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 results are invalid.

Hong Kong | February 11, 2026 — Psy Protocol announced today that it has achieved 521,000 transactions per second (TPS) on a live, on-chain verifiable proof-of-work (PoW) network. The team states that this result surpasses all publicly benchmarked mainstream proof-of-stake (PoS) and proof-of-work chains without sacrificing decentralization, security, or privacy.

The stress test was conducted across thousands of Google Cloud instances to simulate high concurrency and internet-scale operation environments. Each transaction in the benchmark includes cryptographic proofs, and the complete dataset has been published for independent verification.

To demonstrate confidence in the results, Psy Protocol has publicly set a $100,000 USD bounty, rewarding anyone who can, based on the published proof materials, demonstrate that the throughput result is invalid.

“This is not a testnet demo or a theoretical calculation,” said Carter Feldman, founder and CEO of Psy Protocol. “Every result can be verified. If we are wrong, mathematics will prove it—and we will pay $100,000 to whoever can prove it.”

Why 521,000 TPS Matters Today

High throughput benchmarks are not uncommon in the crypto industry. Psy Protocol believes this result is structurally significant, especially considering the intended use cases.

Blockchain was originally designed around human transaction patterns: sporadic activities, manual approvals, and lower concurrency. However, as millions of autonomous AI agents continuously transact, collaborate, and settle at machine speed, this model is becoming increasingly mismatched.

When networks designed for human-scale use encounter persistent machine-level demands, the typical outcomes are network congestion, soaring fees, and cascading bottlenecks. Psy Protocol views 521,000 TPS as a “baseline” infrastructure needed for machine-native economies, not a performance ceiling.

How the Architecture Works

Most blockchains require each node to re-execute every transaction, which inherently caps 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 conflicts.

Client-Side Proof Generation: Transaction execution and proof creation happen on user devices, keeping sensitive data under user control. Miners only verify and aggregate proofs, avoiding redundant computation across the network.

Recursive Zero-Knowledge Proofs: Proofs for individual transactions are recursively folded into a succinct proof for each block. As transaction volume grows, verification costs increase logarithmically rather than linearly, enabling significant throughput increases without proportional increases in verification resources.

Horizontal Scaling via Realms: The network scales by adding parallel processing domains (“Realms”) and proof aggregation capabilities. Throughput scales linearly with infrastructure expansion, not limited by fixed architectural caps.

Psy Protocol states that the 521,000 TPS figure reflects the current test configuration; further scaling of parallel proof generation can achieve even higher throughput.

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 proof combination in the benchmark can be independently verified on consumer-grade hardware—including devices with limited performance, such as Raspberry Pi.

All test methods, ZK circuit data, and composable proofs have been open-sourced and are available at:

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Feasible Applications at This Scale

With sustained throughput exceeding 500,000 TPS, new on-chain activity types become feasible, including:

High-frequency micro-payments between autonomous agents

Real-time settlement replacing discrete batch clearing in continuous markets

High-density collaboration among large groups of AI agents operating without human intervention

Zero-knowledge proof circuits enabling trustless proxy operation without private keys, 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 aimed at an “agentic internet.” Its architecture combines the security and decentralization advantages of proof-of-work with throughput and cost efficiency traditionally associated with proof-of-stake systems. Psy employs a “Proof-of-Useful-Work (PoUW)” consensus model, where miners perform cryptographically productive work—aggregating and verifying zero-knowledge proofs—instead of arbitrary hash puzzle calculations.