Sui processed 40,614,180 transactions per second in a live stress test at Sui Basecamp in Singapore on October 7, 2026. The figure, verified in real time by Web3 security firm CertiK, represents a 6.7x increase over Sui's own prior record of 6,086,766 TPS set on July 4, 2026. The throughput was a...
"Economic activity is shifting from people clicking checkout buttons to agents transacting on their behalf, continuously and at machine speed." — Adeniyi Abiodun, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer, Mysten Labs
Sui processed 40,614,180 transactions per second in a live stress test at Sui Basecamp in Singapore on October 7, 2026. The figure, verified in real time by Web3 security firm CertiK, represents a 6.7x increase over Sui's own prior record of 6,086,766 TPS set on July 4, 2026. The throughput was achieved using "Sui tunnels" — programmable offchain state channels that settle final states to mainnet — not through base-layer validator processing.
The distinction matters. The 40.6 million TPS number does not represent conventional on-chain transaction processing. Intermediate activity ran offchain, with only opening and closing channel states committed to Sui's base layer. This architecture is functionally analogous to Bitcoin's Lightning Network, though Sui's implementation supports programmable state beyond simple payments. The market registered the event with indifference: SUI fell 6.5% in the 24 hours following the announcement, trading near $1.12, and has since declined to $1.035 as of October 13.
On October 7, 2026, at Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, Mysten Labs conducted a live throughput demonstration during Sui Basecamp, the network's annual developer conference held alongside TOKEN2049. The test used over 10,000 mainnet channels simultaneously, processing simulated AI agent activity across payments, gaming, and messaging applications.
Participants opened tunnels using Gmail-based zkLogin authentication. Gas was fully sponsored, meaning no participant needed to hold SUI tokens. The test peaked at 40,614,180 TPS before channels were closed and final states settled to Sui mainnet. The demonstration was led by Adeniyi Abiodun, Mysten Labs' Co-Founder and CPO, who framed the exercise around machine-to-machine payment infrastructure for autonomous agents.
For comparison, Sui's prior record of 6,086,766 TPS was set during a July 4, 2026 livestream event that also involved AI agent simulations. The October figure represents a nearly sevenfold increase achieved roughly three months later.
Sui tunnels are programmable offchain state channels. They function by:
The architecture is structurally similar to Bitcoin's Lightning Network, which processes millions of daily transactions through offchain payment channels. The key difference is programmability: Lightning channels handle BTC value transfers, while Sui tunnels support arbitrary programmable state — enabling use cases beyond payments, including messaging, gaming, and autonomous agent interactions.
Sui's object model and parallel execution engine underpin the channel design. Programmable transaction blocks on Sui carry up to 1,024 operations that execute atomically, and independent actions run without collisions. This allows thousands of tunnels to open and close concurrently without contention at the base layer.
The economic implication is direct: tunnels reduce the cost of high-frequency interactions to approximately two on-chain transactions regardless of how many offchain exchanges occur between opening and closing.
The 40.6 million TPS figure requires careful interpretation. The throughput was not achieved through base-layer validator consensus processing. The vast majority of transactions occurred offchain, with Sui mainnet only recording channel openings and closings.
This makes direct comparisons to other chains' base-layer TPS misleading:
| Network | Metric | Type | |---------|--------|------| | Sui tunnels | 40,614,180 TPS | Offchain channels settled on-chain | | Sui base layer | ~297,000 peak TPS (theoretical) | On-chain validator processing | | Solana | 1,000–4,000 TPS sustained, 6,284 peak | On-chain base layer | | Ethereum L1 | 15–30 TPS | On-chain base layer | | Ethereum L2s | Up to 40,000+ TPS (theoretical) | Rollup execution settled on L1 |
The Sui tunnels figure is more comparable to Lightning Network throughput than to Solana or Ethereum base-layer metrics. According to Sui's own documentation, the number reflects "the highest verified throughput settled to a blockchain," which is technically accurate — the final states were settled on Sui mainnet — but the intermediate processing happened entirely offchain.
As one analyst noted in coverage from TokenPost, the reported throughput "does not represent 40 million conventional transactions processed directly by Sui validators. It is a technical milestone, but on its own it does not prove lower costs, faster real-world settlement, or commercial adoption."
CertiK, a Web3 security firm that has worked with over 5,500 enterprise clients, served as the independent evaluator for the stress test. CertiK verified the 40.6 million TPS figure in real time during the event.
However, at the time of publication, CertiK's formal review — which will examine proofs, execution logs, journals, and supporting evidence — has not yet been published. The absence of a complete post-hoc audit report leaves several questions open:
Until CertiK's full report is published, the 40.6 million TPS figure carries an asterisk.
Despite the headline-grabbing throughput demonstration, Sui's on-chain activity and market metrics tell a more measured story.
Market Data (October 13, 2026):
Network Activity:
Stablecoin Ecosystem:
The TVL decline from $2.6 billion to approximately $530 million represents a 79.6% drawdown, tracking the broader alt-L1 risk-off rotation. SUI's pre-Basecamp rally of 21.9% in the week prior to October 7 was fully reversed by October 13, with the token settling at $1.035 — below pre-rally levels.
Sui Basecamp 2026 was themed around "the agentic economy" — infrastructure for autonomous AI agents executing transactions at machine speed. Beyond the TPS demonstration, several ecosystem developments were highlighted:
The throughput demonstration occurred against a backdrop of ongoing centralization criticism. According to publicly available data, over 84% of staked SUI supply is held by founders and insiders. This concentration became politically charged earlier in 2026 when Sui validators froze transactions following a $220 million hack, prompting critics to argue the freeze demonstrated centralized database-level control rather than decentralized consensus.
Sui ecosystem participants have characterized the freeze mechanism as an "emergency brake," not evidence of hierarchical control. Nonetheless, the concentration of staked tokens raises governance questions that are separate from — but not irrelevant to — the network's technical throughput capabilities.
The cumulative number of active addresses has passed 228 million since launch, and CME Group listed SUI futures in 2026, alongside three U.S. staking ETFs. These institutional integrations suggest growing market access, though daily active addresses of ~121,000 indicate that engagement depth remains limited relative to the cumulative figure.
Sui's 40.6 million TPS demonstration is a legitimate engineering achievement for offchain channel infrastructure. The architecture — programmable state channels settling to a high-throughput base layer — addresses a real design problem for machine-to-machine payment systems and autonomous agent economies.
However, the number requires context that was largely absent from the event's presentation. Offchain TPS is not equivalent to base-layer TPS. A controlled stress test with sponsored gas and cooperative participants is not equivalent to adversarial production conditions. And a throughput benchmark does not, by itself, translate to user adoption, protocol revenue, or economic value creation.
The market's response — a 6.5% sell-off on announcement day, declining to $1.035 by October 13 — suggests that participants are evaluating Sui on fundamentals rather than headlines. With TVL at $530 million (down from $2.6 billion), daily active addresses at ~121,000, and founder stake concentration at 84%, the gap between Sui's technical ambition and its current economic footprint remains wide.
The Samsung Wallet integration and $488 million stablecoin ecosystem may prove more consequential for Sui's trajectory than any TPS figure. Infrastructure that enables 40 million offchain operations per second is only as valuable as the economic activity that flows through it.