one specific dimension: stablecoin volume. $65B in circulating USDT and $600B monthly transaction volume - confirmed by @artemis as the global leader in P2P transfers and remittances. 3-second finality and 200 TPS support this throughput. The critical weakness is fee structure: $2.50 per transfer with high volatility (score 4/5) makes it impractical for small retail payments despite its dominance in large-value and cross-border flows.
It should be noted that for @RedotPay, Tron is the main blockchain for payments, with a monthly payment volume exceeding $180M.
5/ @ethereum holds 55% of global stablecoin supply ($155B) and processes $850B monthly - numbers no other chain approaches. But its payment UX is fundamentally broken at the base layer: $0.34 median fee, 900-second finality, and high fee volatility make it unsuitable for everyday payments.
Scores maximum on liquidity but near-minimum on cost and speed. Ethereum is better understood as the settlement and liquidity layer that L2s (Base, Arbitrum, Optimism) build on top of.
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Blockchain Payment Index Methodology
The Blockchain Payment Index evaluates 12 public blockchains across five weighted categories to determine their suitability for real-world payment use cases - P2P transfers, remittances, merchant payments, and fintech infrastructure. Each blockchain receives a composite score from 0 to 10.
Cost — 25%
The most important factor for payment usability. It consists of two metrics.
Avg Fee (USD) carries a 15% weight:
score = 10 if the median stablecoin transfer costs $0.001 or less, score = 0 if $5 or more, with logarithmic interpolation between these values.
The log scale is intentional: the difference between $0.10 and $1 is far more painful for users than between $3 and $4.
Fee Volatility carries a 10% weight:
a qualitative score from 1–5 (1 = very stable, 5 = unpredictable), linearly converted to a 0–10 scale.
Predictable fees are critical for merchant pricing and user trust.
Speed — 20%
Measures time to irreversible finality and real network throughput.
Time to Finality (12%) — logarithmic interpolation:
1 second or less = 10, 900 seconds or more = 0.
Real TPS (8%) = min(TPS / 1000, 1) × 10.
Only real observed throughput from Chainspect and the Dune 2025 Multichain Report is used — theoretical maximums are ignored.
Reliability — 15%
Operational network reliability.
Single metric — Uptime %:
score = (uptime − 99.0) / 1.0 × 10, capped between 0 and 10.
A network with 100% uptime receives 10, while 99% or lower receives 0.
The steep scale reflects reality: payment infrastructure cannot afford downtime — a single outage disrupts merchant flows and undermines trust. Known incidents of halts and reorganizations are also considered in the assessment.
Stablecoin Liquidity — 20%
Crypto payments are predominantly conducted in stablecoins (USDT, USDC).
This category measures two dimensions:
Stablecoin Supply ($B) = min(supply / $70B, 1) × 10
The ceiling is benchmarked to Ethereum ($155B).
Monthly Payment Volume ($B) = min(volume / $600B, 1) × 10
The cap is benchmarked to Tron ($600B in monthly volume).
Data sources: Dune / Artemis Stablecoin Report 2025, Alchemy on-chain analytics.
Adoption — 20%
Measures real presence specifically in the payments vertical — not general DeFi or NFT activity.
Payment Projects (10%) = min(projects / 18, 1) × 10
Benchmark — Polygon with 50+ confirmed payment integrations ( Revolut, MoonPay, Coinflow, Blindpay, Raincard, NOWPayments, Avenia, and others ).
Active Wallets (10%) = min(wallets / 65M, 1) × 10
Cap — Ethereum with 65M monthly active wallets.
DISCLAIMER
This information is provided for informational and educational purposes only and is not investment advice, financial advice, or an offer to buy/sell digital assets. The material is intended for general familiarization with staking products and does not constitute a recommendation for action.