Polygon Hard Fork
Polygon has proposed a hard fork for its proof-of-stake (PoS) blockchain, also known as the Delhi Hard Fork. The hard fork (V0.3.1) aims to reduce the impact of the gas fee surge and chain reorganizations (reorgs) to reduce time to finality.
A reorg occurs when a new version of the blockchain is temporarily created by diverging from the previous version. The Polygon PoS chain is prone to reorgs, where blocks may overwrite previous blocks due to different nodes reaching consensus at different times. It, therefore, may not be clear when trying to verify if a transaction has been completed successfully or not.
The hard fork is part of a broader initiative to improve the technical capabilities of the Polygon side chain, including parallelization and Polygon zkEVM, which is expected to introduce new features such as sharding and improved governance, on the Ethereum network. Polygon PoS runs parallel to Ethereum and is used to host some dApps, Web3 projects and major global companies. The hard fork aims to improve Polygon's performance and security.
The hard fork is expected to take place on January 17 at block number 38,189,056. and will address the gas fee hike and blockchain reorganization.
Announcement | Hard fork Incoming: Upgrading Polygon PoS Chain to Boost Performance
Polygon pre-PIP discussion: Addressing Reorgs and Gas Spikes – Pre-PIP Discussion: Addressing Reorgs and Gas Spikes
Evaluation Process
MidChains evaluation:
What is changing?
Analysing the impact of those changes.
What is Changing?
Reducing Gas Fee Spikes
Change the BaseFeeChangeDenominator from the current value of 8 to 16 - This will help to balance the increase/decrease rate in the baseFee rate when gas fee exceeds or falls below the target gas fee limits in a block. By increasing the denominator from 8 to 16, the growth curve can be flattened. These results were tested against historical Polygon PoS mainnet data. The expectation is that the rate of change for the base gas fee will fall to 6.25% (100/16) from the current 12.5% (100/8) to smoothen severe fluctuations in gas prices.
Addressing Chain Reorganizations (Reorgs)
Decrease the sprint length from 64 to 16 blocks - By reducing the length of the chain to 16 blocks, this upgrade means a single block producer will produce blocks continuously for a much shorter time (~32 sec) than the current (~128 seconds). This will decrease the depth of reorgs. By decreasing the sprint length, the hard fork will help reduce the frequency and depth of reorgs and improve transaction finality.
Release instruction:
Impact Analysis
MidChains will support the Polygon (Delhi) hardfork. Deposits and withdrawals for MATIC (ERC20 standard) shall be temporarily halted during the transition period as a precautionary measure. No action is required by clients who hold MATIC. Clients’ funds will not be impacted by this upgrade. All deposits and withdrawals made after the upgrade are expected to be processed without any impact. In the event that a new virtual asset is created because of the fork, MidChains will submit an assessment of the new virtual asset to the FSRA for approval. In the meantime, newly created virtual assets as a result of the fork will not be automatically supported by MidChains in line with our Virtual Asset Compliance Policy.
Impact on Client Funds: No impact to clients' funds post network upgrade.
Regulatory implications: None.
Maturity / Market Capitalization: None.
Security and Operations: Enhanced security, and improved efficiency.
Traceability / Monitoring: None
Exchange Connectivity and Demand: No impact.
Type of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT): No impact.
Innovation and Efficiency: Enhanced scalability, lower gas fees and improved efficiency.
Upgrade Preparation
All Polygon node operators need to upgrade nodes before January 17, 2023, to prepare for the hard fork. No action is required by clients who hold MATIC.
MidChains will temporarily halt deposits and withdrawals of MATIC during the upgrade. Clients will be notified prior to the Polygon Hard Fork via the platform and notifications of the halt and resumption of deposits and withdrawals of MATIC will be sent to clients via email. Clients will be advised not to initiate any withdrawals for MATIC during and immediately after the upgrade. Trading activities will remain uninterrupted for MATICUSD pairs.