ICP's reported TPS numbers are fake! ⚠️ They claim 6k+ TPS, but in reality, ICP only does 0.4 TPS. It is a ghost chain! By counting basic chain functions as TXs, they are fraudulently misleading the public Do not be fooled; there is real usage in crypto, but ICP is not it: 🧵 ICP's foundation, DFINITY, is again caught red-handed lying to the public. This time to a preposterous degree: The Lie: The 6k TPS figure comes from DFINITY's own official website. Here comes the kicker: 4k of that "TPS" are read-only queries! The remaining 2k "TPS" are application steps, something ALL other smart contract chains have, but no other blockchain actually counts as TPS. These include contract-to-contract calls, timers, replies & heartbeats. ICP's leadership counts all of these as "TPS" today The Truth: Once we subtract all of those phony forms of TPS, ICP ends up with a mere 0.4 TPS, or 0.7 TPS if we also counted every token ledger That means DFINITY is inflating the usage of ICP by a whopping factor of x16245 All while the biggest user of ICP today is DFINITY's own subnet where they host their apps! The ckBTC & ckETH minters, along with their ETH & SOL relays. Together, produce 31.5% of this fraudulent TPS count One Example: There was a particularly interesting incident in 2022 when a developer was loading a database into his app at less than one call a second DFINITY's own dashboard showed his subnet doing 1.3k Transaction Per Second, a third of the network's usage that week The developer then went on to the forum to ask how that was possible. The ICP engineer frankly explained it: "Each upload put 500 records into three indexes, and the code did each insert as a call from the program to itself. Every call counts, and every reply to a call counts again. So one upload became about 3,000 "transactions". Written as one batched call, the same work would have shown "500x fewer transactions". Following that up with one of the most damning statements in this case: "DFINITY's own benchmark had deliberately left such messages out, because counting them "might have been deemed as cheating (after all we care about user-triggered transactions rather than artificially generated traffic)". DFINITY's own dashboard counts them anyway & still does to this day. On this day, the 21st of October 2026, replies to calls between programs were 57 percent of the "update" count! This mechanism is also not rate-limited at all In conclusion, their own engineer said counting internal messages would be cheating in a benchmark; their own dashboard counts them to this day; that is the number they sell as TPS! Under ICP accounting, 1 TPS turns into 1.3k "TPS". Now that is a fraudulent & misleading design! Discrepencies That is how they can claim to do "6k TPS" while only bringing in less than 7k of fees per day, while its own "Internet Identity" ICP's login system registers a mere 3112 users in the last day Their physical presence in our ecosystem is also not at all congruent with their claim of being the second most used blockchain in the world Such inconsistencies are hard to reconcile. Which is why this expose was needed. As it turns out, they have been straight-up lying about their usage this entire time! Chainspect Why Chainspect, the blockchain explorer & metrics tracker, would unquestioningly repeat these lies. Taking its data directly from DFINITY's API is unknown Chain Inspect is not a registered company & for that reason & more, I was unable to find any connection to DFINITY, but it cannot be ruled out. They claim to be fiercely independent Chain Inspect only reports the 2k "TPS" figure, but that is still wildly misleading Especially since they do carry out more due diligence with other chains, such as by subtracting consensus messages in SOL, for example, as they very well should Weirdly, their own policy demands that they adjust their figures accordingly: "We aim to include only user-initiated transactions and exclude system ones, to enable fair comparison of different networks (e.g. for Solana we exclude “voting” transactions related to their custom consensus mechanism)." As a community, we need to point the finger here & ask @chainspect_app to update their policy on how they count ICP's "TPS". The correct number is below 1; reporting 2k+ instead is wildly misleading Do better, Chain Inspect! We are kindly holding you accountable today, as your website & service are otherwise great! Conclusion ICP is a ghost chain: There is nothing wrong with that, as we all need to start somewhere However, what is wrong is that they are actively lying about this fact. In the investment world, that is called fraud! Honesty & integrity matter far more to serious investors, as we are, myself included, willing to invest in "ghost chains", making a bet on a superior team & tech It is a shame, as ICP could be a great chain if they enshrined their subnets as I have previously recommended. If they also cleaned up their marketing, it could become a real contender Instead, the community will most likely respond with denial again. Exposing a sickness that is endemic within many small cryptocurrency communities Groupthink with cult-like dynamics, combined with both financial & peer pressure, creates one hell of a toxic soup Despite all of the personal attacks that will likely follow this critique, the truth speaks for itself. That is also one of the most wonderful things about crypto It is open-source code running a transparent blockchain. The scammers & crooks can not hide anymore with sufficient due diligence, of the sort we did here today To the ICP community, there are genuinely good, smart & well-meaning people there. We should never paint any community with a single brush For those of you receptive to this critique, I hope it will inspire ICP to clean up its act. Operating with more honesty & integrity is not only the right thing to do. It is also the best possible long-term strategy for success in our industry today When all is said & done. It is the truth that sets us all free! 🔥