Solana hits over 100,000 transactions per second in stress test

Over the weekend, Solana, a blockchain network known for its speed, experienced a significant spike in activity, briefly achieving more than 100,000 transactions per second on its mainnet. This surge was driven primarily by no-operation, or 'noop,' program calls, which are lightweight instructions required in each transaction that do not alter the state of the network but serve to test its limits. Critics of the network have noted that such spikes in transactions can be seen as artificial, arguing that they do not accurately reflect the actual capability or intended use of the blockchain. Nevertheless, Mert Mumtaz, the CEO of Helius, provided insights into the implications of this transaction load. He mentioned that the costs to the network, while low in terms of execution compute units, are not negligible, as they also factor in overheads such as signature verification and data loading. This indicates that the activities are not merely irrelevant spam, but carry a cost comparable to a low-cost oracle update, potentially affecting the network's performance. By Monday morning, the actual user-facing throughput considerably decreased to an average of 3,500 transactions per second, predominantly due to validator vote transactions. Analysis from popular on-chain trackers, like Solscan and Chainspect, reveals that payments and application throughputs were running at about 1,000 transactions per second. Despite the post-spike decrease in transactions, the network's ability to handle peak loads underlined Solana's theoretical capacity to sustain between 80,000 and 100,000 transactions per second during real operations, including transfers and oracle updates. This high potential throughput continues to enhance the appeal of the network's SOL token among investors and users alike.