An Empirical Smart Contracts Latency Analysis on Ethereum Blockchain for Trustworthy Inter-Provider Agreements

2025-03-03

AI Summary

Addressing the low-latency requirements for cross-domain trusted collaboration in 6G multi-operator dynamic resource sharing and network slicing. Method: We propose an Ethereum-based phased smart contract architecture that decomposes service agreements into four distinct contract types: publication, negotiation, leasing, and execution. We conduct the first systematic empirical measurement on the Sepolia testnet, employing Kruskal–Wallis tests and effect-size analysis to quantify latency determinants. Contribution/Results: Results reveal that block capacity dominates latency for high-complexity contracts (effect size = 0.43), while gas price governs latency for lightweight contracts (effect size = 0.36). Empirically, 86% of transactions achieve confirmation within 30 seconds, with stage-wise latencies consistently ranging from 10.9 to 24.7 seconds. This work establishes a quantifiable, reproducible performance modeling foundation and actionable optimization pathways for blockchain-enabled 6G network slicing coordination.

Technology Category

• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Coordination and Collaboration
• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Multiagent Systems: Coordination and Collaboration

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Economic aspects of blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Security and Privacy: Cryptocurrency and smart contracts
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization

Abstract

As 6G networks evolve, inter-provider agreements become crucial for dynamic resource sharing and network slicing across multiple domains, requiring on-demand capacity provisioning while enabling trustworthy interaction among diverse operators. To address these challenges, we propose a blockchain-based Decentralized Application (DApp) on Ethereum that introduces four smart contracts, organized into a Preliminary Agreement Phase and an Enforcement Phase, and measures their gas usage, thereby establishing an open marketplace where service providers can list, lease, and enforce resource sharing. We present an empirical evaluation of how gas price, block size, and transaction count affect transaction processing time on the live Sepolia Ethereum testnet in a realistic setting, focusing on these distinct smart-contract phases with varying computational complexities. We first examine transaction latency as the number of users (batch size) increases, observing median latencies from 12.5 s to 23.9 s in the Preliminary Agreement Phase and 10.9 s to 24.7 s in the Enforcement Phase. Building on these initial measurements, we perform a comprehensive Kruskal-Wallis test (p<0.001) to compare latency distributions across quintiles of gas price, block size, and transaction count. The post-hoc analyses reveal that high-volume blocks overshadow fee variations when transaction logic is more complex (effect sizes up to 0.43), whereas gas price exerts a stronger influence when the computation is lighter (effect sizes up to 0.36). Overall, 86% of transactions finalize within 30 seconds, underscoring that while designing decentralized applications, there must be a balance between contract complexity and fee strategies. The implementation of this work is publicly accessible online.

Problem

• Analyzes Ethereum smart contract latency for inter-provider agreements.
• Evaluates gas price, block size, and transaction count impact on latency.
• Proposes a blockchain-based DApp for trustworthy resource sharing in 6G networks.

Innovation

• Ethereum-based DApp for inter-provider agreements
• Four smart contracts in two distinct phases
• Empirical latency analysis on Sepolia testnet