Solana's Potential for High TPS and Future Upgrades

According to PANews, recent discussions have emerged around Solana's ability to achieve over 100,000 transactions per second (TPS) on its mainnet. This figure was reached by @cavemanloverboy under 'ideal conditions,' highlighting the network's potential rather than its typical performance.The experiment utilized a 'noop' (no operation) test program, which only performed basic signature verification without executing any computations or altering account states. Each transaction was only 200 bytes, significantly smaller than the usual 1kb+ transactions. This test measured the network and consensus layer's maximum throughput, not the application layer's actual processing capacity.A key factor in this experiment's success was the use of the Frankendancer validator client. This client is a hybrid test version of Jump Crypto's Firedancer validator, integrating high-performance components into the existing Solana validator. By employing high-frequency trading technology, the system's performance was enhanced through refined memory management and custom thread scheduling, achieving a 3-5 times performance boost.Despite the potential for high TPS, Solana's daily TPS remains around 3,000-4,000 due to several factors. Firstly, Solana's Proof of History (POH) consensus mechanism requires validators to continuously vote, occupying over 70% of block space and limiting capacity for regular transactions. Secondly, the ecosystem often experiences state competition, such as during new NFT or MEME releases, leading to a high rate of failed transactions. Lastly, arbitrage bots in the Solana ecosystem may send numerous invalid transactions, wasting resources.Upcoming upgrades, including the full deployment of Firedancer and the Alpenglow consensus upgrade, aim to address these issues systematically. Alpenglow will move voting transactions off-chain, freeing up 70% of space for regular transactions and reducing confirmation time to 150 milliseconds, enhancing the decentralized exchange (DEX) experience to be closer to centralized exchanges (CEX). Additionally, the local fee market will prevent network congestion caused by the popularity of individual programs.Firedancer not only improves performance but also introduces client diversity, similar to Ethereum's multiple clients like Geth and Nethermind, enhancing decentralization and reducing single-point node failures.The discussions around Solana's 100,000 TPS highlight confidence in the network's future upgrades and consensus protocol improvements. While some may view TPS as a competitive metric, understanding the experiment's implications offers valuable insights into Solana's potential advancements.