We’re back with another Relay Recap, and we’ve got a new milestone to share with you this week!Thanks to a continued surge from Ethereum and other chains, we now have a new all-time high in weekly relays! The 7.85 billion relays serviced this week cleared the previous all-time high of 7.5 billion (as recorded in Relay Recap #76) by nearly 5 percent. We were able to hit this ATH thanks to a full week of relays clocking in well above 1 billion every single day. This included a daily high above 1.2 billion relays to close out the period.What a way to head into Infracon and ETHBogota - we got the party started a little early!

Throughout the week, the network serviced an average of1.12 billion daily relays, with the daily high for this time period recorded at 1.22 billion on October 5th.

Overall, 7.85 billion relays were serviced during the week, representing a 10% increase over the 7.1 billion relays the prior week.

Chain Highlights

Ethereum was a major highlight yet again this week, growing relays by 83%. In fact, Ethereum had its own milestone to add this week - the most weekly relays ever for the chain! As Ethereum continued its rapid climb from recent weeks, it approached 350 million daily relays multiple times, and was able to easily clear 2 billion weekly relays (finishing the period at 2.2 billion). This all-time weekly high for the chain also helped it to take the #1 spot from Polygon for the week - a spot that Polygon has been holding for some time now. Ethereum is now all the way up to a 28% share of all relays, as it took a big jump from the 16% share it held last week.Boba was also able to add to its recent growth this week, increasing its relays by another 42%. The chain added yet ANOTHER milestone to the list this week - the period from September 24th to October 1st was a new weekly all-time high for the chain, as it posted nearly 9.5 million relays during that time. Boba has been climbing steadily lately, and has now gone approximately 10x with its relays over the last 5 weeks. Recently, it has been approaching 2 million daily relays.NEAR was another highlight this week, with a 24% growth in relays. The chain had a volatile week, with a big 3-day spike towards 450,000 daily relays to start the period, followed by an equally big dip below 200,000 to end the period.Klaytn also saw its relays increase by 23% this week. Klaytyn posted a multi-week high in daily relays (near 300,000) to start the period, and spent the rest of the week hovering very consistently around last week’s high of 230,000 daily relays.Solana also had a positive week, increasing its relays by 16%. The chain had a big 3-day jump to start October, and cleared 600,000 daily relays before dipping back down for the last 2 days of this period.Avalanche was another strong performer, as relays were up 13% for this chain. We saw relays spike near 30 million on October 2nd, before dipping the remainder of the period. Even after this dip, Avalanche was able to maintain relays above 20 million per day.Meter also put out solid numbers, growing its relays by 12% this week. Meter had a big spike to nearly 500,000 daily relays to start this period, and dipped afterwards. Overall, the chain was able to stay consistently above last week’s highs, as it was steady just above 400,000 daily relays for the most part.Finally, we had more growth in the Top 3, with BSC increasing relays by 10%. Relays climbed for the chain throughout the week, finishing on a daily high above 170 million. This performance helped BSC lock up the #3 spot for the week, as the only other chain besides Ethereum and Polygon with a double-digit percentage share of total relays (12%).For the developers out there, remember to visit the Pocket Portal to get set up with RPC endpoints for these and other chains that Pocket Network supports!

Node Earnings

From September 29th through October 5th, we saw Ethereum clear the 2 million mark for total POKT earnings. Thanks to its continued relay growth, ETH took the top spot in earnings from Polygon this week, although Polygon remained close behind it. Meanwhile, BSC held down the #3 spot, as it did last week.

In terms of average daily POKT earned per node, the top 5 chains at the end of this time frame were:

• Ethereum
• Polygon
• BSC
• DFKchain
• Gnosis - xDai

Compared to last week, we had StarkNet Testnet drop off the list, while DFKchain took its spot. We also had a swap of the Top 2, as Ethereum’s relay growth was enough to boost its average node earnings above those of Polygon. This marks the first time we’ve seen Polygon dropped from the #1 spot since early August.BSC was also able to move up from #4 to #3, while Gnosis - xDai remained in the same position as last week.

Node Infrastructure

As of October 5th, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 27,774 active nodes across more than 20 different countries, allowing the network to provide constant uptime and resiliency while supporting dozens of different chains.After two consecutive weeks of a slight increase in the node count, we saw a small decrease in nodes this time around, returning to the trend of consolidation that has been incentivized with the below key proposals.Note: PIP-22 and PUP-19 have 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 new incentive structures that have been rolled out in v0.9.0.

RC-0.9.1.1 Info

As announced in our official Discord, we are now one step closer to re-activating Non-Custodial staking.Node runners can begin upgrading their fleets to RC-0.9.1.1 now. As with 0.9.0, we will need to achieve network consensus before re-activating Non-Custodial staking. We will be monitoring the network for adoption and will advise when we reach the required thresholds.You can find the release now in Github.

Wrap Up

• A new all-time high in weekly relays, with 7.85 billion relays serviced!
• Ethereum surges more than 80%, posting its own weekly all-time high and taking the #1 spot from Polygon.
• Boba also hits a weekly all-time high and keeps climbing, as relays have now gone approximately 10x over the last 5 weeks.
• BSC adds to the growth in the Top 3 chains.
• More relay gains from NEAR, Klaytn, Solana, Avalanche, and Meter.
• Ethereum bumps Polygon from the #1 spot for average node earnings, which Polygon had held since early August.
• RC-0.9.1.1 action items for node runners.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend! We hope to see some of you in Bogota!