Formerly known as MATIC, Polygon is a blockchain scalability platform built on the Ethereum Blockchain system. It is also known as Ethereum’s Internet of Blockchains.
Polygon is a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks and aggregating scalable solutions supporting a multi-chain Ethereum ecosystem.
Founded in Mumbai, by four software engineers – Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjelic, Polygon currently solves pain points associated with Ethereum blockchains, like high gas fees and slow speeds, without sacrificing security.
Its multi-chain system is akin to other ones such as Polkadot, but has at least three major plus points that include its ability to take full benefits of Ethereum’s network effect, being more secure, open & powerful.
Polygon popularity has seen an upswing, as it is working in various crypto projects from DeFi (Decentralized Finance), DApp (Decentralized Application), DAO’s (Decentralized Autonomous Organizations) and NFT’s (Non-Fungible Tokens).
Challenges
Even though Ethereum is the blockchain development platform of choice, it has limitations, like low throughput, poor user experience (gas, delayed proof of work finality) and no sovereignty (shared throughput/clogging risk, tech stack not customizable, governance dependence).
In order to mitigate these limitations, many projects are exploring Ethereum-compatible blockchains while still leveraging Ethereum’s thriving ecosystem. However, there is no specialized framework to build such blockchains nor a protocol to connect them. This introduces significant development challenges and causes ecosystem fragmentation.
Solutions
With a view to solve these challenges, Polygon has built a layer 2 framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks.
It has unveiled one-click deployment on the present Ethereum blockchain networks, along with a growing set of modules for developing custom networks. It also offers an interoperability protocol for exchanging arbitrary messages with Ethereum and other blockchain networks.
It allows developers to adapt modules for enabling interoperability for existing blockchain networks with a modular and optional security as a service.
ETH compatibility
Polygon is compatible with any project built on Ethereum network due to its industry dominance, established tech stack, tools, languages, standards and enterprise adoption.
Scalability
As it has a dedicated blockchain, it has its own scalable consensus algorithms with a custom Wasm (also known as WebAssembly) execution environment. Wasm is an open standard that defines a portable binary-code format for executable programs.
Security & Sovereignty
It offers modular ”security as a service”, provided either by Ethereum or by a pool of professional validators. With its own resources, fully customizable tech stack, Polygon has its own sovereign governance.
Partnerships
In April 2021, Polygon announced that it would be partnering with the consulting wing of Infosys Ltd, M-Setu. It aims to enable Infosys to provide disruptive technologies to its clients. M-Setu will act as an open-source bridge that allows enterprises to cross-operate using the Ethereum blockchain.
The Trace Network is another one of Polygon’s notable collaborations. Currently, Trace is using it for NFT and DeFi with a hope to establish a go-to for retailers to bring NFT’s to the public.
In order to address high gas fees and scalability, Trace Network will use Polygon’s Layer 2 solutions. Trace will begin to leverage Polygon’s highly scalable infrastructure, solving several current crucial blockchain challenges and enabling non-fungible tokens and DeFi capabilities.
In addition to several other huge milestones, Polygon has announced that it had completed a project of integrating the Polygon assets into Google Cloud’s BigQuery. This integration allows the users of BigQuery to tap into Polygon, thus improving its accessibility and positioning.
Google Cloud’s BigQuery has included Polygon into its 1TB offering. This means that BigQuery users can run queries on Polygon and access various blockchain-related data sets on its network.
From $0.0198 per MATIC token in October 2020, the token has grown over 10,000% over the past year and currently is trading at $1.21 per MATIC token on crypto exchanges. It has become a must-have token for crypto investors.
With the growing adoption of Ethereum network, Polygon has all the qualities to become one of the top three crypto projects in the coming months.
Polygon has Kleverly built its product that has a long way to go….
