Polygon Enhances Network with Madhugiri Hard Fork

According to Cointelegraph, blockchain network Polygon has implemented its latest protocol upgrade, the Madhugiri hard fork, designed to boost network throughput by 33% and reduce block consensus time to one second. Polygon core developer Krishang Shah announced on X that the update incorporates three Fusaka Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIPs): EIP-7823, EIP-7825, and EIP-7883. These proposals aim to enhance the efficiency and security of mathematical operations by limiting gas consumption, preventing single transactions from monopolizing computing resources, and ensuring smoother network operations. The upgrade also introduces a new transaction type for Ethereum to Polygon bridge traffic and includes a built-in flexibility feature for future enhancements. Polygon has previously stated that increasing throughput is now as simple as "flipping a few switches." Shah noted that the consensus time has been reduced to one second, allowing blocks to be announced more swiftly if ready, rather than waiting the full two seconds. With the Madhugiri upgrade now active, Polygon seeks to strengthen its infrastructure and significantly enhance its performance, which is essential for high-frequency and high-trust applications like real-world asset (RWA) tokenization and stablecoins. Aishwary Gupta, Polygon Labs' global head of payments and RWAs, has predicted a "stablecoin supercycle," anticipating a surge of at least 100,000 stablecoins over the next five years. Gupta emphasized the importance of utility yield and advocated for increased transparency and accountability in the RWA sector, arguing that RWA figures are meaningless without the ability to audit, settle, or trade the assets. The Madhugiri hard fork follows the major Heimdall 2.0 upgrade, which was deployed on July 10 and described by Polygon Foundation CEO Sandeep Nailwal as the network's most technically complex hard fork since its inception. This update reduced transaction finality times from one to two minutes to approximately five seconds. However, on September 10, the network faced a significant disruption due to a bug that caused finality delays of 10 to 15 minutes, impacting validator synchronization, remote procedure call services, and third-party tools. Despite this, the team reassured the community that blocks continued to run. On September 11, the Polygon Foundation announced that consensus and finality functions had been restored through a hard fork, resolving the issues with node synchronization and finalizing checkpoints and milestones as expected.