What is Bitcoin TPS? An in-depth analysis of Bitcoin network performance, challenges, and the future

Imagine billions of users worldwide pressing the confirm payment button simultaneously, while the network backbone carrying all this can only handle 7 cars per second. This is the reality faced by the Bitcoin network—its transaction per second (TPS) is approximately only 7. This number is a core metric for measuring blockchain network speed and scalability, directly determining the network’s transaction processing capacity and future growth potential.

In comparison, traditional centralized payment systems like PayPal have a TPS of about 193, and the Visa network reaches up to 1,700 TPS.

01 The Speed Race of Blockchain: The Core Value and Measurement of TPS

In the cryptocurrency space, TPS is a key quantitative indicator of blockchain performance. It represents the maximum number of transactions a blockchain network can confirm and process within one second.

High TPS means the network can support higher transaction throughput, which directly translates to faster transaction confirmation speeds and lower network congestion for users. Especially during market volatility or surging transaction demand, a high TPS network can effectively prevent transaction delays and fee spikes.

However, TPS is not the only performance metric. Finality is equally crucial; it refers to the time it takes for a transaction to become irreversible after being confirmed by the network. For example, although Bitcoin’s TPS is low, it typically takes about 60 minutes of block confirmations for a transaction to reach finality, ensuring its security.

02 Bitcoin’s Trade-offs: The “Impossible Triangle” of Security, Decentralization, and Speed

Bitcoin’s TPS design directly reflects its core philosophy. Through complex mathematical calculations and distributed verification by global nodes, Bitcoin achieves unparalleled security and decentralization, but this sacrifices processing speed.

This choice leads to the famous “blockchain trilemma”: among scalability, security, and decentralization, it is difficult for any blockchain to excel in all three simultaneously. Usually, one must sacrifice one aspect to strengthen the other two. Bitcoin prioritizes security and decentralization.

Based on the TPS calculation formula: (block size / transaction size) / block interval, Bitcoin’s basic parameters were set early on. This limits its raw processing capacity on a single chain and creates a significant gap in efficiency when facing mature payment networks like Visa, which can process thousands of transactions per second.

03 The Real-World Impact of Performance Bottlenecks: Congestion, Fees, and User Experience

Bitcoin’s limited TPS causes significant issues during bull markets or periods of high network activity. When the number of pending transactions exceeds the network’s capacity, transaction queues build up.

The direct consequence of this congestion is that users need to pay higher transaction fees to incentivize miners to prioritize their transactions. Market data shows that during peak times, Bitcoin’s single transaction fee can exceed tens of dollars, which is costly for small payments or frequent transactions.

From a broader adoption perspective, the low TPS limits Bitcoin’s vision as “digital cash for everyday use.” While its narrative as “digital gold” as a store of value remains strong, the bottleneck in processing speed does impact its potential for wider commercial applications.

04 The Way Forward: Layer 2 Scaling Solutions and Future Outlook

Faced with limitations at the base layer, the Bitcoin community has not stagnated. Layer 2 solutions like the Lightning Network have become key to breaking through. Their principle is to establish a second-layer payment channel network on top of the Bitcoin main chain, allowing users to conduct unlimited, instant, and nearly fee-free transactions within channels, with final settlement on the main chain.

This is similar to using credit cards for daily spending, with a monthly reconciliation, greatly alleviating the pressure on the main chain. According to the latest industry observations from Gate platform, such off-chain scaling technologies are among the core innovative directions to address blockchain scalability challenges.

In addition, future technological upgrades, such as cautious adjustments to block size and optimization of signature algorithms, are also under continuous exploration, aiming to steadily improve overall network efficiency without compromising security.

05 Beyond Numbers: How to Conduct Efficient Transactions in the Current Ecosystem

For traders, understanding Bitcoin’s TPS is not only a technical knowledge but also of practical operational significance. During network congestion and high fees, choosing the right timing and setting reasonable transaction fees become especially important. Gate’s high-speed matching engine can provide users with instant order matching.

Given the inherent limitations of Bitcoin Layer 1, many users are also turning their attention to other high-throughput blockchain networks. For example, Gate Exchange offers a wide range of trading options across numerous high-performance public chains, supporting over 4,200 cryptocurrencies, including emerging networks like Solana with theoretically very high TPS.

Investors can conveniently build a diversified portfolio on Gate that includes Bitcoin (as a store of value) and other high TPS tokens (as application and transaction media). The platform’s GateToken plays an important role in the ecosystem. According to the latest data as of January 5, 2026, its price is $10.52. Notably, GateToken employs a deflationary model, having burned tokens worth over $35 million in the third quarter of 2025 alone to enhance its scarcity.

Future Outlook

While the Bitcoin network steadfastly guards the store of value with a speed of 7 transactions per second, Ethereum’s merge and sharding roadmap point toward a future of 100,000 TPS.

Meanwhile, innovative public chains like Solana are attempting to redefine blockchain speed boundaries with theoretical TPS in the hundreds of thousands. At the same time, platforms like Gate have incorporated hundreds of high-throughput public chain assets into their ecosystem, opening the door for users to access the next generation of blockchain applications.