I. Introduction

Polygon is a layer-2 solution for ethereum to scale the network. Transactions on Polygon are way faster and cheaper than ethereum. One of the best criteria to investigate the scalability of a Blockchain is the block performance on that Blockchain. Time between blocks and also number of transactions per block are two metrics that can be used to evaluate the block performance.

This dashboard analyzes the block performance of Polygon and compare it to other L1s like ethereum, Flow, Avalanche and Solana and L2s such as Optimism and Arbitrum. Section II describes the methodology used to evaluate block performance of different Blockchains. Section III illustrates the results and Section IV concludes the dashboard.

II. Method

We investigate two main metrics. 1) Time between blocks and 2) Number of transactions per block. Throughout all metrics, we utilized the ’fact_block’ table for all blockchains. First, the records are sorted based on ’BLOCK_TIMESTAMP’. Then the time difference between two consecutive rows are calculated as block time. The average number of transactions per block are also calculated by averaging the ‘TX_COUNT’ in the favorable time span.

1. Time between blocks

   We calculated the daily average block time since Jun 1, 2022 in addition to total minimum, maximum and average block times for different blockchains. This way, we can investigate the trend of change in block times for different blockchains and compare them to each other. Therefore, this metric is divide to two sub-category as follow:

   • Total minimum, maximum and average block time for different Blockchains
   • Daily average block time for different Blockchains since Jun 1, 2022.

2. Number of transactions per block

   Same as block time, the number of transactions per block is also divided as follow:

   • Daily average number of transactions per block for different Blockchains since Jun 1, 2022.

   • Total average number of transactions per block for different Blockchains.

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From the two metrics above, in order to further compare the block performance of different Blockchains, we also combine these two metrics by dividing them to each other and define block_performance(TPS) which is calculated by:

block_performance(TPS) = total_average_number_of_transactions_per_block / total_average_block_time

The block_performance(TPS) shows that a blockchain can handle how many transactions per seconds (TPS).

III. Results

1. Daily average block time and daily average number of tx per block

   We can see form the graphs below that:

   • Starting from Jun 1, 2022, for all Blokchains shown on the graph (Optimism, Polygon, Ethereum, Solana, Flow and Avalanche), the average daily block time changed slightly and they can almost be considered as constant.
   • Starting from Jun 1, 2022, Solana has constantly the most number of transactions per block. Ethereum, Polygon, Flow, Avalanche and optimism are in the next ranks, respectively. It is interesting for us that this ranking is almost same for all days.

2. Graphs below shows the min, max and average block time for all blockchains since Jun 1, 2022. Also total average transactions per seconds for Blockchains are shown in a separate graph. we can see that:
   • The minimum block time for Polygon is 2 seconds. maximum is 25 seconds and average is 2.24s. The average number of transactions per block is 74.94.
   • The minimum block time for Ethereum is 1 seconds. maximum is 169 seconds and average is 14.27s. The average number of transactions per block is 183.45.
   • The minimum block time for Avalanche is 0 seconds. maximum is 50 seconds and average is 2s. The average number of transactions per block is 5.33.
   • The minimum block time for Flow is 0 seconds. maximum is 12.49k seconds and average is 1.5s. The average number of transactions per block is 16.4.
   • The minimum block time for Solana is 0 seconds. maximum is 16.033k seconds and average is 0.76s. The average number of transactions per block is 2044.
   • The minimum block time for Arbitrum is 0 seconds. maximum is 23.42k seconds and average is 1.1s. The average number of transactions per block is 1.16.
   • The minimum block time for Optimism is 0 seconds. maximum is 112 seconds and average is 0.9s. The average number of transactions per block is 1.

We can deduce from the minimum and maximum block time that Polygon has the most stable block time (2-25s). Avalanche (0-50s), Optimism(0-112), Ethereum(1-169), Flow (0-12.49k), Solana (0-16.033k) and Arbitrum (0-23.42k) are in the next ranks.

Maximum block time like 12kseconds (Flow), 16k seconds (Solana) and 23k seconds (Arbitrum) probably shows temporary halt of the blockchain.

IV. Conclusion

In this dashboard, we analyzed the block performance of Polygon network and compared it to other L1s like ethereum, Flow, Avalanche and Solana and L2s such as Optimism and Arbitrum. We investigated two main metrics. 1) Time between blocks and 2) Number of transactions per block. In order to further compare the block performance of different Blockchains, we combined these two metrics by dividing them to each other and define block_performance (TPS) which is calculated by:

block_performance(TPS) = total_average_number_of_transactions_per_block / total_average_block_time

The results can be summarized as follow:

• Starting from Jun 1, 2022, for all Blokchains (Optimism, Polygon, Ethereum, Solana, Flow and Avalanche), the average daily block time changed slightly and they can almost be considered as constant.
• Starting from Jun 1, 2022, Solana has constantly the most number of transactions per block. Ethereum, Polygon, Flow, Avalanche and optimism are in the next ranks, respectively. It is interesting for us that this ranking is almost same for all days.
• The minimum block time for Polygon is 2 seconds. maximum is 25 seconds and average is 2.24s. The average number of transactions per block is 74.94.
• The minimum block time for Ethereum is 1 seconds. maximum is 169 seconds and average is 14.27s. The average number of transactions per block is 183.45.
• The minimum block time for Solana is 0 seconds. maximum is 16.033k seconds and average is 0.76s. The average number of transactions per block is 2044.
• The minimum block time for Arbitrum is 0 seconds. maximum is 23.42k seconds and average is 1.1s. The average number of transactions per block is 1.16.
• Maximum block time like 12kseconds (Flow), 16k seconds (Solana) and 23k seconds (Arbitrum) probably shows temporary halt of the blockchain.
• The block_performance (TPS) for different blockchains are as follow:
  • Solana with 2677 TPS.
  • Polygon with 33 TPS.
  • Ethereum with 12.86 TPS.
  • Flow with 10.9 TPS.
  • Avalanche with 2.65 TPS.
  • Optimism with 1.10 TPS.
  • Arbitrum with 1.05 TPS.

V. Appendix

The tables for each graph that is presented in this dashboard are brought here for reference.

3. The block_performance (TPS) for different blockchains is shown in graph below. The rank is as follow:

   • Solana with 2677 TPS.
   • Polygon with 33 TPS.
   • Ethereum with 12.86 TPS.
   • Flow with 10.9 TPS.
   • Avalanche with 2.65 TPS.
   • Optimism with 1.10 TPS.
   • Arbitrum with 1.05 TPS.

   
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