The Polygon network gas fees have surged by 1000%, peaking at $0.10, during a rush to mint a new Ordinals-inspired token named POLS.
The Ethereum layer-2 Polygon (MATIC) network experienced a sudden surge in user activity due to the minting of POLS tokens, causing gas fees to spike dramatically.
On Wednesday, Polygon founder Sandeep Nailwal expressed surprise at the increased transaction activity on the network. He speculated that the spike could be attributed to the launch of a new Polygon-based nonfungible token (NFT) collection.
The sudden surge in network activity and gas fees appears to be a result of a frenzy to mint the new POLS token. Data from Dune Analytics showed that the rush to mint POLS coincided with over 102 million MATIC tokens, valued at $86 million, being used as gas.
The POLS token operates on a protocol called PRC-20, similar to the Bitcoin Ordinals-derived BRC-20 token standard. According to Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) data, only 8.7% of the total POLS supply has been minted, with just over 18,100 owners claiming the token.
As of publication time, the Polygon gas fees have returned to typical levels, settling at around 882 gwei. A similar spike in activity was observed on the Bitcoin network in May this year, following the release of the Ordinals protocol.
This protocol enabled users to mint NFTs directly onto the Bitcoin blockchain, leading to an increase in Bitcoin fees not seen since April 2021. This increase was criticized by traditional Bitcoin enthusiasts such as Samson Mow and Adam Back as wasteful.
Read Now: Bitcoin ATM users in Argentina can now utilize Lightning Network