Relay Recap #108 features a second straight huge week from Arbitrum One RPC traffic, the addition of Polygon zkEVM, and a reshuffling of some of the top chains. This recap covers stats from March 23 - March 29.

Happy Friday! We're back with another Relay Recap.

When it came to week-over-week relay growth, Arbitrum One stole the show yet again. After seeing relays increase more than 100% leading up to the ARB airdrop last week, the chain backed it up by growing relays more than 180% this week. This was due mostly to a big day on the 23rd (the actual day of the airdrop), in which we saw daily relays jump all the way from 5.7 million to 21.2 million. After this huge spike, relays came back down towards 3 to 4 million per day, still staying significantly above the 1 million or so daily relays we were seeing from the chain earlier in March.

As we noted last week, for anyone still looking to customize their Arbitrum One RPC and find a more reliable solution, you can get set up in minutes in the Pocket Portal now.

Mint Your Own RPC Endpoint for Arbitrum One

Polygon zkEVM was another story capturing the crypto world's attention this week, as its Mainnet Beta went live. We're excited to say Polygon zkEVM is now up and running with Pocket as of March 29th, and node runners can service the chain for POKT rewards! You can check out more details on the chain in the next section of the Recap.

https://twitter.com/POKTnetwork/status/1641251587883429889?s=20

Overall, we had 13 different chains posting double-digit percentage growth in relays this week. Polygon Mumbai joined Arbitrum One in clearing the 100% growth mark, while OEC, Gnosis - xDAI Archival, and NEAR each clocked in above 50%.

It was also a week in which the landscape of top chains was shifted. Ethereum's 36% relay growth further solidified its #1 position, while Polygon dropped down to the #4 spot. A strong week from DFKchain moved it up from #3 to #2, while Gnosis - xDAI also bumped up a spot from #4 to #3 (both of these chains posted about 20% increases in relays week-over-week). You can see these shifts in the top chains in the Relay Distribution graphic further on down this Recap.

Throughout this period, the network serviced an average of 1.14 billion daily relays. The daily high for this time period was recorded at 1.3 billion on March 27th.

Overall, 8 billion relays were serviced during the week. This was a 1% decrease from the 8.1 billion relays the prior week.

New Chain Support: Polygon zkEVM

As mentioned above, this week brought support for another new chain, with Polygon zkEVM's Mainnet Beta being allowlisted on March 29th.

• zkevm-polygon-mainnet (0074)

Node runners can now serve relays to these chains and earn POKT for their RPC service! As always, DO NOT add the RelayChainID to your Pocket Node stake until you've ensured that your nodes are working correctly.

You can also check out the Polygon zkEVM docs here.

If you're looking for your own private RPC endpoint for Polygon zkEVM, you can get set up in minutes in the Pocket Portal.

See All of Pocket Network's Supported Chains

Chain Highlights: Arbitrum One RPC Traffic Leads the Way Again

Below are some of the chains with the top week-over-week relay growth.

The green percentages show total weekly relay growth, while the charts show the two-week trend in relays per node. Images courtesy of POKTscan!

Arbitrum One ↗️ 182%

🦾 1,772 nodes servicing

📡 11,392 average daily relays per node

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Polygon Mumbai ↗️ 148%

🦾 956 nodes servicing

📡 3,970 average daily relays per node

OEC ↗️ 79%

🦾 2,636 nodes servicing

📡 2,147 average daily relays per node

Gnosis - xDai Archival ↗️ 64%

🦾 2,629 nodes servicing

📡 525 average daily relays per node

NEAR ↗️ 60%

🦾 175 nodes servicing

📡 1,309 average daily relays per node

Ethereum ↗️ 36%

🦾 21,023 nodes servicing

📡 20,291 average daily relays per node

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Swimmer ↗️ 36%

🦾 3,130 nodes servicing

📡 1,223 average daily relays per node

Ethereum Archival ↗️ 33%

🦾 12,272 nodes servicing

📡 188 average daily relays per node

DFKchain ↗️ 20%

🦾 20,476 nodes servicing

📡 8,034 average daily relays per node

Gnosis - xDai ↗️ 18%

🦾 20,511 nodes servicing

📡 6,752 average daily relays per node

Boba ↗️ 15%

🦾 4,335 nodes servicing

📡 1,111 average daily relays per node

Moonriver ↗️ 12%

🦾 4,121 nodes servicing

📡 874 average daily relays per node

Harmony ↗️ 11%

🦾 19,282 nodes servicing

📡 1,400 average daily relays per node

Node Earnings

From March 23rd through March 29th, we saw some more reordering in the Top 3 rankings for total POKT earnings. While Ethereum remained in the #1 spot, Polygon dropped out of the Top 3 for the first time in quite a while. With Polygon falling out, DFKchain and Gnosis - xDAI moved up to take the #2 and #3 spots, with a significant gap between these chains and Ethereum.

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

It was a week full of chains either moving up this list or making wholly new appearances on it. As Ethereum put out another strong week and took more of a share of total relays, the chain was able to easily hold on to the #1 spot here - but there was a lot of action behind it.

Arbitrum One's big day on the 23rd fueled it to the #2 spot, although an increase in node runners servicing the chain and a dip back down to around 4 million daily relays brought a decrease in average POKT earnings in the days following the 23rd.

Meanwhile, Polygon's dip in traffic took it down to #5, clearing the way for DFKchain and Gnosis - xDAI to move up, thanks to their strong weeks of relay growth.

As far as the biggest movers, OEC jumped up 11 spots to crack the Top 10, as relays have been climbing fairly steadily since the middle of March. Since that time, relays have gone from 1 to 2 million per day all the way up to clear 7 million during this week (79% growth compared to last week). NEAR wasn't far behind OEC in terms of big moves, as it surged 9 spots to make an appearance in the Top 15. We saw NEAR relays start to grow around the 21st, and the chain chugged along steadily during this period to increase relays 60% week-over-week.

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Node Infrastructure

As of March 29th, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 21,294 active nodes across more than 25 different countries, allowing the network to provide constant uptime and resiliency while supporting dozens of different chains.

This total node count was up about 1% from the previous week.

Wrap Up

• Pocket nodes service a nearly 3x increase in Arbitrum One RPC traffic, thanks to a huge spike on the day of the ARB airdrop.
• Polygon zkEVM is allowlisted, with node runners now able to service relays for the chain and earn POKT.
• Ethereum builds on its #1 position, and Polygon falls out of the Top 3.
• Tons of movement in the Average Daily POKT Per Node rankings, as OEC, NEAR, and Swimmer make the biggest moves upwards.

Thank you for reading!