One of the most common questions we get from development teams new to crypto payments is: which blockchain should we build on? The answer depends heavily on your use case, your users, and your regulatory context. This guide covers the tradeoffs we work through with every new client.
Start with Your Users
Before you think about technical tradeoffs, ask: where does your users money already live? If your target users hold assets primarily on Coinbase, they probably hold ETH and USDC on Ethereum or Base. If they are DeFi-native, they likely have assets spread across Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon. If they are primarily Bitcoin holders, Lightning is your answer for payments.
Building on a chain your users do not use means you are adding an asset bridging step to their journey. That step has friction, cost, and risk — and it kills conversion rates.
Ethereum Mainnet
Best for: High-value transactions, maximum composability, institutional clients, regulated businesses
Gas costs: $2-50 per transaction depending on complexity and network conditions
Settlement: ~12 seconds finality post-merge, practically instant
Ecosystem: The deepest liquidity, the most audited contracts, the widest wallet support
We recommend Ethereum mainnet for B2B payment applications where transaction values are high enough that gas costs are immaterial, and where composability with DeFi (lending, swapping, yield) is part of the product offering.
Polygon PoS
Best for: Consumer payments, gaming, frequent small transactions, emerging markets
Gas costs: Under $0.01 per transaction
Settlement: ~2 seconds
Ecosystem: Strong consumer wallet support, native USDC, broad exchange support
Polygon is our most commonly recommended chain for consumer payment applications. The combination of near-zero fees, fast settlement, and broad wallet support makes it practical for real-world retail and micropayment use cases.
Arbitrum and Optimism
Best for: DeFi-integrated payment products, teams that want Ethereum security with lower fees
Gas costs: $0.05-0.50 per transaction
Settlement: ~1-2 seconds (with ~7 day withdrawal window back to Ethereum)
Ecosystem: Strong DeFi protocols, growing consumer wallet support
Layer 2s are compelling if your product integrates tightly with DeFi — lending collateral, swapping between assets, yield on idle balances. The 7-day optimistic rollup withdrawal window is worth understanding for treasury management.
Solana
Best for: High-frequency payment streams, gaming economies, applications needing sub-second UX
Gas costs: Under $0.001 per transaction
Settlement: 400ms
Ecosystem: Strong but distinct from EVM — requires different tooling
Solana is a genuine engineering achievement. The performance is real and the ecosystem has recovered well from the FTX-driven crisis of 2022. We recommend it for specific high-throughput use cases, but teams should understand that it is a materially different development environment from EVM chains.
Base
Best for: Consumer applications, Coinbase user base, teams wanting OP Stack infrastructure
Gas costs: $0.01-0.10
Settlement: ~2 seconds
Ecosystem: Rapid growth, Coinbase distribution, native USDC
Base has grown faster than any chain we have tracked. If your target users include retail crypto holders in the US and Europe, Base deserves serious consideration in 2024.
Our Default Recommendation
If a client cannot decide and wants a defensible default, we suggest: Polygon for consumer payments, Ethereum or Arbitrum for B2B and DeFi-integrated products. Build chain-agnostic from the start using an abstraction layer, so you can add chains as your user base evolves without rewriting your payment logic.
Talk to our team about your specific chain selection decision.
Sarah Chen is CTO at KomiKey Technologies.
What is your view on Stellar for cross-border remittance specifically? We are looking at a payments corridor to West Africa where Stellar has meaningful local exchange support that Polygon does not.
The advice to build chain-agnostic from the start is good but I would add: define what chain-agnostic means concretely before you start. We thought we were chain-agnostic but had EVM assumptions baked into our address validation and transaction format handling. Adding Solana later was more work than expected.