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An upgrade to the Polygon PoS chain to boost its performance.
Conclusion
The analysis of the changes in base fees in various transaction counts has demonstrated that in contradiction to what was planned, the Polygon's hard fork not only has increased the average base fee in a block, it has also brought more fluctuation to the fees instead of the gas usage, especially in cases of higher network activity. Also, gas usage is reaching its limit more rapidly compared to before the fork. Besides the base fee, both the average transaction fees and the average gas prices have also more than doubled after the fork with more spikes and a similar, if not higher, level of volatility.
Analysis
The first proposal for this fork aimed to adjust a mechanism that sets gas fees by keeping gas prices low when there is a lot of activity on the network. The objective was to help smooth out the increase/decrease rate in base fee for when the gas exceeds or falls below the target gas limits in a block.
In this analysis, the TX count was considered an indication of network activity and demand. Both the average base fee in each block and the average fee for each transaction were compared with the TX counts pre- and post-fork to have a better understanding of the impact of the hard fork on the gas fee mechanism.
It is worth mentioning that an equal amount of days were evaluated for both the pre-fork and the post-fork periods. Also, the unit of all the fees is in Gwei throughout the dashboard.
TX Count vs Base Fee
The first two charts of changes in gas and base fee, both before and after the fork, clearly show that the fluctuation of gas usage has decreased and has been more smooth after the fork. On the other hand, the base fee massively fluctuates, especially in higher transaction counts, while its average has also become higher after the fork. The second line of charts addresses the correlation between base fee (Y-axis), number of transactions (X-axis), and gas usage (lighter color means higher amounts), the same interpretation can also be made.
Pre- vs Post- Fork
The data has demonstrated that the average number of transactions per block has increased after the fork, resulting in slightly higher gas usage. Interestingly, the average, median, and minimum base fee in a block has massively increased after the fork. More aligned with the fork's intention, the maximum base fee has decreased by more than 50% compared to before the fork.
On the other hand, the average and median values of both the transaction fees and the gas prices have more than doubled after the fork.
TX Count vs Average Gas Target
To measure the correlation between the base fee and the number of transactions (an indication of the network's activity), gas target was defined as the amount of gas used over the gas limit in a block. While the fluctuation of the gas target has reduced, the fluctuation of the base fee has dramatically increased compared to before the fork. In lower TX counts, the gas target has become lower compared to before the fork. However, in scenarios with tx counts of more than 100, the gas target has been higher after the fork. In other words, in cases of higher demand (higher number of transactions), gas usage reaches the gas limit more rapidly and at a higher rate.
TX Count vs Average TX Fee and Gas Price
To further analyze the impact of the fork on the gas and fees paid by recipients, both the average and the median values were measured. These calculations indicated that not only both the transaction fees and gas prices have increased compared to before the fork, but also they have shown at least a similar level of volatility, if not higher, during periods of higher network activity. While the average values are more distinct, the median amounts are the one that the majority of the users are paying. There have not been any subsequent differences in gas usage between the pre- and post-fork periods.