Solana Shatters Records: 100,000+ TPS Achieved in Groundbreaking Mainnet Test
Solana just flexed its scaling muscles—hard. The blockchain hit a staggering 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) during a weekend mainnet stress test, leaving legacy networks eating dust.
Speed demon or smoke and mirrors? While Ethereum maxes out at ~30 TPS (after years of 'scaling solutions'), Solana’s test proves raw throughput isn’t just theoretical. Validators kept pace without collapsing—a subtle middle finger to the 'high TPS = centralization' crowd.
Of course, Wall Street will dismiss this as 'crypto hype'… right before quietly allocating another billion to blockchain infra funds. The test didn’t include smart contract complexity, but let’s be real—neither do 90% of TradFi settlement systems.
One question remains: When adoption meets this throughput, will Solana become the Visa of Web3… or just another chain waiting for its 'Killer App' to show up?
Solana Hits Six-Figure TPS
Most of the surge came from no-operation, or “noop,” program calls, which are minimal instructions that leave blockchain data unchanged. While these transactions help stress-test Solana’s processing limits, the resulting high TPS numbers do not mean routine network behavior or typical user activity.
According to Mumtaz, noop transactions are not entirely free of network burden. Although the compute units (CUs) are low, Solana must process signature verifications, data loading, and other overhead tasks. These factors make such transactions more similar to inexpensive Oracle updates than irrelevant spam.
He also highlighted that the blockchain’s design could theoretically handle steady throughput between 80,000 and 100,000 TPS for genuine operations, including token transfers and oracle updates, under optimal conditions.
Despite the weekend spike, Solana’s everyday throughput remains far lower. In fact, on-chain data from Solscan shows an average of roughly 3,700 TPS. It is important to note that about two-thirds of this figure consists of validator vote transactions required for consensus, which inflate the total.
Meanwhile, effective transaction throughput for typical payment or application operations is estimated at around 1,000 TPS.
SOL Trajectory And Institutional Appetite
On the price side of things, SOL has been facing significant resistance around $200. The crypto asset fell by almost 5% over the past 24 hours and is trading near $183.
Institutional demand, however, remained intact. As recently reported by CryptoPotato, four publicly traded companies – Upexi, DeFi Developments Corp, SOL Strategies, and Torrent Capital – collectively hold over 3.5 million tokens. Their combined stake accounts for roughly 0.65% of the circulating supply.
Holdings have grown through both rapid accumulation and steady dollar-cost averaging, with some positions benefiting from staking rewards.
