Despite Ethereum's transition to Proof-of-Stake, its throughput has remained unchanged. As a result, second-layer solutions that address this issue continue to attract a growing number of active users and TVL. Among these solutions, Polygon has emerged as the most popular.
What is Polygon?
Polygon (previously known as Matic Network) was founded back in 2017 by a team of three Indians: Anurag Arjun, Sandeep Nailwal, and Jaynti Kanani, with Serbian Mihailo Bjelic joining later.
In 2019, the project underwent a rebranding and held an IEO that raised $5 million. The successful fundraising effort attracted the attention of numerous venture funds, who collectively invested $450 million into the project.
The Polygon network was launched in 2020 as an Ethereum layer 2 scaling solution, boosting its transaction throughput to 7000 transactions per second. Since then, it has grown into a comprehensive framework that other projects utilize to build their own Ethereum-based sidechains.
Source: Polygon.technology. Polygon scaling technologies
Polygon employs several scaling technologies, with zk-rollup being the most popular among them. This technology allows the network to maintain Ethereum's high-security standards while simultaneously boosting transaction speeds and lowering gas fees.
What is MATIC?
MATIC is Polygon's native token, which is used to pay transaction fees. At press time, its current CoinMarketCap ranking is # 10, with a market cap exceeding $10 billion.
The total supply of MATIC tokens is limited, with almost 87% of its maximum circulation already achieved. It is projected that the token will reach its maximum supply by 2025.
MATIC can be purchased on a wide range of centralized exchanges such as WhiteBIT, OKX, Binance, Coinbase, Bybit, KuCoin, and more.
To add the Polygon network and its token MATIC to MetaMask, you need to manually add the network in the settings and enter the following details:
Network Name: Polygon
RPC URL: https://polygon-rpc.com
ChainID: 137
Symbol: MATIC
Block Explorer URL: https://polygonscan.com/
Future outlook for the project
In the last year, Polygon has partnered up with numerous renowned brands and large corporations, which has greatly increased investor confidence in the project. These include Reddit, Nike, Starbucks, Instagram, Disney, and JP Morgan, the largest bank in the US. Such partnerships could have significant implications for the continued growth of the Polygon network.
Given the project's experience and innovative technology, it has excellent prospects. However, there are potential risks associated with the regulation of cryptocurrencies, which could become stricter in the future. This is especially pertinent for India, the home country of the Polygon founders.
Dmytro Psevdonimenko
Author
Has been exploring the enigmas of the crypto industry since 2017, transforming them into accessible narratives. Relies on dark chocolate and nuts as a secret source of energy and inspiration.
