Ethereum is Climbing Back Up, In a Big Week for Relays

Happy weekend everyone! We’re back with another Relay Recap.This week, we saw strong growth among many chains across the network, helping take the overall average back over 1 billion daily relays for the week. Ethereum stole the show in a way, with an almost 70% increase in relays, but was far from the only chain with a notable increase. Boba, Metis, and Optimism in particular were some of the other chains with an especially strong showing, as you’ll see in the Chain Highlights below.After many chains saw a dip on September 22nd, to start this period, we saw a very quick bounce back and a rapid climb upwards for many of the top chains, building on a positive multi-week trend.Throughout the week, the network serviced an average of1.02 billion daily relays, with the daily high for this time period recorded at 1.13 billion on September 27th.

Overall, 7.1 billion relays were serviced during the week, representing a 12% increase over the 6.4 billion relays the prior week.

Chain Highlights

As mentioned above, Ethereum stood out in particular this week, growing relays by 68%. Ethereum was largely immune to the September 22nd dip that many other chains took, as it stayed steady for that time before increasing the rest of the period. The chain cleared 225 million relays in each of the last two days of the week, as it continues to trend up over multiple weeks. Ethereum’s performance led to a big jump in its proportional share of all relays, as it moved from 11% to 16% this week. This allowed it to take the #2 spot out of all chains, after being in a virtual tie for the #3 spot last week.Boba was also able to post a huge percentage gain this week, increasing its relays by 123%. The chain had a rapid climb beginning on September 23rd, and finished on a high point above 1.4 million daily relays. This was nearly triple the typical daily performance from last week, as the chain spent most days during the prior period below 0.5 million relays.Metis was another highlight this week, with a 59% growth in relays. Metis was approaching half a million daily relays before taking a dip this period. Even after that dip, the chain was able to maintain around 400,000 relays, clocking in well above the typical daily performance from last week.Optimism also saw its relays increase by 40% this week. The chain took a smaller dip on the 22nd, compared to some of the other chains on the network, before finishing the rest of the week above 30 million daily relays. Last week, Optimism was only able to clear the 30 million mark for one day.Swimmer also joined the growth party this week, increasing its relays by 30%. The chain had a rapid surge up throughout the period, and finished at a high point at nearly 5.5 million daily relays. This was after spending most of last week below 4 million daily relays.Fantom was another strong performer, as relays were up 24% for this chain. Fantom has been on a great trend upwards, and has been approaching 40 million daily relays after struggling to clear 30 million relays last week.We also saw double digit growth in some of the Top 5 chains this week, with Polygon and Gnosis - xDai up 11% and 10% respectively. Both chains had a sizeable dip on the 22nd, followed by a rapid recovery. Polygon spent most of the week above 300 million daily relays, while Gnosis - xDai clocked in above 100 million daily relays for the last six days of the period. For Polygon, this performance was good enough to take it to a 30% share of total relays, as it held down the #1 spot over this timeframe.Finally, we had several other chains growing their relays between 10 and 20%, including DFKchain, Evmos, and IoTeX. DFKchain in particular was able to clear the 100 million daily relay mark for three of the last four days of this period.For the developers out there, remember to visit the Pocket Portal to get set up with RPC endpoints for these and other chains that Pocket Network supports!

Node Earnings

From September 22nd through September 28th, both Polygon and Ethereum were able to clear 1 million POKT earnings, with Polygon approaching the 2 million mark. Compared to last week, we saw a swap of Ethereum and BSC in these rankings, as Ethereum’s strong relay performance was good enough to take it into the #2 spot.

In terms of average daily POKT earned per node, the top 5 chains at the end of this time frame were:

• Polygon
• Ethereum
• StarkNet Testnet
• BSC
• Gnosis - xDai

Like last week, this list was significantly reshuffled compared to the prior period, with Polygon being the only chain that remained in the same spot. After having an archival on this list for the last two weeks, we now see a testnet making an appearance, as the relatively low number of nodes servicing StarkNet Testnet led to higher average earnings per node. StarkNet’s appearance here was one of the factors that bumped Osmosis off the list compared to last week.Meanwhile, Ethereum’s increase in relays helped it to swap spots with BSC and move up to #2 in the list, while Gnosis - xDai took the 5th spot from Polygon Archival.

Node Infrastructure

As of September 28th, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 27,858 active nodes across more than 20 different countries, allowing the network to provide constant uptime and resiliency while supporting dozens of different chains.This marked the second consecutive week of a marginal increase in the node count, after a long stretch of consolidation following the key DAO proposals noted below.Note: PIP-22 and PUP-19 have brought big changes to the incentives that shape Pocket’s node infrastructure, by way of introducing stake-weighted servicer rewards and increased validator rewards. We’ll likely continue seeing a consolidation of nodes, as node runners and providers combine stakes to take advantage of these new incentive structures that have been rolled out in v0.9.0.

BETA 0.9.1.1 Info

Finally, we have some quick info to share regarding the BETA-0.9.1.1 release, which is now out! As mentioned in our official Discord, this release is one of the last steps before releasing the RC version.Today, around 7PM EST, we'll be upgrading Testnet and conducting a Testnet Rehearsal for the activation of non-custodial.  If you are running testnet nodes make sure to update your nodes to this beta release!As always, please remember not to upgrade more than 20% of your nodes to the beta version, and wait for the RC release for stable Mainnet use.You can find the release now in Github.

Wrap Up

• Ethereum relays jump 68%, as the chain moves up to sole possession of the #2 spot with a 16% share of total relays.
• Boba more than doubles its relays, with some days tripling its typical performance from last week.
• Metis grows its relays nearly 60%, approaching half a million daily relays.
• Other chains like Optimism, Swimmer, Fantom, IoTeX, DFKchain, and Evmos each grow their relays between 10% and 40%.
• Polygon and Gnosis - xDai each post double-digit percentage growth in the Top 5, with Polygon now taking a 30% share of total relays.
• BETA-0.9.1.1 is now out, with some action items for node runners.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!