Klaytn and Gnosis Events Bring Strong Relay Growth

Happy weekend everyone! We’re back with another Relay Recap.Relays saw a nice boost this week, with 10+ chains posting significant relay gains (as shown in the Chain Highlights section below). We saw at least four chains with upwards of 100% relay growth, and had a slew of others clocking in with anywhere from 20 - 60% increases. This included three of the top four chains (Ethereum, Gnosis - xDai, and BSC) posting an average 28% gain in relays amongst themselves.We also saw the real-time impact of major chain events on the number of serviced relays, as both DFK’s launch of Serendale on Klaytn and the merge of Gnosis Chain to Proof-of-Stake translated into huge boosts in relays for the respective chains.Throughout this period, the network serviced an average of1.18 billion daily relays, with the daily high for this time period recorded at 1.26 billion on December 13th.

Overall, 8.2 billion relays were serviced during the week, representing an 18% increase over the 7 billion relays the prior week.

Chain Highlights

After we started to see the impact of DFK’s launch of Serendale on Klaytn towards the end of last week’s Recap, Klaytn backed it up in a massive way this week, with relays up nearly 18x. We saw daily relays go from 400K at the end of last week all the way up to nearly 4 million on December 9th. After that peak, daily relays dipped to about 2 million over the course of the next 5 days. All in all, this huge growth took Klaytn from the 27th largest source of relays on Pocket Network all the way up to the 17th spot.18x is hard to top, but Boba gave it a good run with a more than 5x increase of its own. The chain had a huge jump from 600K to 2 million daily relays to start the period, and backed it up by rising even further throughout the week. Daily relays peaked around 2.9 million on December 12th and 14th. Like Klaytn, Boba also moved up the rankings, from the 25th largest source of relays to the 18th spot.Gnosis - xDai Archival had a huge week of its own, with a 167% increase in relays. This increase was correlated in timing with the chain’s merge to Proof-of-Stake early in the period, as we saw daily relays quadruple from 4 million to 16 million between December 10th and 11th. After that time, daily relays dipped back to around 5 million over the course of the next three days. As shown in the Average Daily Relays Per Node chart below, this performance took Gnosis - xDai Archival into this week’s Top 10 for that metric.OEC was also in the 100% Club, with weekly relays growing by 122%. The chain had a steady rise throughout the week, peaking above 2.5 million daily relays on December 13th before a slight dip to end the period.IoTeX was another chain with strong gains this week, as relays jumped 56%. IoTeX stayed steady around 15 to 17 million, consistently beating last week’s high around 14 million.Relay growth was strong in the Top 5 chains as well, with BSC posting its own growth of 34%. The chain has been staying very steady around 80 to 90 million daily relays of late, after not clearing 80 million during any day last week. We’ll keep an eye out to see if BSC can rejoin Ethereum, Polygon, and Gnosis - xDai in the 100 Million Club.Moonbeam also matched BSC with a 34% increase in relays, thanks in large part to a big rise in the last three days of the period. After days of consistent relays just below 10 million, the end of this period saw Moonbeam jump above 16 million daily relays.Ethereum continues to show its strength as the #1 chain lately, as relays grew by 26% in this period. The chain spent each of the middle five days of this period above 400 million relays, and peaked above 450 million. After this peak, Ethereum relays dipped in the last two days of the period. Overall, the chain continues to pull away from Polygon in the #1 spot, now increasing its proportion of total Pocket Network relays to 35%.Optimism relays were also up 26%, thanks to a steady daily climb beginning on December 10th. The chain finished the period on a high note above 45 million daily relays, and spent the last four days of the period above 40 million relays (after not clearing that mark in any day of the previous week).Finally, Gnosis - xDai was another Top 3 chain that showed strong growth this week, with relays increasing by 24%. Again, this increase came as Gnosis Chain completed its Proof-of-Stake merge. During the week, we saw an almost-straight-line rising trend from December 9th through December 14th, with the chain finishing on a high near 185 million daily relays. In last week’s Recap, Gnosis - xDai did not clear the 150 million mark in any day.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!

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Node Earnings

From December 8th through December 14th, Ethereum and Polygon remained the only two chains to clear 1 million in POKT earnings, with Ethereum widening the gap yet again over Polygon. Meanwhile, Gnosis - xDai continued to hold the #3 spot substantially behind Ethereum and Polygon. Beyond the Top 3, we saw BSC flip DFKchain for the #4 spot this week.

In terms of average daily relays per node, we saw the following chains make the Top 15 list.

After a multi-week run in the #1 spot, we saw Polygon Mumbai give way to Ethereum this week. Boba, OEC, Gnosis - xDai Archival, and Klaytn were the other noteworthy big-movers on this list, as the huge relay gains for each of the respective chains helped propel them up the rankings.

Node Infrastructure

As of December 14th, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 24,892 active nodes across more than 20 different countries, allowing the network to provide constant uptime and resiliency while supporting dozens of different chains.This total node count was down just under 1% from the previous week.Note: PIP-22 and PUP-19 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 incentive structures that have been rolled out in v0.9.0.

Wrap Up

• Growth across the board leads to an 18% network-wide increase in relays.
• DFK’s launch of Serendale on Klaytn translates to an 18x increase in weekly relays.
• The Gnosis Chain merge correlates with big relay gains for both Gnosis - xDai and Gnosis - xDai Archival.
• Boba and OEC also make big moves up the average relays per node rankings.
• Three of the top four chains post an average relay growth of 28%.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!