Transactions Per Second

What this measures

This chart shows Bitcoin’s on-chain throughput in transactions per second (tx/s). It is derived from the number of transactions confirmed each day, as published by Coin Metrics, divided by the 86,400 seconds in a day. It is therefore a daily average, not a live reading: transactions are confirmed in blocks, every 10 minutes on average, never as a continuous stream.

What throughput does not count

The metric counts transactions, not payments or users. An exchange can bundle withdrawals for dozens or even hundreds of customers into a single transaction, a practice known as batching. Conversely, a transaction may pay no one at all, for instance when a wallet consolidates its own UTXOs.

Throughput also depends on transaction size. Block capacity is measured in weight, not in number of transactions: a block filled with small transactions holds far more of them than one packed with heavy ones. The launch of the Runes protocol at the April 2024 halving sent the transaction count soaring without any change to the network’s capacity. Block weight and daily transactions round out the picture.

The order of magnitude to keep in mind: the base layer handles a handful of transactions per second on average. When demand outpaces that rate, transactions pile up in the mempool.

A base layer that is slow on purpose

This ceiling is not a technical flaw waiting to be fixed. By capping block capacity, Bitcoin keeps the cost of running a full node within reach of an ordinary computer and a home internet connection. A new node downloads and processes every block since the first one, in 2009, then every new block: the bigger they get, the more that work costs, and the more it ends up concentrated among a few well-equipped operators.

Running your own node means checking the rules yourself, without asking a third party whether you really received your bitcoin. It is the natural extension of self-custody.

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Comparing this throughput with Visa’s therefore makes little sense. The chain serves as a settlement layer. Frequent, low-value payments are meant to go through layers built on top, such as Lightning, which only touch the chain when channels are opened and closed.

That Bitcoin processes few transactions is not the problem. What matters is what that constraint implies: if usage grows, it will flow through those upper layers, and their trust models are not all as strong as the chain’s.