Ordinal-like transactions surge as gas fees go ‘crazy’ on Polygon network Ordinal-like transactions surge as gas fees go ‘crazy’ on Polygon network
Polygon has seen increased network activity of PRC-20 tokens leading to $87M in transaction fees.
2 min read
Updated: Nov. 17, 2023 at 11:03 am UTC
Cover art/illustration via CryptoSlate. Image includes combined content which may include AI-generated content.
The proliferation of Ordinal-like transactions of PRC-20 tokens appears to have pushed gas fees on Polygon (MATIC), an Ethereum (ETH) layer-2 network, to yearly highs.
While the network fees have since receded to previous lows, data from livdir.com shows that the average gas fee peaked at over 5,000 Gwei on Nov. 16.
Data from Polygonscan further corroborates this, showing that the network users spent approximately $131,000, or 155,000 MATIC, on gas fees during the period. This marked the highest amount Polygon users have spent on gas fees since November last year.
Sandeep Nailwal, Polygon’s founder, noted this trend and described the increased gas fees as “crazy.” According to him, the network worked smoothly despite gas fees going amid the 6 million transactions recorded in 24 hours at an average of 170 transactions per second.
PRC-20 POLS token
Meanwhile, the rise in Polygon’s fees coincided with increased minting activities of the “PRC-20” token called POLS.
Dune Analytics data, curated by SatsX, shows that the total amount of POLS tokens minted stands at 2.1 quadrillions as of press time. Per the dashboard, these minting activities resulted in spending over 102 million MATIC, valued at approximately $86.7 million, in transaction fees.
The POLS tokens utilize the PRC-20 protocol, leveraging transactional ‘calldata’ on the Polygon blockchain. These tokens resemble Bitcoin Ordinals’ BRC-20 tokens, facilitating the generation of NFT-like assets within the network.
Interestingly, the fee surge on Polygon mirrors similar trends observed on the Bitcoin (BTC) network when Ordinals came to the fore.
CryptoSlate recently reported that a resurgence in the popularity of these Ordinals pushed BTC transaction fees to a six-month high.
Similarly, Ordinals contributed to increased transactions on Litecoin’s (LTC) network, although its transaction fees did not significantly surge like other networks.
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Author 
Oluwapelumi Adejumo
Oluwapelumi values Bitcoin's potential. He imparts insights on a range of topics like DeFi, hacks, mining and culture, underlining transformative power.
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Polygon, a prominent layer 2 scaling solution on Ethereum, has emerged as a multifaceted and scalable platform, enhancing the Ethereum ecosystem’s capabilities.
Ethereum
$3,142.19
Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain platform that enables the creation of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps).
Ordinals
$13.3125
The total amount of bitcoins is 21 million, and one can be subdivided into 100 million satoshi (satoshi is sat, the smallest unit of bitcoin), and there are 2100 trillion satoshi in total.
Bitcoin
$98,040.32
Bitcoin, a decentralized currency that defies the sway of central banks or administrators, transacts electronically, circumventing intermediaries via a peer-to-peer network.
Sandeep Nailwal is the co-founder of the Polygon Network.