Key Points
- Polygon activates Giugliano hardfork, reducing transaction finality by 2 seconds.
- Upgrade improves fee handling and developer efficiency on Polygon PoS.
Polygon activated its Giugliano hardfork on mainnet at block 85,268,500 on April 8, aiming to shorten transaction finality by enabling earlier block announcements from producers.
The Polygon Foundation stated that testing on the Amoy testnet showed a 2-second reduction in finality time, marking a renewed focus on performance improvements.
The upgrade follows earlier stability challenges, including a finality bug and a validator-related disruption that led to temporary network issues.
By executing Giugliano on schedule, the network signals operational readiness to institutional partners and decentralized application developers.
Giugliano Hardfork Mechanics and Network Changes
Documented as PIP-84, the Giugliano upgrade introduces earlier block announcements, embeds fee parameters directly into block headers, and adds new RPC endpoints for more efficient fee data access.
Allowing producers to broadcast blocks sooner compresses the interval between block creation and confirmation, contributing to the observed 2-second reduction in finality on the Amoy testnet.
For high-frequency decentralized finance and payment applications, faster confirmation times can affect settlement speed and transaction competitiveness.
Embedding fee parameters in block headers reduces the need for separate data queries, lowering operational overhead for wallets and decentralized applications.
Node operators were required to upgrade to Bor v2.7.0 or Erigon v3.5.0 before the activation block to maintain synchronization with the network.
Giugliano also reinstates elements of PIP-66 that were previously reverted after issues during the Bhilai hardfork, following revisions and additional validation prior to redeployment.
