Performance Tradeoffs

Alt L1 marketing often leads with transactions per second — six-figure claims on slide decks, single-digit seconds to finality in demos. Real performance depends on transaction type, network load, hardware specs, and whether anyone is measuring sustained load or a best-case benchmark.

Finality definitions differ too. Probabilistic finality — common in Nakamoto-style chains — treats a transaction as safe after enough confirmations. BFT chains like Tendermint-family networks offer single-block finality once two-thirds of validators sign, which is faster but assumes an honest supermajority at that moment.

Hardware requirements are the hidden line item. Solana validators expect enterprise-grade CPUs, large RAM, and high-bandwidth connections. That enables throughput but reduces the pool of independent operators. When evaluating performance claims, ask: measured how, under what load, with what hardware, and with how many validators participating?