Time to Finality (TTF) is the timeline in which it takes a blockchain to guarantee a transaction from when it is initially submitted to when it is confirmed on the blockchain and can no longer be reversed or tampered with.
Like most payment systems, it is essential to be accurate, but it is just as important to be fast. This is why Time to Finality is essential: it can show an individual looking at different blockchains just how long it takes for a blockchain to complete a transaction.
Although similar, TTF and transactions per second (tps) are two different gauges to understand blockchains better. TTF is the amount of time it takes a transaction on a blockchain to be finalised and irreversible, while transactions per second indicates the number of transactions that can happen in one second.
Transactions per second is often used as a metric to determine the speed of a blockchain, but it isn’t entirely accurate, as it does not account for the complete duration of transactions and when they are finalised to the network. This is why TTF is vital to take into account.
For customers using a blockchain-based payment system to make a purchase at a store, the TTF for the payment system could affect how long the customer needs to wait for the payment to be confirmed and have the product they purchased released to them.
For a company using a blockchain to track the movement of goods through their supply chain, the TTF for the blockchain could impact the speed at which the company can confirm the receipt of the product to update its inventory. Additionally, for a financial company using blockchain to clear and settle trades, the TTF for the blockchain could affect how quickly the company finalises the trade and has the funds transferred from one party to another.
