<p>I think that you are mixing a couple of concepts here.</p>
<p>In Cardano, same as Bitcoin, a transaction can take various inputs (consume UTxOs) and produce various outputs (new UTxOs to be used by future transactions).</p>
<p>This means I can transfer tokens to 20 different people in the same transaction and that does not mean that I am creating 20 transactions. I will only get one transaction hash (you can check this in any explorer, such as <a href="https://cardanoscan.io/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Cardanoscan</a>). So, for TPS, that will count as one, not 20, because the TPS concept is related to the validation of the transaction on chain and not to how many UTxOs you are consuming to create it.</p>
<p>So, under this scenario and with the assumption you have, I think you will find it quite hard (not to say impossible) to determine how many of those UTxOs are really going to one person to another (you will have to know, for example, if one of the output addresses does not belong to the sender of the transaction - maybe they have another wallet? - so you can exclude that one as well). If that wallet does not belong to an SPO or someone publicly exposed, then this won't be possible.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-31T05:07:46.557Z
You reminded me I actually answered my own question after I asked this, on my blog: https://reddspark.blog/2022/12/11/transactions-within-transactions/
Reddspark
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-29T23:20:02.527Z
2023-03-29T23:20:02.527Z
Falcon Stakepool
<p>Here is the final answer I went with</p>
<p><a href="https://reddspark.blog/2022/12/11/transactions-within-transactions/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://reddspark.blog/2022/12/11/transactions-within-transactions/</a></p>
<p>Open to critique.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-03-31T05:08:34.383Z
2023-03-31T05:08:34.383Z
Reddspark
<p>You may have seen some of the online discussions on Twitter about Cardano TPS (Transactions Per Second) count. It lead me down the rabbit hole of trying to see if I could calculate TPS more accurately. I have listed my findings below but want to get them vetted.</p>
<p>Assumption: A true &quot;transaction&quot; refers to the transfer of value between one person and the next. We will exclude native assets from this for the time being.</p>
<p>Cardano allows for a many to many relationship. Many addresses sending to many addresses. In the Bitcoin world this is known as cojoining or mixing. It is pretty normal to see inputs coming from more than one address on the Cardano blockchain.</p>
<p>There appears to be no easy / clear cut way to calculate TPS but there are the following rules of thumb:</p>
<ul>
<li>Exclude any UTxOs that were consumed an hour of being created - see
<a href="https://fs.hubspotusercontent00.net/hubfs/5264302/Coin%20Metrics%20-%20On-Chain%20Volume.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">early spend</a> on page 8 to understand why.</li>
<li>You then have to determine which of the UTxOs are &quot;change outputs&quot;. In the case of 1 input to many outputs, this can be determined fairly easily. However in the case of multiple inputs from different addresses going to multiple output addresses this seems impossible. It seems that Cardano is set up like a coin mixer in this regard.</li>
</ul>
<p>Do you agree, and any ideas / suggestions?</p>

<transaction><utxo><transactions-per-second>
How to determine the number of actual "transactions" in a transaction?
# How to determine the number of actual "transactions" in a transaction?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2022-04-17)

You may have seen some of the online discussions on Twitter about Cardano TPS (Transactions Per Second) count. It lead me down the rabbit hole of trying to see if I could calculate TPS more accurately. I have listed my findings below but want to get them vetted.

Assumption: A true "transaction" refers to the transfer of value between one person and the next. We will exclude native assets from this for the time being.

Cardano allows for a many to many relationship. Many addresses sending to many addresses. In the Bitcoin world this is known as cojoining or mixing. It is pretty normal to see inputs coming from more than one address on the Cardano blockchain.

There appears to be no easy / clear cut way to calculate TPS but there are the following rules of thumb:

* Exclude any UTxOs that were consumed an hour of being created - see
  [early spend](https://fs.hubspotusercontent00.net/hubfs/5264302/Coin%20Metrics%20-%20On-Chain%20Volume.pdf) on page 8 to understand why.
* You then have to determine which of the UTxOs are "change outputs". In the case of 1 input to many outputs, this can be determined fairly easily. However in the case of multiple inputs from different addresses going to multiple output addresses this seems impossible. It seems that Cardano is set up like a coin mixer in this regard.

Do you agree, and any ideas / suggestions?

**Tags:** transaction, utxo, transactions-per-second

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-03-29. Score: 0

I think that you are mixing a couple of concepts here.

In Cardano, same as Bitcoin, a transaction can take various inputs (consume UTxOs) and produce various outputs (new UTxOs to be used by future transactions).

This means I can transfer tokens to 20 different people in the same transaction and that does not mean that I am creating 20 transactions. I will only get one transaction hash (you can check this in any explorer, such as [Cardanoscan](https://cardanoscan.io/)). So, for TPS, that will count as one, not 20, because the TPS concept is related to the validation of the transaction on chain and not to how many UTxOs you are consuming to create it.

So, under this scenario and with the assumption you have, I think you will find it quite hard (not to say impossible) to determine how many of those UTxOs are really going to one person to another (you will have to know, for example, if one of the output addresses does not belong to the sender of the transaction - maybe they have another wallet? - so you can exclude that one as well). If that wallet does not belong to an SPO or someone publicly exposed, then this won't be possible.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: You reminded me I actually answered my own question after I asked this, on my blog: https://reddspark.blog/2022/12/11/transactions-within-transactions/  

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### Answer by username_0 on 2023-03-31. Score: 0

Here is the final answer I went with

<https://reddspark.blog/2022/12/11/transactions-within-transactions/>

Open to critique.


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