Polygon’s Rio Upgrade Boosts Performance to 5000 TPS

Polygon Labs activates Rio upgrade, boosting blockchain speed and scalability.

The team at Polygon Labs has activated the Rio upgrade on the Polygon mainnet. This upgrade aims to enhance the blockchain’s speed, reliability, and scalability, particularly for payment solutions.

A global network for onchain payments needs to be fast, light, and reliable.

Polygon’s Rio upgrade delivers.

Introducing a new-look, rehauled with: near-instant finality, zero risk of reorgs, lightweight nodes, and the path to ~5k TPS.

Rio is everything you need in global… pic.twitter.com/u5lMhEMHGc

— Polygon (@0xPolygon) October 8, 2025

The upgrade has increased the network’s throughput to 5000 transactions per second and ensures nearly instant transaction finality. A key change is the elimination of blockchain reorganization risks, enhancing reliability for payment systems.

Rio is built on two key technologies.

1. The VEBloP model, where validators select a small group of block producers. This approach speeds up block generation and reduces transaction confirmation times.
2. Stateless validation, allowing nodes to verify transactions without storing the entire blockchain history, thus reducing hardware requirements and simplifying node operation.

The upgrade also altered the economic model. Transaction fees are now redistributed between the block producer and other validators. This allows operators of lightweight nodes to earn rewards without the need for expensive equipment.

Rio is part of Polygon’s long-term scaling strategy known as Gigagas, which aims to achieve throughput of tens of thousands of transactions per second.

Back in July, the POL token rose by more than 8% amid preparations for the Heimdall v2 upgrade.