- Sui and ICP top blockchain speed charts with over 3,700 TPS in August rankings.
- Legacy chains like Bitcoin and Ethereum trail far behind in TPS and block times.
- High speed doesn’t equal adoption as Sui and ICP show low active address counts.
A new blockchain performance report published August 6 by Phoenix Group shows large speed disparities across major blockchain networks, with Sui and Internet Computer Protocol (ICP) recording the highest average transactions per second (TPS) over the past month. The two networks outpaced other contenders, marking a lead in throughput metrics among both established and emerging chains.
According to the data, Sui led the rankings with an average of 3,900 TPS, followed closely by ICP with 3,700 TPS. The performance gap between these two and other networks was large. The third-highest performer, Base, registered an average of just 105.3 TPS, while Solana and BNB Chain followed with 92.1 and a lower but unspecified figure, respectively.
Sui and ICP also posted favorable block finality times, with Sui averaging 398 milliseconds and ICP at 480 milliseconds. These numbers suggest rapid transaction settlement compared to longer finality times seen on traditional networks. By comparison, Bitcoin recorded an average block time of 10 minutes, and Ethereum followed at 12 seconds.
Legacy Networks Lag Behind in Speed
Despite their prominence, older blockchain platforms placed lower in the speed rankings. Ethereum recorded 11.3 TPS on average, while Avalanche, Cardano, and Bitcoin ranged between 11.2 and 4.4 TPS. Bitcoin’s 4.4 TPS marked the lowest among the listed networks, underscoring the trade-off between decentralization and scalability that often characterizes early blockchain designs.
The rankings included a wide range of blockchain ecosystems, from newer networks like Base and Injective to longer-established chains such as Tron and Polygon. Each showed varying performance levels, highlighting the diversity of technical architectures and transaction handling approaches across the industry.
Address Activity Highlights Adoption Gaps
While Sui and ICP displayed top-tier speed metrics, both recorded low active address counts. Sui logged 65.9 thousand active addresses, and ICP had 31.3 thousand. In contrast, BNB Chain led with 45.6 million, followed by Solana with 16.1 million. Ethereum showed 1.4 million active addresses, while Bitcoin registered 840 thousand.
The numbers imply that the user adoption rates on Sui and ICP are not high but their rates of processing are high. This difference in the level of activity indicates continuing concerns of how best to convert performance advantages into general usage.
The report also highlights that transaction speed is not the sole determinant of establishing a blockchain in accordance with its broader usage or usability. Despite the dominance of Sui and ICP in TPS, there are greater users in the lower speed networks.
