The average time between blocks on Polygon is 2.51 seconds. This is much faster than Ethereum’s 22.7 seconds.

Ethereum (in orange) and Polygon (in purple) both have issued more than 1300 transactions in a single block. But Polygon's blocks settle considerably more quickly.

While faster than Ethereum, the other Layer 2 chains have not seen as many transactions as Polygon and Ethereum.

Polygon seeks to address Ethereum’s scalability challenges. To do so, it processes transactions on a separate chain (sometimes called a “side-chain“ or a “layer 2 chain”). Following post-processing, transactions are settled on the Ethereum blockchain. Polygon eases congestion on Ethereum by processing transactions off the main chain.

But how does Polygon’s performance compare to Ethereum’s? To answer this, I compare Polygon’s block performance with Ethereum. I also show the block performance of a few other EVM compatible chains.

(The times above are expressed in seconds.)

In terms of the number of transactions per block, Polygon and Ethereum are comparable. However, Polygon blocks settle almost ten times faster then Ethereum blocks. It has a substantially higher throughput rate.

The other Layer 2 chains remain under-utilised. In comparison to Polygon, Arbitrum, Avalanche, and Optimism see fewer transactions per block.

Optimism stands out with its average block time under one second. It has yet to experience high transaction volumes.

Note that when the MIN_BLOCK_TIME is 0, it actually means that the minimum time between blocks ever recorded was under one second. This is due to the database's lack of millisecond timestamp counting.

Polygon is not the only scaling solution for Ethereum. Others include Avalanche, Optimism and Arbitrum. I compare the block performance of each of these chains.

Takeaway

The switch to proof-of-stake for Ethereum won't improve block performance. The future of Ethereum includes Layer 2 chains.

Polygon stands out among the chains working on scaling Ethereum. The chain has been battle tested and has shown great real-world performance. Polygon has been outstanding at acquiring new partners and recruiting talent. Additionally, it innovates quickly, as evidenced by its recent announcement of the upcoming launch of a ZkEVM Layer 2 chain.

By querying on-chain data, we compare the performance of blockchains in the real world. We can see which chains see the highest usage. This information may be more insightful than the claims made by the founding teams regarding the theoretical maximum TPS of their chains

Technical Notes:

• The analysis uses data from April 1, 2022 to July 23, 2022.
• Credit to Kye#2008 for starting a query of the time between blocks on Polygon.
• A ‘min_block_time’ of 0 actually means <1 second