How Long a Crypto Payment Actually Takes, Measured Across 1.48 Million Orders
A CoinGate study timed 1.48 million crypto payments over twelve months, revealing the real-world delays merchants face after shoppers select a coin and network.
CoinGate measured the actual time shoppers take to complete crypto payments by tracking 1.48 million paid orders across fourteen networks over twelve months ending August 2026. The study splits each payment into two phases: a two-hour window for shoppers to choose a currency and network, followed by a twenty-minute window to complete the transfer. This separation allows merchants to distinguish between human delays and blockchain processing times, providing a clearer picture of where inefficiencies occur.
The human selection phase proved consistently quick, with median times ranging from 29 seconds for Arbitrum shoppers to 61 seconds for Bitcoin Cash shoppers. Bitcoin Cash, though no longer selectable at checkout, remains the slowest in this phase. The critical delays emerge after selection, where Lightning Network processes Bitcoin payments in 46 seconds compared to 14 minutes and 16 seconds on the Bitcoin mainnet. Other networks like Base and Arbitrum cluster between one and two minutes, while Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, and Polygon average around two and a half minutes.
The data highlights structural issues beyond median times. Over a quarter of Bitcoin payments exceeded twenty minutes, explaining frequent customer inquiries about delayed transactions. Solana, despite a median of 66 seconds, had 3.2% of payments run past twenty minutes, a higher share than Ethereum or Polygon. These outliers reveal that even fast networks can harbor unpredictable delays, emphasizing the need for merchants to monitor payment completion rather than rely solely on block times.
The study also demonstrates how the same token can incur vastly different wait times depending on the network. USDC payments ranged from the fastest median on Solana to the slowest on Bitcoin Cash, with a top-to-bottom difference of two and a half times. Ether payments showed a similar disparity, taking 2 minutes 22 seconds on Ethereum versus 1 minute 7 seconds on Arbitrum. Merchants can reduce delays by ensuring faster network options are prominently displayed during checkout.