L1 and L2 are vying to claim ultra-high TPS. Is the demand really about speed?
Original Article Title: The Great TPS Lie: Crypto's Obsession With Solving Problems Nobody Has
Original Article Author: @therosieum, @tenprotocol Member
Original Article Translation: Diodeep
Editor's Note: The article criticizes the crypto industry's blind pursuit of high TPS (transactions per second), arguing that this race is based on false advertising and overlooks real user needs. Projects, in order to attract funding and attention, exaggerate lab data, sacrificing decentralization, security, and usability to solve often irrelevant problems. The author calls for a focus on genuinely meaningful blockchain applications, building according to actual use case scales, rather than chasing unrealistic digital fantasies.
The following is the original content (reorganized for ease of understanding):
Every week, a new L1 or L2 project goes live, claiming: "We can process 100,000 transactions per second!"
Sometimes it's 50,000 transactions, sometimes it's 1 million.
The exact number doesn't matter because it's all mostly nonsense.
The "Faster Than Thou" Race of Transaction Speed
The scalability war has devolved into crypto's most embarrassing showdown. Every new protocol must claim a higher TPS than the previous one, regardless of whether these speeds are:
· Achievable beyond their AWS testnet (spoiler: it's almost impossible)
· Meaningful for real-world applications
· Necessary for scenarios used by actual humans
This obsession with throughput is like the crypto world taking a Lamborghini for a joyride during rush hour. The problem isn't with the specs but with the context.
Talking About Real Data
Visa, the payment giant that processes transactions for billions of people globally, averages around 1,700 transactions per second. Their theoretical maximum is around 24,000 TPS, but they have never needed this capacity in decades of operation.
Meanwhile, most blockchain projects struggle to attract even 100 daily active users.
If your Discord emojis outnumber your on-chain transactions, you might be solving a problem that exists only in your imagination.
The Hidden Cost of Chasing "Blockchain Scalability Trilemma"
The obsession with theoretical throughput can lead to real-world issues that harm users.
Firstly, there is the disguised centralization: In pursuit of high TPS, decentralization is often sacrificed for the sake of a marketing number.
Secondly, there is security theater: Cutting corners in hasty scaling introduces vulnerabilities that will sooner or later be exploited.
Furthermore, there is engineering talent drain: Top talent is not building what users really need but instead is stuck optimizing synthetic benchmarks.
Lastly, there is blatant deception: Network propaganda's lab numbers crumble under real-world conditions.
The Unsettling Truth
There are two reasons for the obsession with extreme scalability:
· You need to sound tech-savvy to justify your $100M funding
· You desperately want your chain to stand out in a market of over 5000 blockchains
User needs are only an afterthought. The real game is to make retail investors believe you are the ultimate solution—VCs then act as the loudest KOLs for your TPS narrative.

Building Something Truly Meaningful
If you are really building something in this space, here's a reality check:
· Focus on building things only achievable with blockchain
· Design an economic model that doesn't require monthly rug pulls for user acquisition
· Create a user interface that doesn't make regular people want to smash their computers
· Build to the scale of actual use cases, not for the sake of a flashy pitch deck
Scalability Reality Check
Next time a project boasts about handling 500,000 TPS, ask them: "What are these transactions actually doing? Who is generating them? For what purpose?"
When they stutter about "future adoption" and "web3 social," you'll know the answer.
True innovation isn't theoretical performance in a vacuum; it's about building what people truly need and scaling appropriately to demand.
Everything else is just expensive performance art disguised as technology.
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The privacy-focused crypto wallet Mixin announced today the launch of its U-based perpetual contract (a derivative priced in USDT). Unlike traditional exchanges, Mixin has taken a new approach by "liberating" derivative trading from isolated matching engines and embedding it into the instant messaging environment.
Users can directly open positions within the app with leverage of up to 200x, while sharing positions, discussing strategies, and copy trading within private communities. Trading, social interaction, and asset management are integrated into the same interface.
Based on its non-custodial architecture, Mixin has eliminated friction from the traditional onboarding process, allowing users to participate in perpetual contract trading without identity verification.
The trading process has been streamlined into five steps:
· Choose the trading asset
· Select long or short
· Input position size and leverage
· Confirm order details
· Confirm and open the position
The interface provides real-time visualization of price, position, and profit and loss (PnL), allowing users to complete trades without switching between multiple modules.
Mixin has directly integrated social features into the derivative trading environment. Users can create private trading communities and interact around real-time positions:
· End-to-end encrypted private groups supporting up to 1024 members
· End-to-end encrypted voice communication
· One-click position sharing
· One-click trade copying
On the execution side, Mixin aggregates liquidity from multiple sources and accesses decentralized protocol and external market liquidity through a unified trading interface.
By combining social interaction with trade execution, Mixin enables users to collaborate, share, and execute trading strategies instantly within the same environment.
Mixin has also introduced a referral incentive system based on trading behavior:
· Users can join with an invite code
· Up to 60% of trading fees as referral rewards
· Incentive mechanism designed for long-term, sustainable earnings
This model aims to drive user-driven network expansion and organic growth.
Mixin's derivative transactions are built on top of its existing self-custody wallet infrastructure, with core features including:
· Separation of transaction account and asset storage
· User full control over assets
· Platform does not custody user funds
· Built-in privacy mechanisms to reduce data exposure
The system aims to strike a balance between transaction efficiency, asset security, and privacy protection.
Against the background of perpetual contracts becoming a mainstream trading tool, Mixin is exploring a different development direction by lowering barriers, enhancing social and privacy attributes.
The platform does not only view transactions as execution actions but positions them as a networked activity: transactions have social attributes, strategies can be shared, and relationships between individuals also become part of the financial system.
Mixin's design is based on a user-initiated, user-controlled model. The platform neither custodies assets nor executes transactions on behalf of users.
This model aligns with a statement issued by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 13, 2026, titled "Staff Statement on Whether Partial User Interface Used in Preparing Cryptocurrency Securities Transactions May Require Broker-Dealer Registration."
The statement indicates that, under the premise where transactions are entirely initiated and controlled by users, non-custodial service providers that offer neutral interfaces may not need to register as broker-dealers or exchanges.
Mixin is a decentralized, self-custodial privacy wallet designed to provide secure and efficient digital asset management services.
Its core capabilities include:
· Aggregation: integrating multi-chain assets and routing between different transaction paths to simplify user operations
· High liquidity access: connecting to various liquidity sources, including decentralized protocols and external markets
· Decentralization: achieving full user control over assets without relying on custodial intermediaries
· Privacy protection: safeguarding assets and data through MPC, CryptoNote, and end-to-end encrypted communication
Mixin has been in operation for over 8 years, supporting over 40 blockchains and more than 10,000 assets, with a global user base exceeding 10 million and an on-chain self-custodied asset scale of over $1 billion.

