In 2023, the United States stock exchanges experienced an astounding average of 74 million daily trades, with transaction volumes often exceeding $500 billion. This trend marked a historic milestone when, in February 2025, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) reported over 67 million transactions in a single day, followed by the NASDAQ’s record of 52 million trades just a few months later. These figures raise a crucial question: can current blockchain technology support the immense transaction throughput necessary for widespread tokenization in financial markets?
As companies such as Robinhood have begun offering tokenized stock trading, the importance of addressing this question is amplified. However, standard public blockchains may not be the solution. With only around 20 transactions per second (TPS) capacity on Ethereum’s base layer and a few thousand TPS for Solana, it’s evident that these networks cannot handle even a fraction of the trading volume seen on major U.S. exchanges. Even with enhancements from layer 2 solutions, Ethereum struggles to reach a mere 250 TPS. In a recent June report, all layer 2 solutions combined managed to process 21 million transactions in one day—less than half of NASDAQ’s daily trade volume.
This disheartening performance raises concerns about the future of Ethereum’s scaling roadmap and the potential for issues like failed transactions, bridge hacks, and fragmented liquidity to persist. If investment moguls like Larry Fink are correct in predicting a future dominated by tokenization, the need for a scalable blockchain to support this demand becomes more pressing.
A viable public blockchain for a tokenized financial system would need to exhibit several key characteristics. It should be capable of scaling to millions—or even billions—of transactions per second. Moreover, a robust transaction layer and toolset encompassing smart contracts and token protocols must function cohesively, while also ensuring user-friendly interfaces that simplify transactions. Compliance with financial regulations like Know Your Customer (KYC) and anti-money laundering (AML) policies is also essential.
Currently, BSV emerges as a frontrunner in this context. It boasts the capability to process over a million TPS following its Teranode upgrade, showcased in private tests where a block of 1.7 million transactions was recorded. Additionally, BSV preserves the original Bitcoin opcodes and includes a dedicated smart contracting language, sCrypt. Various applications, including Web3 technologies and financial trading platforms, are already operational on BSV. Notably, IBM previously chose to develop its TraceApp on this platform.
BSV’s design is specifically tailored to comply with financial regulations, ensuring that malevolent actorsface legal consequences as dictated by its Network Access Rules. Furthermore, its node infrastructure secures compliance with essential laws regarding property rights and anti-money laundering.
In summary, while Ethereum, Solana, and other mainstream blockchains serve their purposes, particularly for smaller projects, their limited scalability renders them inadequate for a comprehensive tokenized financial system. BSV stands out as the most promising option, meeting the necessary criteria for secure, efficient, and scalable blockchain infrastructure. For a transparent and accessible financial ecosystem to materialize, the adoption of such a public blockchain appears to be the most feasible path forward.
