An AI agent buying a service needs to know its payment has gone through. A business moving stablecoins between networks needs the same certainty. Sending the transaction is only the first step; the other side needs to know when it can safely act.

Espresso Systems says its latest performance milestone brings that confirmation time below a second, even at a load equivalent to 1 million transactions per second.

Announced on October 20, the milestone combines high data capacity with fast finality—the point at which the network considers a transaction irreversible. Espresso’s goal is to give independent blockchains a common foundation for confirming activity quickly while letting each chain run its own applications.

What the million-TPS number means

Espresso reports 181 megabytes of data throughput per second. Using an average stablecoin transfer size of 180 bytes, the company calculates a maximum theoretical capacity of approximately 1 million transfers per second.

That is a capacity estimate based on transaction size, rather than a claim that a million customer payments are currently flowing through the network every second. More complex transactions can require more data, and application execution remains with the connected chains.

According to the company’s announcement:

  • 337 milliseconds: finality under normal conditions.

  • 778 milliseconds: finality at the reported full-load benchmark.

  • More than 27 million blocks: finalized since mainnet launched in November 2024.

  • Permissionless proof of stake: operating since early 2026.

The combination is the point: Espresso says confirmation stays below one second even as the volume rises.

In an October 13 update, Espresso outlined the network’s transition to permissionless proof of stake:

Separate chains, shared confirmation

A payment company, trading platform or enterprise may want its own blockchain so it can choose how applications work and meet its particular operating requirements.

Espresso’s design allows those chains to keep their own execution environments while using its base layer for fast, deterministic finality. They can build differently while sharing a way to confirm that transactions have become final.

The company lists ApeChain among its integrated chains, with integrations underway for Celo, LitVM and MegaETH.

“Teams shouldn’t have to give up control over how they design and operate their applications just to settle with one another in real time.”

— Ben Fisch, CEO and Co-founder of Espresso Systems

Why stablecoins and AI payments need this

Stablecoins can move across a growing range of apps and networks. But when a payment crosses from one chain to another, the receiving system needs reliable confirmation of what happened on the sending chain.

Waiting for that confirmation can slow down the service the payment is supposed to unlock. Espresso aims to shorten that wait for activity on integrated chains. A complete crosschain transfer still depends on the other systems involved, including the destination chain and transfer mechanism.

For AI agents, that delay can interrupt an entire task. An agent might need to buy data, pay for computing or access an online service before it can continue.

That connects to the tools already reaching users, including MoonPay’s PayBox for payments through ChatGPT and Claude. As software gains the ability to spend, the infrastructure underneath needs to confirm those payments quickly.

Speed is one part of making these transactions useful. XDC’s work with Concordium, for example, addresses another: verifying who stands behind the agent sending the money.

Fast settlement also matters beyond individual payments. In an October 16 post, Espresso highlighted how tokenized products can reach stablecoin holders who would not otherwise invest in assets available only offchain:

Faster finance, working in the background

Espresso’s bet is that many different chains will serve different businesses, and those chains will need to work together.

For the person using a payment app—or the agent completing a purchase—the benefit should be straightforward: less waiting for money to arrive and fewer interruptions between paying for something and using it.

“The future isn't one blockchain handling all the world’s financial activity.”

— Ben Fisch, CEO and Co-founder of Espresso Systems

The blockchain can stay in the background. The payment simply needs to finish.

Reporting by Lidia Yadlos

Stablecoins