Blockchain Speed Is No Longer the Main Criterion for Blockchain Quality, According to Andreessen Horowitz

Analysts at Andreessen Horowitz, also known as a16z, believe that blockchain speed can no longer be the primary measure of a blockchain's viability. Instead, predictability takes center stage: users need to understand how the network will behave under overload, failures, and sudden spikes in activity.

Why Speed Alone Is Not Enough

For banks, asset issuers, and market makers, it is not just the ability of the network to process thousands of transactions per second that matters. If the actions of one participant can delay the processing of others' requests, such infrastructure is poorly suited for active trading, even with impressive Transactions per second (TPS) metrics.

For professional market participants, it is not record speed itself that is important, but the confidence that a request will be processed at a predictable moment and will not get stuck due to someone else's activity.

TPS indicates how many transactions the network can process in a second. For users, this is a matter of payment and request speed, while for developers, it serves as a benchmark for the load the application can handle.

Not long ago, throughput was considered one of the main indicators of progress. In the State of Crypto 2025 report, a16z analysts noted that over five years, the throughput of the largest blockchains increased more than 100 times.

The dynamics look like this:

• 5 years ago: about 25 transactions per second for the largest blockchains.
• 2025: over 3400 transactions per second.
• Now: some networks already claim tens of thousands of operations per second.

Transaction speed is influenced by block size, block time, network throughput, consensus algorithm, and current load. TPS shows the volume processed per second, block time indicates how often a new block appears, and finality is the moment after which a transaction cannot be reliably rolled back.

However, high speed alone does not answer the trader's main question: when exactly will their transaction be processed? For a regular payment, a one-second delay may be acceptable. For trading strategies in a volatile cryptocurrency market, such a pause is too long: sometimes the outcome of a deal is decided in milliseconds.

Predictability Is More Important Than TPS Records

As an example, analysts cite the order book operating on the blockchain. If a cancellation request comes too late, another participant may execute a deal at an already outdated price. Market makers factor this risk into their quotes and widen spreads. As a result, everyone suffers: prices become less favorable, and liquidity decreases.

This issue affects not only platforms for spot trading. Predictable transaction processing is necessary for decentralized finance, Web3 services, and applications based on smart contracts, where the contract must execute in a clear order. The same applies to stablecoin settlements, operations through cryptocurrency wallets, and scenarios where non-fungible tokens are transferred along with other assets.

In this sense, blockchains are already evaluated not only by performance metrics like TPS. Trust in the network is built on several factors:

• TPS, i.e., throughput;
• decentralization and absence of a single point of control;
• transparency of rules and operations;
• immutability of records after confirmation;
• resistance to manipulation;
• scalability;
• balance between speed, security, and decentralization — the blockchain trilemma.

Restrictions also remain: overload, weak decentralization, or a controversial order of transaction inclusion can undermine trust even in a fast network. Scaling helps increase transaction volume, but the more aggressively a network ramps up speed, the harder it is to maintain security and decentralization. This is particularly noticeable for networks like Bitcoin and Ethereum: architecture, consensus (computer science), proof of work, or proof of stake affect not only speed but also trust in the order of transaction inclusion. Bitcoin's low speed is related to block size, block time, proof of work, and the priority of security and decentralization.

Two Conditions for Reliable Ordering

According to a16z, the predictability of blockchain relies on two key properties:

• Guarantee of censorship resistance: a user must be able to send an order without dependence on a single operator who can influence the price or outcome of the transaction;
• Guarantee of transaction ordering: once in the network, a correct transaction must occupy a clear position relative to other requests and be included without artificial delays.

This is a stricter standard than simply demonstrating high throughput.

In practice, it is about the quality of the communication protocol and the rules by which nodes exchange data and reach a common state. It does not boil down to a low-level data link layer: what matters more is how the protocol limits the arbitrariness of the block creator and protects users during peak loads.

Strong Chain Quality as a New Benchmark

Analysts at a16z suggest viewing blockchains through the concept of Strong Chain Quality. Its essence is to provide participants guaranteed access to certain parts of each block and reduce the influence of individual block creators, as well as other participants in the process who may affect the order of transactions.

Such a model requires more complex protocols, but it gives the market what is lacking in the race for TPS: confidence that the operation will be processed even during network overload. For infrastructure that wants to compete with traditional payment systems like Visa Inc. and Mastercard while maintaining the open nature of the crypto market, not only speed metrics are important, but also technical and architectural limitations. This could become a more significant innovation than yet another speed record.

Previously, lawyers at Andreessen Horowitz urged U.S. authorities to soften their approach to airdrops. The company insisted that the free distribution of tokens should not automatically fall under securities regulation.