Hedera Hashgraph’s testnet recently achieved a milestone of over 11,000 transactions per second (TPS), which far exceeds the typical single-digit TPS of the Hedera mainnet.
The surge in Hedera’s testnet TPS has left HBAR investors wondering what could be happening behind the scenes, with many wondering if the TPS gap means Hedera’s DeFi ecosystem is on the verge of rapid expansion thanks to new dApps.
Let’s take a look at the metrics and see if Hedera Hashgraph’s mainnet can see a strong uptick in TPS.
Why Hedera Hashgraph’s testnet TPS is high
Hedera’s testnet is processing and performing more transactions per second than the HBAR mainnet. After all, testnets are designed for experimentation and stress testing, not production-level security.
Hedera’s testnet can simulate thousands of nodes and transactions simultaneously without the overhead of actual settlement, finality, or security checks required by a mainnet like Hedera.
In addition to this, a blockchain’s testnet is often run with an optimized configuration that is not subject to the same constraints as the mainnet.
For example, the timing of consensus can be accelerated, fees can be generally waived or reduced below a minimum level, network participants do not need to spend physical HBAR tokens, and gas can be found at the tap.
All of these factors allow the testnet to reach incredible throughputs that, depending on Hedera’s DeFi situation, may not be immediately matched on the mainnet any time soon.
Are developers testing new dApps for the HBAR mainnet?
The spike in testnet TPS may suggest that developers are actively experimenting with new decentralized applications on Hedera, which is expected to launch on mainnet soon.
High TPS allows developers to test features like microtransactions, real-time gaming, DeFi protocols, and DEXs without risking real funds.
Hedera’s fast consensus and low latency make it attractive to projects that require high-speed processing, including trading platforms and tokenization use cases.
Testnet activity is a strong indicator of developer interest, but this does not automatically mean that Hedera DeFi is actively being tested and scheduled to launch on mainnet.
When testing a dApp for bottlenecks, it makes sense for the testnet to have a higher TPS than the mainnet as developers push the dApp to its limits with experiments. Once on mainnet, dApps can operate with a minimum TPS depending on the number of users.
If Hedera’s DeFi booms and millions of new accounts arrive on Hedera, the mainnet TPS could mirror a testnet benchmark for developers to experiment with.
Hedera’s ability to handle 11,000 TPS on testnet demonstrates the network’s potential for large-scale, high-speed, scalable applications.
Hashgraph consensus can scale to a level that can compete with other top networks. If developers successfully migrate their projects to mainnet, Hedera could see a surge in activity after users adopt their projects.
The current TPS on the testnet is a promising sign of HBAR’s technical capabilities, suggesting that a fast and active DeFi ecosystem could emerge in the future.