This week, $SUI tested a massive 6,000,000 transactions per second.

Impressive, no matter what we say.
But here's the number nobody's putting on a banner: over the last 7 days, $SUI has averaged 47 transactions per second.
And it isn't alone.
> $APT has run at 176 tx/s.
> $NEAR at 8.7.
> $ALGO at 6.2.
Only the big guns move real volume, $ETH, $SOL and $BNB. Everyone else is advertising a Ferrari and driving it to the mailbox.
So is the whole TPS race just a number designed to manipulate you?
Partly. But not entirely. And the "not entirely" is the part worth understanding.
Start with the fact that there are two TPS numbers, and chains love to blur them. Theoretical TPS is what a chain could do under perfect lab conditions: a block stuffed with the cheapest transactions possible, no congestion, no real users behaving unpredictably. Real TPS is what's actually happening on-chain.
On thing we can tell you is that the gap between them is not small, its HUGE.
So why do L1s advertise numbers they will basically never touch in daily use? Because there's a real reason, and it isn't only marketing.
🗯️ Headroom. You do not want a chain running near capacity. That's a congested, expensive chain where fees spike and transactions fail. Empty space is a feature. It's what keeps your transaction cheap when everyone rushes in at once. We've seen chain congestions in the past many times - Ethereum particularly. Newer, modern L1s want to avoid that.
🗯️ Burst Survival. One thing very important to take care of as an L1 is burst survival. Demand for your chain can come in violent spikes - NFT mints, airdrops or maybe a token going vertical. All these scenarios could lead to massive demand. A chain a 50tx/s but capacity for 100,000 has that insurance. One with 5,000 capacity probably does not.
But let's be honest, the projects would be lying if they say its not for marketing and flexing too. I highly doubt $SUI is going to reach 6M tx/s anytime soon and if you are theoretically capable of something - fair play, should definitely be marketing that.
In my opinion, throughput is not the bottleneck we are fighting right now in crypto. It's demand. We need more developers, more apps, more users to make use of these theoretical TPS numbers, otherwise they are good for nothing.
Next time an L1 flexes its TPS, ask three things.
> What's the real 7-day average?
> What's the most it's sustained under actual load, and did fees hold?
> And is anyone actually using it, or is it a beautiful, empty, 12-lane highway?