Solana News Today: Solana Surpasses 100k TPS in Real-World Experiment Citing Upcoming Upgrades

Solana has officially cracked 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) on its mainnet, a milestone that has reignited discussions about the future of the blockchain’s “beta” label. The breakthrough was achieved on August 17, when a Solana engineer known as Cavey conducted a weekend experiment using a personal validator node dubbed "Cavey Cool." By flooding the network with no-op transactions—each consuming only one compute unit—Cavey pushed the network to a peak of 107,540 TPS, a record for mainnet operations [1].

While the experiment primarily utilized no-op transactions, the same block also included standard transactions such as token transfers and swaps, demonstrating the network’s ability to handle a mix of transaction types without significant lag [1]. This achievement has been hailed as a powerful proof of concept, reinforcing Solana’s reputation as a high-performance blockchain.

Cavey emphasized that the accomplishment is not just theoretical but fully replicable in real-world conditions. He stated that with upcoming network upgrades such as Alpenglow, p-token, and Firedancer, Solana is on track to significantly improve its scalability beyond the 100k TPS mark. According to Cavey, the p-token upgrade alone could enable the network to process up to 100,000 token transfers or 20,000 token swaps per second. These estimates do not yet factor in the scaling potential of the other proposed upgrades [1].

The broader Solana ecosystem has responded enthusiastically to the milestone. Social media commentary has increasingly called for the removal of the “beta” label from Solana’s official branding, a reference to the network’s status since its mainnet launch in 2021 [1]. However, Solana’s co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko has previously stated that the network will remain in beta until it eliminates single points of failure. Meanwhile, co-founder Raj Gokal has argued that the time has come to drop the label and move forward.

The p-token upgrade is currently undergoing review and is expected to be submitted for governance voting via SIMD-0266 in the coming months [1]. The implementation of these upgrades, particularly the expansion of validator clients through initiatives like Firedancer, is seen as critical to achieving the final steps toward full production readiness.

With the Solana network now proving capable of surpassing previously theoretical limits, industry observers are watching closely to see how quickly and effectively the chain can scale in real-world use cases. The removal of the beta label may soon follow, but it will depend on the network’s continued progress toward decentralization and reliability.

Source: [1] Solana cracks 100k TPS - Time to drop the beta tag? (https://solanafloor.com/zh/news/solana-cracks-100k-tps-time-drop-the-beta-tag)