Introduction:

Polygon is a layer 2 blockchain for Ethereum, with the goal of being cheaper and faster. The purpose of this analysis is to compare Polygon blockchain speed and throughput performance vs. other L1/L2s.

Key Findings*:

• Polygon has a ~6x faster block time than Ethereum.
• However, Ethereum executes 2.4x more transactions per block then Polygon.
• Solana is King.
  • Solana has fastest avg. block time @ 0.7s (vs. Polygon avg. @ 2.3s).
  • Solana has most transactions/block @ 2.1k (vs. Polygon avg. @ 77).
• Polygon has a minimum block time 2s of and maximum of 13s.

*All findings for data from 7/15/22 - 7/22/22.

Methods:

• Used the polygon.core.fact_blocks table to evaluate Polygon block performance, and each respective fact_blocks tables for the other L1/L2s.
• Used the lag() function to find the previous block_timestamp and subtract from current block_timestamp.
• Unfortunately, the block_timestamp fields across all tables only go down to the sec, not millisecond, which is why minimum block times are 0.
• All data in the dashboard is per the state/end date parameters at the top of the dashboard.