The gas fees on Ethereum’s layer-2 Polygon experienced a dramatic surge of over 1,000%, reaching a peak of $0.10 as users flooded the network with the minting of tokens inspired by Ordinals, known as POLS. Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal expressed his surprise at the heightened transaction activity on the network, speculating that the surge could be attributed to the launch of a new Polygon-based nonfungible token (NFT) collection. The sudden spike in gas fees and increased network activity seemed to be primarily driven by the fervor for minting the new POLS token.
According to data from Dune Analytics, the rush of minting activity for POLS coincided with a staggering amount of more than 102 million MATIC tokens, which is equivalent to approximately $86 million at current prices, being used as gas. The POLS token is constructed on a protocol called PRC-20, which operates similarly to the Bitcoin Ordinals-derived BRC-20 token standard.
Ethereum Virtual Machine data from EVM revealed that only 8.7% of the total POLS supply has been minted, and just over 18,100 owners have claimed the token. The surge in activity around the POLS token caused significant network congestion and substantially increased gas fees on the Polygon network, with more than $86 million of MATIC being utilized as gas.
As of the time of publication, Polygon’s gas fees have returned to typical levels, settling at around 882 gwei. Gas fees measure the amount of computing effort needed to conduct a transaction on a given blockchain, with 1 gwei being approximately equivalent to 0.000000001 MATIC.
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This surge in gas fees and network activity on Polygon mirrors a similar occurrence on the Bitcoin network earlier in the year. In May, following the release of the Ordinals protocol, Bitcoin experienced a prolonged spike in activity and soaring fees due to the minting of NFTs directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain. The frenzy for Ordinals NFTs and BRC-20 tokens caused Bitcoin fees to reach levels not seen since April 2021.
This surge in fees and network activity led to skepticism and criticism from some notable figures within the Bitcoin community, including Samson Mow and Adam Back, who denounced the NFT protocol and token standard as wasteful. Similar to the situation on Polygon, the increased activity and congestion on the Bitcoin network eventually subsided, but not before causing significant disruption and increased costs for users.
The parallel occurrences on both Polygon and the Bitcoin network highlight the challenges associated with sudden surges in network activity and the resulting spike in gas fees. As blockchain and cryptocurrency ecosystems continue to evolve and expand, it’s important for networks to find scalable solutions to address these issues and ensure a smooth user experience while maintaining decentralized and secure operations.
