Try Quests to earn SOLWhat Is Block Time?
Block time describes the duration required to mine a block. In both the bitcoin blockchain and the ethereum blockchain, an anticipated block time and an average block time exist. In bitcoin, the estimated block time is 10 minutes, however in ethereum, it is between 10 and 19 seconds. At the time of writing, both bitcoin and ethereum use a distributed consensus method based on proof of work (ethereum is planned to move to a proof of stake based algorithm with its serenity release). The anticipated block time is fixed at a constant number to ensure that miners can't compromise the network's security by using more processing resources. After n blocks, the average block time of the network is assessed; if it exceeds the predicted block time, the difficulty level of the proof-of-work method is lowered; otherwise, it is raised.
Methodology
- The objective is to compute the average, maximum, and minimum recorded duration between two blocks for the last 30 days.
- We also attempt to calculate the average number of transactions per block during the last 30 days.
- Then, we compare all block analyses of the Polygion chain to those of other L1 and L2 chains.
The chart depicts the daily maximum, minimum, and average time observed between two blocks during the previous 30 days. It is evident that the average block time falls between 2 and 2.5 seconds. In addition, we observed that the minimum block duration is 2 seconds. The maximum block time seems to be very volatile, reaching a maximum of 183 seconds on July 27, 2022.
The graph depicts the daily average block time and the average number of transactions per block over the last 30 days. It is clear that the daily average number of transactions per block is more susceptible to volatility. We discovered that the daily average block time and the average number of transactions per block are moving in the same direction.
The bar chart compares Polygon block time information to those of other L1 chains. Compared to the other L1 chains, the Polygon chain handles the maximum block duration more effectively. In terms of average block time, Polygon has a shorter average block time than Ethereum but a longer average block time than Flow and Solana. Moreover, Polygon has a greater average number of transactions than Flow, but less than Ethereum and Solana. Lastly, we discovered that Polygon failed to control minimum block time relative to other L1 chains, since its minimum block time is more than that of other L1 chains analyzed.
The bar graph compares the Polygon block time information to those of other L2 chains. The Polygon chain successfully manages the maximum block time in comparison to the other L2 chains. Regarding average block time, Polygon has a greater average block time than Arbitrum and Optimum. In addition, Polygon has a higher average number of transactions than all L2 chains. Finally, we found that Polygon failed to control minimum block time compared to other L2 chains, since its minimum block time is greater than that of other L2 chains evaluated.
Conclusion:
- We observed that the average, maximum, and minimum time between two blocks in the Polygon chain were 2.27, 25, and 2 seconds, respectively.
- We discovered that during the last 30 days, the average number of transactions per block for Polygon was 72.5.
- We also discovered that the Polygon chain successfully manages the maximum block time c ompared to the other L1 and L2 chains in terms of block time average.
- We observed that Polygon has a larger average transaction volume than all other L2 chains.
- Last but not least, we noticed that Polygon failed to regulate minimum block time compared to other L1 and L2 chains, since its minimum block time is greater than that of other L1 and L2 chains examined.