Solana’s transaction speed has been a hot topic ever since the theoretical top speed of 710,000 transactions-per-second was announced in its whitepaper.
Currently, Solana runs at an average of 3000 TPS. These transactions can be separated into failed transactions, successful transactions and further dissected into vote transactions and non-vote transactions.
Solana’s current transactions per second (TPS)
Successful Transactions
Successful transactions are transactions (including vote and non-vote transactions) that are successfully validated by validators. At SolanaFM, we consider successful transactions as finalized transactions that do not contain any transaction error. At the time of writing, we ascertained that Solana’s average successful TPS is approximately 2500.
Failed Transactions
Failed transactions are transactions that, of course, are unsuccessful due to the transaction errors.
(More about transaction errors here: https://docs.rs/solana-sdk/1.9.4/solana_sdk/transaction/enum.TransactionError.html)
At the time of writing, we ascertained that Solana’s average failed TPS is approximately 438.
We can confirm that the ratio of successful to failed transactions is approximately 5 to 1. However, how many of these transactions are vote or non vote transactions?
Vote Transactions
Vote transactions are transactions that involve a voting account (which is owned by a validator node). Vote transactions involve configuration, registration, vote collection and new vote signing.
(Read more about vote transactions here: https://docs.solana.com/cluster/vote-signing#validator-voting)
These transactions are critical to secure the network and the heart of the Solana ecosystem.
Non-Vote Transactions
Non-vote transactions involve transactions that do not interact with the vote program (Program Address: Vote111111111111111111111111111111111111111). These include transactions that interact with the Dapps built on Solana. At the time of writing, Solana’s average Non-Vote TPS is 759.
The ratio of Non-Vote to Vote Transactions as of 1 Jan 2022 is approximately 3 to 1. Hence, accordingly, 3/4 of Solana’s transactions are vote transactions.
In conclusion, the Transactions Per Second (TPS) tool of measurement in Solana involves several variables that are often overlooked by the general public. At SolanaFM, we dissected this tool of measurement and provided more detailed aspects of the transactions itself, providing you with specific metrics to scrupulously analyze Solana’s transactions in order to integrate it with your dapps or for your own analysis.
Track these metrics here: https://solana.fm/dashboards/transactions
