The gas fees on Polygon, Ethereum's layer 2 scaling solution, experienced a massive surge of over 1,000%, reaching a peak of $0.10 as users engaged in significant minting of the POLS token inspired by Ordinals.
Polygon's founder, Sandeep Nailwal, expressed surprise in a recent post on Nov. 16, noting the unexpected surge in transaction activity on the network. He suggested that the notable increase in trading volume could be attributed to the recent launch of new non-fungible tokens (NFTs) on Polygon, contributing to the heightened network activity and sudden spike in gas fees.
Data from Dune Analytics revealed a significant surge in POLS token minting, coinciding with the utilization of more than 102 million MATIC tokens, which equates to around $86 million at current market prices, to cover gas fees. The POLS token is constructed on the PRC-20 protocol, operating similarly to the BRC-20 token standard derived from Bitcoin Ordinals.
According to statistics from Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) data provider EVM, only 8.7% of the entire POLS supply has been minted, with slightly over 18,100 individuals claiming ownership of these tokens. As of the time of reporting, gas rates on Polygon have returned to typical levels, stabilizing around 882 gwei. Gas fees represent the computational requirements for executing a transaction on a particular blockchain, with 1 gwei approximately equivalent to 0.000000001 MATIC.
Comparatively, the Bitcoin network witnessed a similar but more prolonged surge in activity earlier in May this year upon the release of the Ordinals protocol, allowing users to directly mint NFTs on the Bitcoin blockchain. This frenzy for Ordinals NFTs and BRC-20 tokens led to a spike in Bitcoin fees, reaching their highest levels since April 2021. Some prominent figures in the Bitcoin community, such as Samson Mow and Adam Back, expressed concerns regarding NFT protocols and coin standards, considering them a wasteful aspect within the Bitcoin ecosystem.
