Throughput

Throughput is a measure of capacity: how many units of work a system processes in a set period. In computer networks it is the amount of data actually delivered per second; in payment systems and blockchains it usually means the number of transactions completed each second, often quoted as transactions per second (TPS). Throughput is different from latency, which is how long a single item takes to complete: a system can handle many transactions at once and still take a while to confirm each one. On a blockchain, throughput depends on factors such as block size, block time and how quickly nodes can verify transactions. Raising it often means demanding more powerful hardware, which can reduce decentralization, a tension described by the blockchain trilemma. Advertised peak figures can differ widely from the throughput a network sustains in practice.