Transactions Per Second (TPS)

Transactions per second, or TPS, is the headline measure of how many transactions a blockchain settles each second. It is calculated by dividing the transactions in a block by the average block time, so a chain producing blocks of 2,000 transactions every ten seconds would run at roughly 200 TPS. TPS figures are easy to misread. Marketing numbers often quote a laboratory maximum using the simplest possible transfers, or capacity that only exists while the network is otherwise idle, whereas smart contract activity consumes far more block space per transaction. It also matters whether the figure counts inclusion in a block or full finality. Compare sustained TPS observed on a block explorer rather than theoretical peaks.