Ethereum layer-2 scaling answer Polygon will bear a tough fork on Jan. 17 so as to tackle fuel spikes and chain reorganization points which have affected consumer expertise on the Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) chain.
Polygon formally confirmed the arduous fork occasion on Jan. 12 in a weblog publish, which got here after weeks of preliminary discussion on the Polygon Enchancment Proposal (PIP) discussion board web page in late December.
GET READY FOR THE HARDFORK
The proposed hardfork for the #Polygon PoS chain will make key upgrades to the community on Jan seventeenth.
That is excellent news for devs & customers — & will make for higher UX.
You’ll NOT must do something in a different way. Particulars:https://t.co/RaBWDjEGrI pic.twitter.com/nipa15YQdZ
— Polygon (@0xPolygon) January 12, 2023
A Polygon spokesperson additionally offered Cointelegraph with extra particulars of the arduous fork on Jan. 14:
“The arduous fork is coded for the Block >= 38,189,056. No centralized, single actor goes to provoke it. Validators of the community need to replace their nodes previous to the indicated block, and they’re already doing so.”
87% of the 15 voters of the Polygon Governance Group voted in favor of accelerating the BaseFeeChangeDenominator operate from 8 to 16 to cut back fuel charge spikes and to lower the SprintLength operate from 64 blocks to 16 so as to repair the chain reorganization drawback.
In addressing the fuel spike subject, the Polygon Group defined that as a result of the bottom charge value typically “experiences exponential spikes” when on-chain exercise will increase quickly, by rising the denominator from 8 to 16, they imagine “the expansion curve will be flattened” and thus “easy extreme fluctuations” in fuel costs.

Associated: Polygon checks zero-knowledge rollups, mainnet integration inbound
As for the chain reorganization drawback, Polygon defined that by lowering dash size, transaction finality will enhance, permitting a single block producer so as to add blocks repeatedly at a frequency of 32 seconds versus the present time of 128 seconds.
“The change is not going to have an effect on the overall time or variety of blocks a validator produces, so there shall be no change in rewards general,” they added.
Chain reorganization happens when a block is deleted from the blockchain to make room for the brand new, longer chain to make sure that all node operators have the identical copy of the ledger.
Nevertheless, the reorganization should proceed as effectively as potential, because it will increase the danger of a 51% assault.
The Polygon Group additionally confirmed that Polygon (MATIC) tokenholders and delegators is not going to must take motion and that purposes is not going to be affected throughout the arduous fork.
The value of Polygon’s token, MATIC is at the moment $0.977, up 13.6% since Polygon introduced the information on Jan. 12.