ccording to SolanaFloor, the Solana core development team Anza disclosed that during last night’s large-scale cryptocurrency liquidation event, the Solana network endured its largest stress test to date. Despite extreme demand, the network reportedly peaked at 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) while remaining fully stable. The Agave validator client is said to have handled 6× peak traffic and processed 60 million compute units (CU) per block without signs of degradation.
What happened
- During a volatile session of liquidations in crypto markets, on-chain data showed a surge of transactions interacting with Solana.
- Anza, the Solana core dev team, noted this surge acted like a “stress test,” pushing the network to new thresholds.
- In that period, throughput hit ~100,000 TPS.
- The Agave validator client reportedly handled six times the usual peak traffic, and processed 60 million compute units per block, all without observable performance degradation or instability.
The announcement from Anza was posted on X (formerly Twitter) in a thread affirming the above performance metrics.
Significance & technical context
Throughput milestone
Solana has been experimenting with pushing its performance limits in past stress tests. In August 2025, independent tests briefly hit 107,540 TPS, although that was mostly driven by “noop” (no-operation) program calls intended for stress simulation rather than real transactions.
While the new claim centers on a real-time market stress event, it is still exceptional for any blockchain to remain stable under such load.
Compute units & protocol limits
Solana operates with a block compute unit cap (i.e., a limit on how many compute units a block may expend). The system currently constrains blocks to 60 million compute units (CUs) under Agave v2 configurations.
Anza’s claim that blocks sustained 60 million CUs during this stress event suggests full saturation of the limit without breaching or causing performance issues under real load.
Agave validator client performance
Agave is one of the validator clients used in the Solana ecosystem, and with recent versions (v2.x) has been optimized for higher throughput, including raising block compute unit capabilities.
While standard performance in normal conditions is lower than extreme ISP peaks, the stability during stress suggests robust handling of bottlenecks, memory, scheduling, and state transitions — important for network resilience.
In academic analyses, Agave’s performance is shown to be sensitive to memory and program cache sizing; performance degrades below certain resource thresholds.
Caveats & scrutiny
- Verification: The metrics come from SolanaFloor’s reporting and Anza’s statements. Independent block-level validation of a full 100k TPS sustained during a liquidation event is not yet broadly corroborated in public block explorers or third-party analytics (as of this writing).
- No-op vs real transactions: Past ultra-high TPS readings have often been achieved using “noop” transactions, which consume minimal compute units and do not change state. Such load tests stress signature verification or message routing rather than full smart contract execution.
- Block limit ceilings: The 60 million CU cap is both a performance ceiling and a safeguard. Exceeding that may cause validators to skip or propagate invalid blocks; hence, sustained operation at that cap is notable but also constrained by protocol rules.
- Propagation, latency & network trade-offs: Even if blocks are processed, larger blocks may stress network propagation times or validator synchronization; how the system manages latencies under that load is critical but less visible in public statements.
Implications & future outlook
- Network resilience & confidence
If validated, this event bolsters confidence that Solana can withstand massive demand spikes — whether during market volatility or DeFi surges — without downtime. - Pressure to revisit protocol limits
There has been growing discussion around removing or dynamically scaling the block compute unit limit (SIMD-0370) to allow blocks to grow based on validator hardware capability.
If real load consistently saturates the 60M CU cap, protocol evolution may accelerate. - Client & validator competition
Agave’s performance is under the spotlight, but rival clients (e.g. Firedancer via Jump Crypto) are pushing the envelope. Validator competition might tilt toward infrastructure efficiency, hardware upgrades, and client optimizations. - Ecosystem scaling expectations
High-stress benchmarks like these may reshape expectations for DeFi, gaming, NFT, or real-world usage scaling, especially for protocols expecting bursty loads.
Conclusion
According to SolanaFloor and Anza, the Solana network underwent its most demanding stress test yet during a high-volatility liquidation event, sustaining 100,000 TPS and full capacity of 60 million compute units per block, with Agave validators managing 6× traffic without performance loss. While the claims are technically impressive, they require external verification and deeper analysis of block-level data. Should these results hold, they represent a significant milestone in Solana’s performance narrative and may influence the future direction of protocol scalability and validator hardware evolution.
Disclaimer: This is a summary of reported performance claims. Readers should consult block explorers, validator metrics, and Solana’s official development channels for independent verification.
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