What does Transactions per Second (TPS) Mean?

Transaction per second (TPS) is a measurement for the total amount of transactions a blockchain is capable of processing in one second. This metric can help determine the current performance and degree of scalability of a blockchain. For example, Bitcoin has a TPS rate of about 5-7 transactions per a second. While this is relatively low, some Bitcoin scaling solutions, like the Lightning Network, are optimized to increase the larger Bitcoin network TPS.