Happy weekend everyone! We’re back with another Relay Recap.This was another week of mixed results for relays, as we saw a combination of growth at the top (Polygon and Harmony) and a substantial dip from Ethereum. Thanks in large part to Ethereum’s performance last week being heavily skewed by a day in which it spiked over 500 million relays, the chain came in more than 50% lower in total relays this week, mostly ranging between 70 to 80 million daily relays. While this was still plenty high enough to keep the chain in the Top 5, it dropped Ethereum from #2 to #5 this week, and played a big part in why total relays across the network were down marginally.Throughout the week, the network serviced an average of865 million daily relays, with the daily high for this time period recorded at 930 million on September 4th.

Overall, 6.1 billion relays were serviced during the week, representing a 3% decrease over the 6.2 billion relays the prior week.

Chain Highlights

As mentioned above, although Ethereum’s drop in weekly relays had a big impact on the overall picture, we still saw other growth at the top - namely with Polygon (up 6%) and Harmony (up 11%). Both chains were able to grow their proportion of relays (by 2% and 3% respectively), with Harmony in particular making up some lost ground of late. Polygon has been putting up very steady performance recently around 250 million daily relays, while Harmony spent three days above 170 million relays before taking a dip.Optimism was one of the top stories this week, with a 72% increase in relays. After spending most of last week below 15 million daily relays, the chain climbed up during this period to eventually clear the 30 million mark before dipping back down some. This growth from Optimism helped it take the #9 spot for the week, ahead of Avalanche.Moonbeam and Moonriver also had big weeks, with relays up 51% and 44% respectively. Both chains finished the week with 8.9 million relays, although with somewhat different paths to get there. Moonriver had a spike up to 1.7 million daily relays before taking a dip, while Moonbeam stayed more steady between 1.2 and 1.4 million daily relays. This performance comes on the heels of both chains staying below 1 million daily relays for much of last week.We saw somewhat of a bounce-back week from BSC as well, as relays were up 13% on this chain. The positive results this week were due in large part to two days in which BSC cleared 140 million daily relays, after being below 100 million for much of last week. This helped BSC creep back up the Top 5 list, from the #4 spot to the #3 spot.Fuse was another chain with strong performance this week, growing its relays by 12%. All of last week, Fuse did not clear 25 million daily relays. It was a different story this week, as it cleared that mark to start the period and rose up steadily to approach 29 million daily relays.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 1st through September 7th, Polygon was the only chain whose nodes earned more than 1 million POKT, putting it significantly ahead of the other Top 3 chains for node earnings this time around. As Ethereum had its drop in relays after its large spike last week, it fell off this Top 3 list, allowing Harmony to take its #2 spot. This also cleared the way for BSC to get back on the list in the 3rd spot.

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

• Polygon
• Harmony
• BSC
• Meter
• Gnosis - xDai

This was another week where we saw significant reshuffling of this list, as Polygon was the only chain that held onto its spot from the prior week. Ethereum and Dogechain fell off the list entirely, as both had drops in relays this week, and Dogechain in particular had more nodes start servicing the chain and dividing the rewards. Taking their places were Meter (thanks to a lower number of nodes servicing the chain so shortly after being allowlisted) and Gnosis - xDai. Meanwhile, Harmony and BSC both moved up 2 spots compared to last week.

Node Infrastructure

As of September 7th, Pocket Network’s decentralized infrastructure included 28,075 active nodes across nearly 25 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.

Wrap Up

• Ethereum has a large drop in weekly relays after last week’s temporary spike, but Polygon and Harmony balance it out somewhat with their own growth.
• Optimism grows more than 70% and holds down the #9 spot for the week.
• Moonbeam and Moonriver each clock in with around 50% growth, as both chains post nearly 9 million weekly relays.
• BSC and Fuse are other standouts, with BSC in particular moving up to the #3 spot for the week.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!