Solana has shown itself to be the fastest among major blockchains, with its current daily average transactions per second (TPS) hitting a record high of 1,504 on Saturday, April 6, 2023, this year amidst the meme coin mania.
According to a recent update by CoinGecko, it processes a staggering 91 million transactions in a single day.
The blockchain’s speed is truly remarkable, surpassing Ethereum by a staggering 46 times and outpacing Polygon, the leading Ethereum scaling solution, by over 5 times in terms of TPS.
To determine the fastest blockchains, CoinGecko’s study analyzed the processing speed of the top 30 blockchains based on their total value locked (TVL) ranking on DefiLlama as of May 15, 2024. Processing speed was measured using the actual or realized transactions per second (TPS) metric, calculated as a daily average to ensure a standardized comparison across as many blockchains as possible.
CoinGecko claims the highest real TPS values reported in the study may differ from other calculations because these use daily averages. The TPS data was sourced from publicly available information provided by the respective blockchain explorers and Dune Analytics.
However, some blockchains, including Hyperliquid, PulseChain, Kava, Cardano, and Rootstock, were excluded from the study due to a lack of sufficient data.
Solana Attains A Speed Of 1.6% Of Its Maximum Capacity
Despite its position as the fastest blockchain, Solana has only achieved 1.6% of its theoretical maximum speed of 65,000 TPS.
The increase in transaction volume has caused network congestion, prompting inquiries into Solana’s ability to improve its real TPS following the implementation of upcoming upgrades.
Identified as the second-fastest blockchain in the report, Sui is another non-EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) platform.
Sui recorded its highest real TPS of 854 in July 2023, driven by the popularity of the on-chain game Sui 8192.
Other notable non-EVM blockchains include TON with 175 TPS and Near Protocol with 118 TPS.
At the lower end of the range, Aptos recorded a total of 49 transactions per second (TPS), while Starknet achieved 12 TPS. Bitcoin, on the other hand, managed to achieve 11 TPS, and Thorchain recorded a comparatively lower 2 TPS.
Non-EVM blockchains demonstrated superior performance compared to EVM and EVM-compatible blockchains, achieving an average peak TPS of 284, whereas the 17 largest EVM-based blockchains only managed an average of 74 TPS.
Binance Smart Chain (BSC) stood out as the fastest among the EVM blockchains, reaching a real TPS of 378 on December 7, 2023, driven by increased on-chain activity.
On November 16, 2023, Polygon, the prominent Ethereum scaling solution, accomplished a remarkable feat by achieving a transaction processing speed of 190 TPS. This impressive performance establishes Polygon as 8.4 times faster than Ethereum itself.
Ethereum Layer 2 Solutions Yet To Surpass Layer 1 Blockchains
The report suggests that Ethereum scaling solutions and layer 2 solutions still lag behind a different layer 1 blockchain in terms of actual processing speed.
The slower realized TPS for these blockchains can be attributed to the lower number of on-chain transactions on Ethereum scaling solutions.
Ethereum and its ten largest scaling solutions achieved a combined real TPS of 500, surpassing BSC but still falling behind Solana and Sui.
Other scaling solutions that outpaced Ethereum in terms of TPS include Arbitrum (59 TPS), Linea (56 TPS), Base (37 TPS), and Mantle (25 TPS).
Over the past year, 24 out of the 25 blockchains analyzed experienced their highest real TPS, with activity levels reaching new heights.
The increase can be linked to the growth of NFTs and speculation on meme coins, leading to a rise in on-chain transactions.
According to reports, the cryptocurrency market has experienced the introduction of more than 1 million fresh tokens since the start of April.
Ethereum and Solana have emerged as key players in this surge of tokens, with Ethereum accommodating over 370,000 new tokens and Solana proudly presenting a staggering 640,000 new tokens, predominantly comprising meme coins.
