Gas fees on Ethereum layer-2 Polygon (MATIC) experienced a staggering increase of over 1,000%, reaching a peak of $0.10. This surge was caused by a flood of users minting Ordinals-inspired tokens called POLS, leading to heightened network activity.
Spike in transaction activity surprises Polygon founder
Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal expressed his surprise at the elevated transaction activity on the network in a recent X (formerly Twitter) post. He speculated that the spike could be attributed to the launch of a new Polygon-based nonfungible token (NFT) collection.
POLS token frenzy drives network activity
The surge in network activity and subsequent spike in gas fees can primarily be attributed to the frenzy surrounding the minting of the new POLS token. Data from Dune Analytics revealed a rush of minting activity for POLS, with over 102 million MATIC tokens (worth $86 million) being used as gas.
POLS token built on PRC-20 protocol
The POLS token is built on a protocol called PRC-20, which functions similarly to the Bitcoin Ordinals-derived BRC-20 token standard.
Less than 9% of POLS supply minted
According to data from Ethereum Virtual Machine data provider EVM, only 8.7% of the total POLS supply has been minted. Currently, there are just over 18,100 owners of the token.
Return to typical gas fees
As of now, Polygon gas fees have returned to their usual levels, settling at around 882 gwei. Gas fees measure the computing effort required to perform a transaction on a specific blockchain, with 1 gwei being approximately equal to 0.000000001 MATIC.
Similar spike observed on Bitcoin network
In May of this year, the Bitcoin network experienced a similar spike in activity following the release of the Ordinals protocol, which enabled users to mint NFTs directly on the Bitcoin blockchain. This resulted in Bitcoin fees reaching levels not seen since April 2021, leading some Bitcoiners to criticize the NFT protocol and token standard as wasteful.
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