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Polygon activates its Madhugiri Hardfork, boosting throughput, finality, and security as it aims for institutional-grade scaling.
Author: Tanishq Bodh
December 9, 2025 – Polygon has activated the Madhugiri Hardfork on its Proof-of-Stake (PoS) mainnet, marking one of its most aggressive performance upgrades to date. The upgrade went live at block 80,084,800 around 10:00 UTC. It introduces improvements to throughput, finality, and network configurability. Positioned as a step toward becoming an “institutional-grade, global money network,” the enhancement builds directly on the momentum from the Bhilai upgrade, which boosted throughput by 50% earlier this year.
Named after a hill fort in India, Madhugiri introduces adjustable blocktimes. This allows Polygon to modify interval speeds without future hardforks. With blocks now published the moment they are ready, Polygon is laying the groundwork for future scaling. The team estimates potential capacity of up to 5,000 transactions per second (TPS). Meanwhile, consensus time has been reduced from two seconds to one. This shift delivers near-instant confirmation for speed-critical use cases such as payments, on-chain trading, and gaming.
Early performance benchmarks post-activation show Polygon sustaining around 1,400 TPS, an increase driven partly by the raised block gas limit, which jumps from 45 million to 60 million for a 33% throughput gain. While $POL saw modest intraday volatility, analysts anticipate bullish sentiment as enterprise integrations accumulate, especially with major fintech partners preparing to rely on Polygon for stablecoin payments.
Stripe, for instance, is set to roll out stablecoin payment support later this month using Polygon’s infrastructure. Mastercard, BlackRock, Revolut, and other financial players are deepening ties with Polygon’s ecosystem as real-world asset (RWA) tokenization accelerates. As institutional demand rises, the Madhugiri Hardfork is widely viewed as Polygon’s most enterprise-ready upgrade yet.
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Despite the strong market outlook, some observers warn that rapid throughput increases must be matched with robust decentralization and better validator tooling. Moreover, even though most users and wallets require no action, validators must upgrade to Bor version 2.5.x or higher. As a result, seamless coordination becomes essential. At the same time, regulatory scrutiny around high-speed stablecoin payments continues to intensify globally. This adds pressure on L2s to maintain deterministic finality and transparent settlement guarantees.
Security is a centerpiece of Madhugiri. To begin with, the upgrade integrates Ethereum’s Fusaka improvements, adopting EIP-7823, EIP-7825, and EIP-7883. These changes limit computational load, mitigate gas concentration risks, and harden the network against denial-of-service vectors. Additionally, a new bridge transaction type improves StateSync efficiency between Ethereum and Polygon. This enhancement is crucial for asset transfers, especially tokenized RWAs and stablecoins that depend on reliable cross-chain settlement.
Furthermore, by enabling configurable parameters without future hardforks, Madhugiri gives Polygon a far more agile upgrade path. This flexibility is essential as blockchain infrastructure begins to mirror financial-grade standards. As a result, Polygon is positioned to support rising institutional use, backed by more than $270 million in private transfer volume. Ultimately, the roadmap continues to reinforce Polygon’s role in an emerging global tokenized economy.
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