Introduction

Polygon is a sidechain scaling solution for Ethereum that is an interoperable Layer 2 network using a proof of stake (PoS) consensus mechanism. It is an independent Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatible blockchain that runs in parallel to the Mainnet and is compatible with Ethereum via two-way bridges and runs under its consensus mechanism. The philosophy behind its design has been to provide a faster network compared to Ethereum with higher performance in terms of transaction throughput and blocks. In this analysis, the performance of Polygon has been investigated by measuring multiple blocks- and transaction-related metrics and has been compared with 8 other blockchains, 6 of which being Layer 1 and 2 of them being other Layer 2 scaling solutions for Ethereum.

• Except for Optimism with 1 transaction in a block, all the other chains had at least one block with 0 transactions;
• Solana has had the highest maximum number of transactions per block by far with a value of nearly 7K transactions. Ethereum and Polygon have been the only blockchains that had transactions per block of more than 1K;
• The trend of average transactions per block has been almost similar to the maximum with Solana, Ethereum, BSC, Polygon, and Osmosis has been the top 5 blockchains with the highest average transactions per block, respectively.

• BSC has had the maximum time between its blocks with more than 20K seconds. After that, Flow, Osmosis, Arbitrum, Ethereum, and Solana have been the blockchain with a time interval between blocks of more than one minute;
• Except for BSC, Polygon, Ethereum, and Osmosis with at least one second between each block, the other blockchains have experienced instant creation of two consecutive blocks with 0 seconds between them;
• While BSC has had the highest average time, Solana, Arbitrum, and Optimism have had an average of below 1 second.

• Solana, as well as Arbitrum and Optimism, have had the highest average blocks per second with more than 1 block.
• BSC, Ethereum, Osmosis, Polygon, and Avalanche have had less than 0.5 blocks per second, meaning a new block has been created in these chains at least every 2 seconds.
• Interestingly, Flow has been in the 4th place of highest average blocks/second with an average of 0.7.

The daily trend of the above metrics for each chain has been quite similar to their overall average. It is worth mentioning that while most of the chains remained steady during the measured period, blockchains such as BSC, Osmosis, Arbitrum, and Optimism have registered a wider range of values on different days.

Methodology

For this analysis, the data in the fact_blocks table of the core schema of the polygon, arbitrum, avalanche, bsc, ethereum, flow, optimism, osmosis, and solana database were used. Due to some of the databases still being in light mode, the past 30 days were considered as the time-frequency of the analysis. The values for the transactions/block, blocks/second, and transactions/second were directly measured from the columns of the fact_blocks table. The time between two consecutive blocks was measured using the LAG function, calculating the time interval in seconds.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the analysis of transactions and blocks of various blockchains has demonstrated a wide range of values for each of these chains. Overall, Solana has had the best performance while BSC has shown the least performance among the compared networks. Besides these, the scaling solutions of Ethereum, namely Polygon, Arbitrum, and Optimism, each have registered a high performance in a different metric. The other chains, especially Ethereum, have been in the middle of the pack with an average performance in almost all of the measured metrics.

• Solana by far has had the highest number of transactions per second with nearly 3K transactions;
• Polygon has been the second chain with an average TPS of around 30;
• BSC has been the only chain with a TPS of less than 1, meaning a transaction has only registered on this chain at least every 3 seconds;
• Arbitrum and Optimism have had a TPS of slightly above 1.