How to optimize transaction speed?

Question

I'm currently using a few different paid (shared, not dedicated) RPCs to send txs using sendTransaction() to make some token swaps.

The txs take 20-60+ seconds to actually "land" and be confirmed on the chain, even with high priority fees (ex: 0.02 SOL or more). However, I see a lot of bots, like Bonk Bot, are able to land their txs and be confirmed in 5-10 secs or even less. This is despite them using very minimal priority fees (0.001 SOL or less).

How are they able to achieve such fast transaction confirmation times?

A couple ways I can think of:

• Using dedicated RPCs. Does it really make that much of a difference?
• Sending txs directly to leader instead of thru RPC, by using TPUClient
• Optimizing the instructions within the transaction itself

The above ways don't seem to answer explain why the tx confirmation times are so vastly different (orders of magnitude) though, I don't think - would love thoughts.

Thank you so much.

Answer 1

There are two components to landing a transaction in the network:

• Getting a transaction to the leader through the TPU. This is typically achieved through the TPU client, either running on a standalone machine, an RPC node, or another validator. Staked validators get more "connections" to other nodes, so if you can convince a staked validator to forward your transaction to the leader, you have a better chance of the transaction arriving at the leader
• Priority fees. You're already familiar with this mechanism
• MEV. If you forward your transaction through an MEV client, a validator running MEV software will have a much higher chance of including your transaction in the block

As you might have noticed, dedicated RPCs might not help unless they have stake (which is discouraged), or if they have an agreement with a staked validator to get the transaction to the leader.

Just using the TPU client might not be enough, if you're not staked.

Optimizing the instructions will allow you to set a lower compute limit, which could allow your transaction to land more easily at the end of a slot, but is still not guaranteed