Psy Protocol officially launches its public testnet, combining internet-level scale and speed with Bitcoin-level security

Making Web2 Business Models Economically Viable in Web3, Promoting Diverse Applications from Business to Intelligent AI.

Hong Kong, September 29, 2025 ------Psy Protocol (formerly QED Protocol) officially launched its public testnet today, introducing a brand new blockchain architecture aimed at achieving internet-level throughput and Bitcoin-level security. With client-side zero-knowledge proofs and horizontally scalable state architecture, the protocol has demonstrated a powerful processing capability of millions of TPS in internal testing. Its unique architecture not only supports nearly unlimited transaction processing capacity but also ensures that the block processing time for all transactions grows only logarithmically with user scale, maintaining high efficiency even during large-scale applications.

The project has received support from several top investment institutions and partners, including Blockchain Capital, Arrington Capital, UTXO, Anagram, Draper Dragon, CoinSummer, Amber Group, Paper Ventures, Protagonist, LBank Labs, Valhalla Capital, StarkWare, Edessa Capital, as well as strategic cooperative mining pools F2Pool and ViaBTC Capital.

"Psy's architecture tackles the core bottleneck hindering the mainstream application of Web3, solving the long-standing trade-off problem between scalability and security in decentralized applications." said Aleks Larsen, General Partner at Blockchain Capital. "This is also the first time that a widely recognized high-concurrency model from the Web2 ecosystem—ranging from e-commerce to artificial intelligence—can operate on a fully decentralized basis while providing Bitcoin-level security."

How Does Psy Achieve Internet-Level High Throughput?

Psy's performance breaks through the long-standing core bottleneck of blockchain: the inability to support high-concurrency applications that shape modern internet use cases. Due to existing blockchains' difficulty in accommodating the massive transaction volumes required by such applications, fully on-chain DeFi, agent payments, and decentralized versions of platforms like Amazon, eBay, or social networks remain theoretical.

Traditional blockchains have long faced an unavoidable bottleneck: every full node must validate each transaction. While this design ensures strong security, it greatly limits the network's throughput capacity. The Ethereum network can only process about 60 transactions per second, and even the higher-performing PoS network Solana has an average throughput of only about 1,000 TPS. Psy's state model (PARTH) completely breaks through this bottleneck.

Psy significantly reduces the computational burden on the network by introducing client-side computation. Its core mechanism involves users generating zero-knowledge proofs on their local devices to replace the traditional node-by-node validation of each transaction. The verification speed of these proofs is several orders of magnitude faster than the original transactions, and the network further aggregates them in parallel using recursive zero-knowledge proofs, ultimately forming a concise block proof capable of validating millions of transactions within seconds.

The key is that the PARTH architecture ensures that the block processing time for all transactions grows only logarithmically with user scale. In benchmark tests, when one million users each submitted ten transactions, Psy completed the processing of ten million transactions in about 10 seconds—demonstrating a powerful throughput of over one million transactions per second.

Helping Web3 Move to the Next Stage

Psy's tech stack enables Web3 business models to be highly competitive in demanding scenarios such as fully on-chain DeFi and agent payments. The testnet showcases how Psy can achieve large-scale expansion without sacrificing the security and decentralization characteristics established by Bitcoin, thanks to faster transaction speeds, scalable architecture, and built-in data privacy protection.

Its groundbreaking performance allows blockchain applications to compete directly with centralized platforms, truly returning data ownership and control to users rather than keeping it in the hands of tech giants.

The public testnet officially launched today, allowing developers and users to experience Psy's exceptional performance firsthand. The mainnet is expected to be launched later this year.

Why Did Psy Choose "Proof-of-Useful-Work"?

Unlike most high-throughput blockchains that rely on Proof-of-Stake (PoS) consensus, Psy chose to build on the principles of Proof-of-Work (PoW), a consensus mechanism first introduced by Bitcoin.

PoS systems often concentrate power in the hands of validators with large amounts of tokens, allowing them to extract profits through methods like MEV (Miner Extractable Value). At the same time, their security completely relies on the tokens they issue, creating a circular dependency that poses systemic risks.

Psy transforms mining into "useful work," which means generating and aggregating zero-knowledge proofs that directly ensure transaction security, fundamentally eliminating the energy waste issues associated with traditional Proof-of-Work. This innovative mechanism is upgrading mining from meaningless computational competition to collaborative value creation: Psy no longer advances the blockchain based on raw hash power but drives network development by maximizing the "useful work" miners perform for users.

"The reason Web3 business and intelligent economy have yet to achieve scalability lies in users being forced to choose between convenience and decentralization." said Carter Feldman, founder and CEO of Psy Protocol. "Psy breaks this false dichotomy, providing developers with the tools to build fast, secure, and scalable platforms that deliver a seamless user experience, even when fully operating on-chain."

About Psy Protocol

Psy Protocol is a smart contract platform based on Proof-of-Useful-Work, deeply integrating the neutrality and security of Proof-of-Work with the high scalability and speed brought by next-generation architecture. By delegating the generation of transaction proofs to users and aggregating zero-knowledge proofs on-chain, Psy achieves internet-level throughput, low fees, and open participation without sacrificing the exceptional security of Proof-of-Work. The Psy platform empowers developers to build ultra-large-scale Web3 applications, aiming to become the core infrastructure supporting the next generation of decentralized internet ecosystems.