Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon will undergo a hard fork on Jan. 17 in order to address gas spikes and chain reorganization issues that have affected user experience on the Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) chain.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Polygon officially confirmed<\/a> the hard fork event on Jan. 12 in a blog post, which came after weeks of preliminary discussion<\/a> on the Polygon Improvement Proposal (PIP) forum page in late December. <\/p>\n GET READY FOR THE HARDFORK <\/p>\n The proposed hardfork for the #Polygon<\/a> PoS chain will make key upgrades to the network on Jan 17th. <\/p>\n This is good news for devs & users — & will make for better UX.<\/p>\n You will NOT need to do anything differently. Details:https:\/\/t.co\/RaBWDjEGrI<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/nipa15YQdZ<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Polygon (@0xPolygon) January 12, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n A Polygon spokesperson also provided Cointelegraph with additional details of the hard fork on Jan. 14:<\/p>\n \u201cThe hard fork is coded for the Block >= 38,189,056. No centralized, single actor is going to initiate it. Validators of the network have to update their nodes prior to the indicated block, and they are already doing so.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 87% of the 15 voters of the Polygon Governance Team voted in favor of increasing the BaseFeeChangeDenominator function from 8 to 16 to reduce gas fee spikes<\/a> and to decrease the SprintLength function from 64 blocks to 16 in order to fix the chain reorganization problem.<\/p>\n In addressing the gas spike issue, the Polygon Team explained that because the base fee price often \u201cexperiences exponential spikes\u201d when on-chain activity increases rapidly, by increasing the denominator from 8 to 16, they believe \u201cthe growth curve can be flattened\u201d and thus \u201csmooth severe fluctuations\u201d in gas prices.<\/a><\/p>\n Related: <\/em><\/strong>Polygon tests zero-knowledge rollups, mainnet integration inbound<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n As for the chain reorganization problem, Polygon explained that by decreasing sprint length, transaction finality will improve, allowing a single block producer to add blocks continuously at a frequency of 32 seconds as opposed to the current time of 128 seconds.<\/p>\n \u201cThe change will not affect the total time or number of blocks a validator produces, so there will be no change in rewards overall,\u201d they added.<\/p>\n Chain reorganization occurs when a block is deleted from the blockchain to make room for the new, longer chain to ensure that all node operators have the same copy of the ledger. <\/p>\n However, the reorganization must proceed as efficiently as possible, as it\u00a0increases the risk of a 51% attack<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Polygon Team also confirmed that Polygon (MATIC<\/a>) tokenholders and delegators will not need to take action and that applications will not be affected during the hard fork. <\/p>\n The price of Polygon\u2019s token, MATIC is currently $0.977, up 13.6% since Polygon announced the news on Jan. 12. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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