The Fastest Blockchain Processed 91M Transactions in a Single Day
Solana has established itself as the fastest of the major blockchains, achieving a daily average of 1,504 transactions per second (TPS) on April 6 this year during the meme coin surge. This performance makes Solana 46 times faster than Ethereum and over 5 times faster than Polygon, the leading Ethereum scaling solution.
However, despite this impressive speed, Solana has only reached 1.6% of its theoretical maximum capacity of 65,000 TPS.
Simultaneously, the rising volume of transactions has caused network congestion, and it remains uncertain how swiftly Solana will achieve higher real TPS following its forthcoming upgrades.
Non-EVM Blockchains Are Nearly Four Times Faster on Average Than EVMs
The second fastest blockchain among the non-EVMs is Sui, which achieved its highest real TPS of 854 in July 2023 as the on-chain game Sui 8192 gained popularity.
Other quick non-EVM blockchains include TON with 175 TPS and Near Protocol with 118 TPS. In contrast, some non-EVM blockchains have shown relatively lower real processing speeds, such as Aptos (49 TPS), Starknet (12 TPS), Bitcoin (11 TPS), and Thorchain (2 TPS).
Overall, the average peak TPS for the 8 large non-EVM blockchains stands at 284. In comparison, the 17 largest EVM and EVM-compatible blockchains average just 74 TPS, making the non-EVM blockchains 3.9 times faster than their EVM counterparts.
BSC & Polygon Lead As Fastest EVM Blockchains
On December 7, 2023, BNB Smart Chain (BSC) achieved 378 transactions per second (TPS) amid a surge in on-chain activity driven by inscriptions. This milestone makes BSC the fastest blockchain among Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) chains, although it ranks third overall, trailing behind Sui’s processing speed by more than half.
Similarly, the inscription craze boosted Polygon’s real TPS to 190 on November 16, 2023, making it the fastest among major Ethereum scaling solutions and 8.4 times faster than Ethereum itself. However, Polygon still lags behind the top three fastest blockchains.
This indicates that individual Ethereum scaling solutions and layer 2s have yet to surpass other layer 1s in terms of real processing speed. One reason might be the lower volume of on-chain transactions on these scaling solutions, leading to slower realized TPS.
Collectively, Ethereum and its ten largest scaling solutions registered a combined real TPS of 500, surpassing BSC but remaining slower than both Solana and Sui. Besides Polygon, the four other scaling solutions faster than Ethereum (23 TPS) are Arbitrum (59 TPS), Linea (56 TPS), Base (37 TPS), and Mantle (25 TPS).
Almost All the Real TPS Records Were Set in the Past 12 Months
Over the past year, 24 of the 25 blockchains achieved their peak real TPS, with Tron hitting its highest on June 12, 2023, and zkLink Nova reaching its peak most recently on May 13, 2024. Specifically, 12 blockchains recorded their highest real TPS in 2023, while another 12 did so in 2024. The sole exception was Thorchain, which reached its peak in May 2022.
This trend indicates a rise in on-chain activity, driven by increased inscriptions and meme coin speculation in recent months.
Top Blockchains’ Highest TPS
The largest blockchains, ranked from fastest to slowest based on all-time highest daily average TPS achieved:
Approach
This study focused on analyzing the processing speed of the largest blockchains. The top 30 blockchains were chosen based on their total value locked (TVL) ranking on DefiLlama as of May 15, 2024. Processing speed was measured in terms of actual or realized transactions per second (TPS), and the daily average TPS was used to obtain a standardized measure for as many chains as possible.
Consequently, the highest real TPS calculated here may differ from other calculations. TPS data was sourced from publicly available blockchain explorers and Dune Analytics. Blockchains with insufficient data were excluded from the study, specifically Hyperliquid, PulseChain, Kava, Cardano, and Rootstock.
I hope this analysis is helpful
