Bitcoin SV‘s (BSV) Scaling Test Network (STN) has broken records this week, processing over 9,000 transactions per second at one point on 26 January.
The STN surpassed its previous record of around 6,500 transactions per second, set in December 2019, disproving the notion that Bitcoin cannot scale on-chain.
It comes as digital currency continues to experience exponential growth and significant spikes in user engagement, as consumers continue to explore digital payment methods.
Furthermore, Brad Kristensen, STN Operations Manager, reaffirmed that whilst BSV mainnet has the capacity to handle similar transaction volumes, it currently lacks the demand.
“We have a few ideas on how to increase this further without code changes but will have to wait and see with some more testing,” he told CoinGeek.
”The performance improvements in 1.0.7 played a big role here. The care and dedication from the SV node team is second to none. The improved handling of chained transactions appears to be paying dividends. We still want to play around here a bit more, with the recent increase to support chains of 1,000 by default.”
“We have a lot of levels to test to find the optimum throughput, assuming our only goal is chasing peak tps. However, the sustained rate is more important I think and where the real power of BitCoin is. Sustained tps over long periods is where we hope to see continued repeatable gains in the year ahead.”
The network is now in its fourth iteration (aka v4, running since November 2020) and is on software version 1.0.7.
With more big data projects coming online in 2021 to test its limits with nanotransactions, the Bitcoin SV node team is looking to assist new projects and process large amounts of data on a blockchain that actually scales.
Kristensen continued: “The STN is our proving ground, we know mainnet could do it, because the STN can. It’s down to the miners to be ready to embrace Bitcoin at enterprise scale when that volume arrives. We hope that the STN not only can show it can be done but also offer guidance if needed to miners coming over from scale challenged chains.”
