Ethereum scaling solution Polygon has proposed a hard fork for its PoS blockchain that aims to address issues around gas fee spikes and chain reorganization (reorgs).
According to a blog post, the BaseFeeChangeDenominator will be changed from the current value of 8 to 16. The expectation is that “the base gas fee will fall to 6.25% (100/16) from the current 12.5% (100/8) in an effort to smooth severe fluctuations in gas prices.”
Gas fees will still rise even after the update, but more in line with the Ethereum gas dynamics.
Reorgs – which occur due to network errors – cause the network to split into two, sometimes creating duplicate transactions. To address the issue, Polygon plans to reduce the sprint length from 64 to 16 blocks.
“Sprint length describes the number of blocks a validator produces contiguous blocks on Bor chain. By reducing sprint length, the time a validator continuously produces blocks decreases.”
The hard fork will help reduce the frequency and depth of reorgs and improve transaction finality.
Polygon intends to complete the upgrade on Jan 17, before which all the node operators will have to update their nodes and prepare for the hard fork. MATIC holders don’t need to worry, as the native token will remain unaffected.
Last year, Polygon experienced a series of exponential gas spikes and network errors, which opened a public debate on its forum where the changes were proposed.
Once implemented, the hard fork will improve efficiency and ensure a seamless experience for the network.
