Psy Protocol Achieves 521,000 TPS on a Live Proof-of-Work Network and Offers a $100,000 Bounty to Anyone Who Can Prove the Result False
- Core Insight: Psy Protocol announced that its PoW network achieved 521,000 TPS in a real-world test, claiming this result surpasses the public benchmarks of existing mainstream blockchains without sacrificing decentralization, security, or privacy. The goal is to provide infrastructure for a future machine-native economy.
- Key Elements:
- The test was conducted on thousands of Google Cloud instances, simulating a high-concurrency environment. All transactions are supported by cryptographic proofs, and the complete dataset has been open-sourced for independent verification.
- The team has established a $100,000 bounty, rewarding any individual or team that can prove its throughput results invalid based on the public materials, demonstrating confidence in the verifiability of the results.
- The core of its high-throughput architecture lies in parallel state, client-side proof generation, recursive zero-knowledge proofs, and horizontal scaling, aiming to eliminate bottlenecks caused by global state contention and redundant computation in traditional blockchains.
- The verification process relies on succinct recursive proofs, which the team claims can be completed on consumer-grade hardware like a Raspberry Pi, lowering the barrier for independent verification.
- This performance is designed to support future high-frequency transaction scenarios driven by autonomous AI agents, such as micropayments, real-time settlement markets, and large-scale AI coordination, to meet machine-level transaction demands.
- Psy Protocol employs a "useful proof-of-work" consensus, where miners' work involves aggregating and verifying zero-knowledge proofs, rather than traditional hash computations.
Hong Kong | February 11, 2026 — Psy Protocol announced today that it has achieved 521,000 transactions per second (TPS) within a real, operational, and on-chain verifiable Proof-of-Work network. The team stated that this result surpasses all publicly benchmarked performances of mainstream Proof-of-Stake and Proof-of-Work chains to date, without sacrificing decentralization, security, or privacy.
This stress test was conducted on thousands of Google Cloud instances to simulate a high-concurrency, internet-scale operating environment. Every transaction in the benchmark is backed by cryptographic proof, and the complete dataset has been published for independent verification.
To demonstrate confidence in the results, Psy Protocol has publicly established a $100,000 (US$100,000) bounty, rewarding any individual or team that can prove the invalidity of this throughput result based on the published proof materials.
"This is not a devnet demo, nor a theoretical projection," said Carter Feldman, Founder and CEO of Psy Protocol. "Every result is verifiable. If we are wrong, the math will prove it—and we will pay $100,000 to the person who proves it."
Why 521,000 TPS Matters Now
High-throughput benchmarks are not uncommon in the crypto industry. Psy Protocol believes this result is structurally significant, with the key being the context of its intended use case.
Blockchains were initially designed around human transaction patterns: sporadic activities, manual approvals, and low concurrency. However, as millions of autonomous AI agents in the future continuously transact, collaborate, and settle at machine speed, this model is becoming increasingly mismatched.
When networks designed for human-scale usage encounter sustained machine-level demand, the result is often network congestion, soaring fees, and cascading bottlenecks. Psy Protocol views 521,000 TPS as the "baseline" infrastructure required for a machine-native economy, not a performance ceiling.
How the Architecture Works
Most blockchains require every node to re-execute every transaction, a design that imposes a hard architectural ceiling on throughput. Psy Protocol removes this bottleneck through four coordinated design choices:
- Parallel State Architecture (PARTH): Each user operates within isolated state partitions. This eliminates global state contention, allowing thousands of state transitions to be processed simultaneously without conflict.
- Client-Side Proof Generation: Transaction execution and proof generation are completed on the user's device, with sensitive data always under the user's control. Miners are only responsible for verifying and aggregating proofs, not re-executing transactions, thereby eliminating redundant computation across the entire network.
- Recursive Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Individual transaction proofs are recursively folded into a single succinct proof per block. As transaction volume grows, verification costs increase logarithmically, not linearly, meaning significant throughput gains do not require proportionally more verification resources.
- Horizontal Scaling via Realms: The network scales by adding parallel processing domains ("Realms") and proof aggregation capacity. Throughput increases linearly with added infrastructure, not being limited by a fixed architectural ceiling.
Psy Protocol stated that 521,000 TPS reflects the result under the current test configuration; higher throughput can be achieved by scaling parallel proof generation capacity.
Verification Method: Open Data, Verifiable on Consumer Hardware
Because verification relies on succinct recursive proofs rather than full re-execution, Psy Protocol states that any combined proof from the benchmark can be independently verified on consumer-grade hardware—including limited-performance devices like a Raspberry Pi.
The complete testing methodology, ZK circuit data, and combined proofs have all been open-sourced. Access them at:
Feasible Applications at This Scale
Under conditions of sustained throughput exceeding 500,000 TPS, the following new types of on-chain activities become feasible:
- High-frequency micropayments between autonomous agents
- Continuous clearing markets with real-time settlement replacing discrete batch settlement
- High-density coordination among large-scale AI agent swarms operating without human intervention
- Keyless agent operation via programmable signature circuits, eliminating reliance on human-controlled private keys or third-party custody
About Psy Protocol
Psy Protocol is building a Proof-of-Work smart contract platform for the "agentic internet." Its architecture combines the security and decentralization advantages of Proof-of-Work with the throughput and fee efficiency historically associated with Proof-of-Stake systems. Psy employs a "Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW)" consensus model, where miners perform cryptographically productive work—namely, aggregating and verifying zero-knowledge proofs—rather than arbitrary hash puzzle calculations.
