Since the inception of cryptocurrency, it has faced criticism of high gas fees and their contribution to carbon dioxide emissions. In order to reduce their carbon footprint, many blockchains are trying to shift from layer 1 to layer 2 scaling solutions. While many of them are still trying, Ethereum blockchain has already started upgrading from proof of work (POW) to Proof of Stake (POS) to achieve eco-sustainability.
Competitors have been unable to unseat Ethereum, no matter how hard they have tried. However, the current version of Ethereum 2.0 isn’t quite ready for the big time. Ethereum can now handle anything the Web3 throws at it thanks to scaling solutions like Polygon, which are already available and mature. Polygon’s partnership with the cryptocurrency further cements Ethereum’s dominance in DeFi and NFT development.
What is Polygon?
The up-gradation of Ethereum 1 to Ethereum 2.0 is still in process, and the blockchain claims to be fully upgraded to Ethereum 2.0 by the end of 2022. Meanwhile, to manage the gas prices for DApps and DeFi platforms. Many developers have migrated their projects to Polygon, a Layer 2 solution known as a sidechain. It is a separate blockchain but is designed to interact with Ethereum and work side by side to remove the transactional pressure off the main chain.
Polygon is one of the popular layer 2 scaling solutions of Ethereum blockchain, where many developers have started to migrate their Web3 projects. There are many reasons for this adoption, such as the lowest transaction cost and wide range of scaling options.
One of the factors why the lot of teams utilizing Polygon has increased 100-fold in the last year is these reasons.
According to data from Alchemy (a developer platform that keeps track of the number of projects running on several blockchains), In October, Polygon had 3,000 decentralized applications (DApps) created on it, up from just 30 a year earlier. It’s evident that Ethereum is the most fundamental settlement layer in Web3, even among the oversaturated Layer 2 network competitors, thanks to Polygon’s popularity as the preferred scaling solution for Layer 2.
Polygon’s interoperability with the EVM (Ethereum Virtual Machine) is another major factor in its popularity. Using this method, Polygon may tap into an already established developer community who can migrate their content from and to the Ether network using their current tools.
Polygon also provides a wide range of solutions that allow users to customize their operations in real-time and scale up and down as their needs change. Its extensively established communications system, on the other hand, makes cross-chain communication incredibly simple for consumers.
Polygon taking the Web3 Projects by storm?
Yes, Polygon and MATIC are the same things. Polygon was formerly known as MATIC Network until being renamed in February 2021. MATIC Network debuted in the year 2019. However, Polygon elected to keep the ticker MATIC for its native utility coin with the rebranding. It implies that the two terms can be used interchangeably. Matic is to Polygon what ETH is to Ethereum.
What is included in Polygon Solution?
Polygon is no more just a simple layer 2 scaling solution of Ethereum blockchain. In fact, it has morphed into a thriving ecosystem of prominent Web3 projects, making it a sustainable basis of operations. Polygon is now a sustainable foundation of operations, and it provides a wide range of solutions.
The polygon solutions range from Zero-Knowledge rollups (inherits its security from Ethereum Layer 1), Polygon SDK (framework for developers to build Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks), Polygon Nightfall (privacy-centric rollup), and Polygon Avail (a general-purpose data availability layer).
Polygon hosting web3 platforms:
Polygon is hosting some of the biggest Web3 platforms, including;
Decentralized Finance (DeFi)
- Aave
- Dolce & Gabbana (D&G)
NFT Marketplaces
- Mark Cuban’s Lazy.com
- OpenSea
DApps
- Aavegotchi
- Sushi
- Arc8
An overview of Polygon digital ecosystem:
To learn more about the Polygon ecosystem, let’s have a glance at how does it work:
As discussed earlier, Polygon works as a sidechain for Ethereum blockchain (main chain), but it also works as a stand-alone chain. The digital ecosystem of Polygon works in 4 layers.
- Ethereum Layer: This layer performs all the internal operations such as staking, dispute resolutions, checkpointing, and finalizing.
- Polygon Network Layer: This layer is the foundation upon which all Ethereum-compatible blockchains are built is vital to the network’s flawless running of all critical operational processes.
- Security layer: This layer Provides digital security to any Polygon-compatible platform via a “validator-as-a-service” protocol, effectively allowing projects to leverage Ethereum’s pool of validators without having to use their own validators.
- Execution Layer: This final layer works as a runtime environment where all participant blockchains can be deployed. This layer, for example, implements and uses the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) to execute various smart contracts.
How is Polygon solving Ethereum Layer 2 scaling issues?
Polygon has already stated solving Ethereum Layer 2 Solutions as Polygon runs on Proof of Stake (POS), which is one of the main factors to move the cryptocurrency towards eco-sustainability.
Another solution that Polygon provides is rollups. Rollups are advantageous because they lower transaction fees, increase transaction speed, and broaden participation opportunities. There are two types of rollups, each with its own set of security features:
- Optimistic rollups assume that all transactions are valid by default and only perform calculations when a challenge is issued. It means that Optimistic rollups do validation only if fraud is detected.
- Zero-knowledge rollups are off-chain computations then submitted to the main chain for approval. The Merkle Tree architecture of ZK-rollups is beneficial since it allows data to be stored off-chain.
Final Insight:
The Polygon has become a favorite blockchain for Web3 developers because it gives developers the ability to achieve what they could have done on Cadence but with a lot less work. Additional SDKs and chains are available from Polygon for developers to tailor the scalability solution of their dApp to their needs.
Ethereum-based commit-chain Polygon is entirely interoperable, configurable, and scalable as an Ethereum implementation. And this is the main reason why many developers are migrating to Polygon for their Web3 projects.
You may be interested in: How will Ethereum 2.0 affect the crypto market?