Relay Recap #103 brings a new weekly all-time high for serviced relays, big growth from Ethereum RPC traffic, and a move up the ranks for Harmony and OEC . This recap covers stats from February 16 - February 22.

Happy Friday! We’re back with another Relay Recap, and this one brings a new milestone.

Thanks in part to a big surge from Ethereum RPC traffic this week, we're happy to share a new all-time high in the number of weekly relays service by Pocket Network! The 9.05 billion relays serviced this week edged out the previous all-time high from October 2022, and represented the first week in which the network cleared the 9 billion weekly relay mark.

Speaking of Ethereum, we're also pumped to be kicking off #BUIDLWeek at ETHDenver today! We have two different bounties up for grabs, and we've shared a Hacker Guide that has everything you need to start building with your own decentralized endpoint and take home one of those bounties for yourself.

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On top of the big week from Ethereum RPC traffic, we had Metis more than tripling its relays from the prior week, and 9 other chains posting double-digit percentage growth.

Relays were at their high point early in the week, before a slight dip to around 1.25 billion daily relays for the remainder of the period.

While the rankings for average daily relays per node stayed the same at the top, we had several sizable moves elsewhere within the Top 15 chart. More on that below!

Throughout this period, the network serviced an average of 1.292 billion daily relays. The daily high for this time period was recorded at 1.343 billion on February 16th. 

Overall, 9.05 billion relays were serviced during the week. This was an 11% increase from the 8.13 billion relays the prior week.

Chain Highlights

Below are some of the chains with the top week-over-week relay growth. Images courtesy of POKTscan!

Metis ↗️ 215%

🦾 326 nodes servicing

📡 1,792 average daily relays per node

Ethereum ↗️ 50%

🦾 21,420 nodes servicing

📡 14,248 average daily relays per node

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Klaytn ↗️ 33%

🦾 10,459 nodes servicing

📡 1,526 average daily relays per node

Optimism ↗️ 32%

🦾 13,946 nodes servicing

📡 1,056 average daily relays per node

OEC ↗️ 32% 

🦾 2,389 nodes servicing

📡 1,214 average daily relays per node

BSC ↗️ 28% 

🦾 20,768 nodes servicing

📡 4,293 average daily relays per node

Harmony ↗️ 26% 

🦾 20,826 nodes servicing

📡 1,981 average daily relays per node

Fantom ↗️ 17% 

🦾 20,656 nodes servicing

📡 2,847 average daily relays per node

FUSE ↗️ 13% 

🦾 20,778 nodes servicing

📡 736 average daily relays per node

Solana ↗️ 11% 

🦾 179 nodes servicing

📡 4,830 average daily relays per node

IoTeX ↗️ 10% 

🦾 17,811 nodes servicing

📡 892 average daily relays per node

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Node Earnings

From February 16th through February 22nd, we had Ethereum make up ground on Polygon in terms of total POKT earnings, while DFKchain came in a more distant third than last week. Just like the prior period, we had Gnosis -xDai pushing DFKchain for the #3 spot, as the chain had about 480k in POKT earnings of its own.

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

While we had no change in the top 4 this week, we saw three noteworthy moves from Harmony, Arbitrum One, and OEC.

For Harmony, the chain's 26% growth in weekly relays moved it into the Top 10 for average daily relays per node, even with the number of node runners servicing the chain bumping up slightly this week.

Meanwhile, Arbitrum One relays came back down after a huge spike last week. The decrease in relays, combined with the number of node runners servicing the chain nearly doubling, bumped Arbitrum One down 6 spots on these rankings.

Lastly, OEC's 32% increase in relays combined with slightly less node runners servicing the chain helped it jump up 6 spots and claim the last position on this list, after ranking in the 20's the prior week.

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Node Infrastructure

As of February 22nd, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 21,534 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 1.4% from the previous week.

Note: PIP-22 and PUP-19 brought big changes to the incentives that shape Pocket’s node infrastructure, by way of introducing stake-weighted servicer rewards and increased validator rewards. We’ll likely continue seeing a consolidation of nodes, as node runners and providers combine stakes to take advantage of these incentive structures that were rolled out in v0.9.0.

Wrap Up

• A new all-time high in weekly relays, as the 9 billion mark is cleared for the first time.
• Ethereum RPC relays jump 50%, and the chain adds 7% to its share of total network relays.
• Metis more than triples its weekly relays.
• Harmony and OEC move up the rankings for average daily relays per node, while Arbitrum One drops out of the Top 10.

Thank you for reading - and happy buidling at ETHDenver!