Transactions Per Second (TPS) Meaning

Transactions per second (TPS) is a benchmark used to compare the processing capacity of different payment systems and blockchains. It quantifies how many individual transactions a network can confirm in one second under optimal conditions.

For instance, Bitcoin averages around seven TPS due to its 10‑minute block times and block size limit, whereas some proof-of-stake or delegated proof-of-stake chains claim hundreds or thousands of TPS. Layer‑2 solutions like rollups can bundle transactions off-chain and post aggregated data back to the base layer, significantly increasing overall throughput.

While high TPS is attractive for applications like gaming, microtransactions, and high-frequency trading, it often comes at a cost to decentralisation or security.

Therefore, TPS should be considered alongside other metrics, such as finality time, node requirements, and network security assumptions, when evaluating blockchain scalability.