We’re back with another Relay Recap, and it’s a record-breaking week of relays yet again! Thanks in large part to multiple chains in the Top 5 growing their relays by more than 15 percent, we now have a new all-time high in weekly relays for the second week in a row! The 8.3 billion relays serviced this week cleared last week’s all-time high of 7.9 billion relays by about 6 percent. We were able to hit this second straight milestone thanks to another full week of relays well above 1 billion per day, including strong relay numbers while we had hackers building on Pocket Network during ETHBogota and Infracon.Beyond the new weekly high, we were also excited to see a new daily all-time high of 1.342 billion relays on October 11th! This day surpassed the previous all-time high that had been held since August. In fact, at the time of writing we are now riding a 20-day streak of at least 1 billion daily relays.

Throughout the week, the network serviced an average of1.19 billion daily relays, with the daily high for this time period (as well as the new all-time high) recorded at 1.34 billion on October 11th.

Overall, 8.31 billion relays were serviced during the week, representing a 6% increase over the 7.9 billion relays the prior week.

Chain Highlights

After Ethereum’s temporary hold on the #1 spot last week, Polygon was able to wrestle back the top spot during this timeframe. Polygon’s return to #1 was thanks to a 20% growth in relays, with a steady climb throughout the week. Polygon finished the week by peaking at 404 million daily relays, which was a new all-time high for the chain! With this growth, Polygon inched closer to a 30% share of total relays (finishing at 29%).Gnosis - xDai was another chain with strong growth in the Top 5, increasing its weekly relays by 16%. The chain had a large jump above 100 million daily relays starting on October 10th, and climbed for the rest of the period to finish above 130 million daily relays. This jump helped Gnosis - xDai to move up one spot to the fourth most relays out of all chains, bumping DFKchain down to fifth.OEC also had a huge week, growing its relays by 65%. OEC had a big spike for the last two days of this period, as it approached 5 million daily relays. In fact, the 4.47 million relays that were serviced on October 11th represented a new all-time high for this chain as well!FUSE also boosted its relays by 50% this week, as it continues a multi-week upwards trend. The chain had an especially big jump the last two days of the period, and closed out the week with a day above 25 million relays.Lastly, IoTeX was another top performer, with relays up 35% this week. IoTeX has been trending up since October 3rd, and finished on a high above 12 million daily relays. Like Polygon and OEC, IoTeX was yet another chain that posted a new all-time high of its own this week (12 million relays on October 12th)!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!

New Chain Support

During this timeframe, we officially allowlisted one new chain: Goerli Archival (0063).Goerli is a testnet for Ethereum. Node runners can now service relays for these chains and earn POKT, and developers can get set up with Goerli Archival endpoints in the Pocket Portal today!

Node Earnings

From October 6th through October 12th, we saw both Polygon and Ethereum clear the 2 million mark for total POKT earnings. Polygon’s 20% surge in relays helped it to reclaim the #1 spot from Ethereum this week, while BSC remained in the #3 spot that it held previously.

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

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

The picture here was largely similar to last week, with a swap of Polygon and Ethereum being the only change in the Top 5.

Node Infrastructure

As of October 12th, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 27,244 active nodes across more than 20 different countries, allowing the network to provide constant uptime and resiliency while supporting dozens of different chains.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, node runners should make sure to update to 0.9.1.1 ASAP.Pocket Network will need to reach 67% adoption of 0.9.1.1 before non-custodial staking can be re-activated.You can find the release now in Github.

Wrap Up

• A slew of individual chain all-time highs take the total relays to a new weekly high for the second straight week.
• Polygon relays grow 20% as the chain reclaims the #1 spot.
• Gnosis - xDai increases relays by 16% and moves up in the Top 5.
• FUSE, IoTeX, and OEC each increase relays by at least 35%.
• Goerli Archival is allowlisted.
• Node runners: make sure to update to 0.9.1.1 ASAP!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!