Polygon PoS blockchain engineers advocated for the rollout of a hard fork upgrade to combat gas spikes and strengthen block security on the sidechain network.
Developers at Polygon Labs have recommended the change, and it’s scheduled to be live on January 17. If the community gives the hard fork the green light, it will improve Polygon’s performance and security by dampening the effects of transaction fee spikes and chain reorganisations. For some time, members of the Polygon community have been discussing the update on the platform’s administration board.
This update was implemented as a part of a larger project to enhance the technical capabilities of the Polygon side chain. Many prominent Web 3.0 initiatives, including Uniswap and Aave, and established businesses, like Adobe, Robinhood, and Stripe, are hosted on Polygon.
📢 GET READY FOR THE HARDFORK 🔥
The proposed hardfork for the #Polygon PoS chain will make key upgrades to the network on Jan 17th.
This is good news for devs & users — & will make for better UX.
You will NOT need to do anything differently. Details:https://t.co/RaBWDjEGrI pic.twitter.com/nipa15YQdZ
— Polygon (@0xPolygon) January 12, 2023
Prevent Reorgs
The primary objective of the hard fork is to strengthen Polygon’s resistance to chain splits and splits in general. During the temporary creation process of the blockchain, a chain reorganisation (or “reorg”) takes place. Reorgs are common in the Polygon PoS chain because nodes might reach consensus at various periods, which can cause blocks to be overwritten.
Consequently, determining whether or not a transaction was completed successfully may become a source of consternation.
Developers are working on solutions to shorten the time it takes for blocks to reach finality after validating completed transactions. The update suggests shortening the sprint duration, reducing the likelihood of a secondary or tertiary validator entering the fray to create blocks, and the number of reorgs required.
The amount of successive blocks that a validator may create is called its “sprint length” in the context of the Polygon PoS chain. To decrease the number of chain reorgs, developers have proposed reducing the sprint length from 64 blocks to 16. This would allow a single block producer to generate blocks continuously for 32 seconds, down from the current 128 seconds.
Lower Gas Spikes
By increasing the “BaseFeeChangeDenominator” from 8 to 16, the update will moderate the base fee’s rate of change, dampening gas spikes’ intensity. The parameter inverts the formula for calculating how quickly the base fee for a transaction increases or decreases in response to fluctuations in the market price of block space.
At present, Polygon’s BaseFeeChangeDenominator is set at 8, but an increase to 16 is being proposed. This adjustment should reduce the volatility of gas prices during peak use periods on the Polygon network by lowering the base cost change rate.