The Waves team has recently undertaken a series of experiments to learn the true capacity of its blockchain – and the results are outstanding.
During load testing over 6.3 million transactions have been submitted to the Waves MainNet proving its throughput of more than 900 tx/sec with a transaction approval time of just seconds.
Throughput limits are a major issue in the blockchain space, and a factor frequently cited by critics. With many blockchains incapable of dealing with more than single-digit tx/sec, Waves has always prioritised scalability.
With Waves-NG launched almost a year ago now and refined over the course of 2018, team wanted to find out just how sustainable the network could be in its current form, and test how MainNet would behave if subjected to a dramatic increase in transaction volumes. With the blockchain operating under its regular load, testers added more than six million transactions and monitored the results.
Final results of the stress test are as follows:
- Test period: 24 hours
- Total transactions: 6,373,401
- 479,604 tx/hour (peak number)
- 12,176 tx/min (peak number)
- 911 tx/sec (peak number)
This enormous volume of transactions was processed without any disruption to the network’s regular load. None of the transactions being undertaken by ordinary users – DEX orders, transfers, token creation, etc. – saw any meaningful impact.
This test was made for research purposes. Waves team wanted to discover the limits of its blockchain and understand how to push them further if needed. In any case, there are always ways to improve blockchain capacity. Even if the blockchain reaches its current maximum throughput, the block size can be increased and certain protocol parameters can be changed to make it much faster.
About Waves
Waves is a global blockchain platform launched in 2016. Waves’ mission is to build a blockchain ecosystem that allows users to address a wide range of real-world problems. The Waves team is creating a blockchain infrastructure with easy-to-use tools for individuals, developers and businesses.
In April, 2017, Waves has successfully launched its DEX (decentralised exchange), a fast and safe tool for trading the most popular cryptocurrencies. In late 2017 Waves-NG protocol was activated, enabling unprecedented throughput of more than 100 TX/s, whilst reducing transaction confirmation times to just seconds.