Polygon
Note: Data in this section last updated August 26th, 2022
Polygon was founded by Sandeep Nailwal and Anurag Arjun in October 2017. The project’s original name was Matic, and it initially provided two Layer 2 scaling solutions to Ethereum – its PoS custodial chain and Plasma chain.
Since launch, however, Polygon has significantly expanded its vision, and now hopes to be Ethereum’s “internet of blockchains”, allowing developers to build their own sidechains, rollups and plasma chains and connect them to the Ethereum blockchain. As such, it is currently building:
A “library” of Layer-2 solutions such as standalone sidechains, plasma chains, zk-rollups and optimistic rollups that projects can use to scale
A software development kit to help developers create their own chains
To further their mission, Polygon has made a host of acquisitions in 2021 including zK-rollup providers Miden, Hermez and Mir.
Notable dApps in the Polygon ecosystem include:
Polygon Ecosystem Overview
Polygon has achieved significant traction in the last year. According to Coindesk, it hosted almost 3,000 dapps on the network at the end of 2021 – a 100x increase from the prior year – and 62% of these were deployed exclusively on the network. It also executes nearly 3x as many transactions as Ethereum (although at significantly less revenue per transaction).
Some of the more common praises and criticisms of the Polygon are listed below:
As it becomes clear that L2 solutions will play a significant role in improving the scalability of smart contract platforms, Polygon is well positioned to be a market leader. Furthermore, the project has demonstrated “hustle”, in both its successful courting of developers and aggressive acquisition schedule.
Critics would argue that one of the biggest concerns around the future of the project has to do with the utility of its token. As we will see below, many rollups (such as Arbitrum and Optimism) function perfectly fine without one, so that begs the question – as Polygon becomes a network of Layer 2s, is its token really necessary?
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