Ethereum network
How the Ethereum network settles a payment
Ethereum is where a payment can be denominated in something that holds its value. It settles in minutes rather than an hour, it carries stablecoins as well as its own currency, and its fees move with demand in a way you should understand before you price anything.
From sent to settled
Blocks arrive on a fixed twelve-second schedule, which makes Ethereum far more predictable than a network that mines on average. We treat a payment as final after 12 blocks — about 2 minutes — and you are told the moment it appears, long before that.
Those are two separate events on purpose. The first is enough to show your customer that the payment worked and stop them sending again; the second is the one to release goods against.
The threshold exists because a recently-added block can still be dropped if the network briefly disagrees about its own history. Depth is what makes that impractical, and the number belongs to the network rather than to us — it is shown on the supported networks page, generated from the running product.
Gas, and who pays it
Your customer pays the network fee — gas — on top of your amount, so you receive what you invoiced. Gas is priced by computation rather than by value, which means it does not scale with the payment: a large transfer costs the same as a small one.
It does scale with complexity, though. Moving a token like USDC touches a contract and costs noticeably more gas than moving Ether itself. Both are cheap when the network is quiet and both climb together when it is busy, so on a congested day a small invoice can cost real money to pay.
What this network carries
Two things, and the difference between them decides how your prices behave. Rendered from the live product rather than written here.
- ETHThe network’s own currency
- Moves against your local currency between quote and settlement, the same way Bitcoin does.
- USDCA dollar-denominated stablecoin
- This is the reason to price on Ethereum rather than elsewhere: the amount you invoice still means the same thing when it arrives.
Which customers this network fits
Worth it for
- Anything priced in dollars — a stablecoin holds the number you quoted.
- Payments that need to settle in minutes rather than the best part of an hour.
- Customers who already keep funds on Ethereum, which is most of them.
Better suited elsewhere
- Very small payments on a busy day, where gas is a real fraction of the amount.
- Anything needing sub-minute settlement; twelve-second blocks are fast, not instant.
- Customers whose funds sit on a chain we do not watch — see the warning below.
What to plan for
An Ethereum address is the same string on every EVM chain, so a customer can send to it on a network we are not watching. The address looks right, the transfer succeeds, and nothing ever arrives here. The hosted payment page names the network for exactly this reason, and it is worth repeating to your customers in your own words.
- Ether and a token are not interchangeable at the protocol level. An invoice for USDC is not settled by sending the equivalent in Ether, even to the correct address on the correct chain.
- Gas is set by demand for block space, not by anything we control. A quiet week and a busy one are different products from your customer’s point of view.
- Once confirmed a payment cannot be reversed by anyone, including us. That is the protection against chargebacks and the reason a mistaken send is gone.
Questions
How long does an Ethereum payment take to settle?
Seconds to appear and a few minutes to be treated as final — the exact depth is a per-network setting shown on the supported networks page, and twelve-second blocks make the wait predictable rather than an average. You can confirm receipt to the customer immediately and still hold physical goods until the confirmed event arrives.
Should I price in a stablecoin or in Ether?
In a stablecoin, almost always. An invoice denominated in Ether is a bet on Ether between the moment you quote it and the moment it settles, and that bet is not part of your business. Price in the stablecoin and the number you invoiced is the number that arrives.
Who pays gas, and does it come out of my payment?
Your customer pays it to the network, on top of the amount — it never comes out of what you invoiced, and none of it comes to us. What it costs depends on how busy Ethereum is and on what the transaction does, so moving a token costs more than moving Ether. Nobody can quote it accurately in advance.
What if a customer pays on the wrong EVM chain?
The funds went to your address on a chain we are not watching, so nothing is reported and the invoice stays unpaid. Whether they can be recovered depends on whether you control that address on that chain — often you do, because the same key works there, but it is a manual recovery and not something we can do for you. Preventing it is much cheaper: the payment page names the network, and it is worth saying again in your own checkout copy.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of these documents. Each was read on the date shown rather than recalled.
Watch it settle on Sepolia
Create an invoice on Ethereum’s test network, pay it, and watch detection and confirmation arrive as two separate events — the same pair you will build against in production.
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