AnswersPublished20 sources
Why does a16z crypto argue that blockchain networks have largely solved raw throughput—aggregate capacity rising from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, with some chains claiming tens of thousands—and should now prioritize execution fairness throug
a16z crypto’s core argument is that capacity is no longer the binding constraint: major networks’ aggregate throughput grew from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, while some production systems claim tens of The next obstacle to credible on chain markets is execution quality—knowing t...
Published byImages generated with GPT Image 2
Research answer
Key takeaways
- a16z crypto’s core argument is that capacity is no longer the binding constraint: major networks’ aggregate throughput grew from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, while some production systems claim tens of
- The next obstacle to credible on chain markets is execution quality—knowing that a valid order will be included promptly and sequenced by rules that cannot be opportunistically changed.
- [1] Why fairness now matters: A high TPS figure does not guarantee an executable quote.
- If a trader cannot predict whether an order will land, when, or ahead of which competing orders, displayed prices can become stale before execution.
AI Prompt
openai.comCreate a landscape editorial hero image for this Studio Global article: Why does a16z crypto argue that blockchain networks have largely solved raw throughput—aggregate capacity rising from under 25 to more than. Article summary: a16z crypto’s core argument is that capacity is no longer the binding constraint: major networks’ aggregate throughput grew from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, while some production sy. Topic tags: general web, prompt engineering, automation, productivity, code. Style: premium digital editorial illustration, source-backed research mood, clean composition, high detail, modern web publication hero. Use reference image context only for broad subject, composition, and topical grounding; do not copy the exact image. Avoid: logos, brand marks, copyrighted characters, real person likenesses, fake screenshots, UI text, readable text,
a16z crypto’s core argument is that capacity is no longer the binding constraint: major networks’ aggregate throughput grew from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, while some production systems claim tens of thousands. The next obstacle to credible on-chain markets is execution quality—knowing that a valid order will be included promptly and sequenced by rules that cannot be opportunistically changed. 1
Why fairness now matters: A high TPS figure does not guarantee an executable quote. If a trader cannot predict whether an order will land, when, or ahead of which competing orders, displayed prices can become stale before execution. Market makers must then protect themselves from adverse selection by quoting less size or wider spreads; end users receive worse and less reliable execution. This is an economic inference from the ordering discretion that enables MEV, rather than a claim that every instance of MEV is harmful.
1
7
The Strong Chain Quality proposal: Ordinary chain quality says that, over time, a party with 3% of stake should control roughly 3% of total blockspace. a16z’s proposed “Strong Chain Quality” would apply a comparable proportionality constraint at the block level: even the presently selected proposer should not effectively control the entire sequencing capacity of its block.
4 In effect, a protocol would reserve or allocate blockspace through a broader, stake-proportional mechanism, reducing a single proposer’s ability to insert, delay, exclude, or reorder transactions to monetize information it sees first. It is a research direction, not a deployed, universal guarantee.
Why MEV degrades execution: A sandwich attacker places a trade before a visible user swap to move the price, then reverses its trade after the user’s swap; the victim executes at a worse price, often up to its slippage tolerance.
2
Regulatory concern: The BIS has characterized validators’ power to select transaction timing and inclusion as an opening for front-running and other market manipulation.
What Jito shows on Solana: Jito has operationalized useful partial protections rather than solved all sequencing fairness. Its bundle infrastructure supports atomic, ordered execution, while its opt-in
dontfrontmechanism requires a protected transaction to be first in any bundle in which it appears—blocking a searcher from putting a transaction ahead of it within that bundle.3
16 Jito also offers low-latency submission and revert protection.
15 These are meaningful execution tools, but they depend on adoption and scope: bundle-level protection is not equivalent to protocol-wide guarantees of inclusion, global ordering, or resistance to all censorship and information leakage.
Why the stakes are rising: As institutions use crypto ETFs, stablecoins, tokenized assets, and on-chain treasury products, they need market-structure properties closer to those expected in conventional trading: fair access, predictable execution, auditable rules, and defensible handling of conflicts. a16z explicitly frames reliable access and predictable processing as requirements for financial institutions moving assets and trades on-chain.
Why it remains difficult: Strong inclusion and ordering guarantees must coexist with decentralization, low latency, censorship resistance, privacy, and efficient block production. Private relays, encrypted or delayed transaction disclosure, pre-confirmations, auctions, bundles, and proposer-builder separation can each reduce particular MEV vectors, but can also introduce new trusted intermediaries, concentration, latency, or residual censorship risks. The evidence supports progress, not a completed solution.
Studio Global AI
Continue your research
This page includes a source-backed answer you can continue inside Studio Global.
People also ask
What is the short answer to "Why does a16z crypto argue that blockchain networks have largely solved raw throughput—aggregate capacity rising from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, with some chains claiming tens of thousands—and should now prioritize execution fairness throug"?
a16z crypto’s core argument is that capacity is no longer the binding constraint: major networks’ aggregate throughput grew from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, while some production systems claim tens of
What are the key points to validate first?
a16z crypto’s core argument is that capacity is no longer the binding constraint: major networks’ aggregate throughput grew from under 25 to more than 3,400 transactions per second in five years, while some production systems claim tens of The next obstacle to credible on chain markets is execution quality—knowing that a valid order will be included promptly and sequenced by rules that cannot be opportunistically changed.
What should I do next in practice?
[1] Why fairness now matters: A high TPS figure does not guarantee an executable quote.