Key data (as of September 19, 2022):
Circulating Provide — 7,441,499,126 MATICTotal Provide — 10,000,000,000 MATICSector — ScalingToken Kind — NativeToken Utilization — PaymentsATH — $2.92ATH Date — December 27, 2021
Overview
What’s Polygon (MATIC)?
Polygon is a community of stand-alone networks and layer 2 (L2) options with a aim to create “Ethereum’s web of blockchains” and improve the scalability of the Ethereum community. The platform goals to attain this by offering a framework known as Polygon SDK that permits builders to launch their very own customized Ethereum-compatible options.
Polygon is often recognized for its flagship product — the Matic sidechain — that makes use of a proof of stake (PoS) consensus mechanism and serves as a commit chain (adjustment) to the Ethereum mainnet. It bundles collectively batches of transactions and confirms them en masse earlier than returning knowledge to the Ethereum community. Because of this, it helps to attain excessive throughput and low transaction prices. In response to Polygon, the PoS chain provides 7,000 transactions per second and 10,000 instances decrease charges than the Ethereum blockchain.
Polygon helps the Ethereum Digital Machine (EVM), that means current Ethereum-based functions may be ported to Polygon with relative ease. In the mean time of writing, there are over 37,000 decentralized apps deployed on the Polygon platform.
Polygon has a local utility token known as MATIC. It’s largely used for paying charges throughout the Polygon ecosystem and for staking to safe the PoS community.
A quick historical past of Polygon
Polygon was based in October 2017 as Matic Community by a staff of 4: Sandeep Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjelic. In April 2019, Matic Community raised over $5.5 million in a collection of personal and public funding rounds, allocating MATIC tokens. In June 2020, the Polygon mainnet was launched, introducing the Matic PoS community.
In February 2021, Matic Community rebranded to Polygon however the title of the platform’s native token remained unchanged. In June 2021, Polygon enabled builders to launch stand-alone chains and launched a number of L2 options in testnets so as to add rollups. In April 2022, the Polygon Community went carbon-neutral.
How does Polygon work?
To be able to higher perceive Polygon, it may very well be helpful to grasp the distinction between sidechains and rollups because the platform helps each of those choices. Sidechains are sometimes known as stand-alone chains within the Polygon community, whereas rollups seek advice from secured chains within the Polygon ecosystem. Each choices provide elevated transaction throughput and decrease charges in comparison with the first community (Ethereum), however they’re completely different when it comes to safety and efficiency.
Rollups inherit a lot of their safety from a related community, whereas the sidechain should handle safety by itself. Because of this, rollups provide decrease transaction prices and sooner velocity, whereas sustaining comparable safety to the principle community. When utilizing sidechains, customers could pay a fraction of what they might on a rollup, however that may imply making compromises on safety. Nonetheless, this could not counsel that sidechains lack safety. Somewhat, utilizing a sidechain entails a belief part to each validators that safe the sidechain community and the bridge used to enter that sidechain.
Polygon’s PoS sidechain
As a sidechain, Polygon’s PoS community has its personal set of validators that safe the blockchain. Polygon’s PoS sidechain has a three-layer structure:
Ethereum layer — Polygon maintains a set of sensible contracts on Ethereum, which handle staking features and rewards for Polygon’s proof of stake layer. This layer can be answerable for Plasma contracts that embrace checkpoints of the sidechain state.Heimdall layer — This layer is also called a proof of stake layer. It manages validators, block producer choice, and the state-sync mechanism between Ethereum and the PoS community.Bor layer — This layer is answerable for block manufacturing and transaction aggregation into blocks. The Bor layer additionally contains the EVM-compatible digital machine.
Polygon’s PoS sidechain layers. Supply: Polygon documentation
Validators take part in PoS consensus and commit checkpoints to the Ethereum community. Checkpoints symbolize a snapshot of the Bor chain which is attested by the vast majority of validators and submitted on the contracts deployed on Ethereum. Submitting a checkpoint validates included transactions.
There are 100 international validators in Polygon’s PoS community. Periodically, the protocol organizes validator auctions the place anybody can exchange any present validator by proposing the next stake. Nonetheless, there’s restricted area for accepting new validators. New validators can solely be a part of when a at present lively validator unbonds. To turn out to be a possible validator, customers have to run a node and lock at the very least one MATIC token. If customers don’t need to run a node, they’ll delegate their tokens to validators to earn staking rewards.
Customers could carry out transactions through the PoS chain by connecting their pockets to the Polygon Bridge.
Modular infrastructure
Polygon Edge is an open-source growth atmosphere that permits builders to create customized L2 options and sidechains. Edge helps PoS and proof of authority algorithms. Edge contains modules that arrange the blockchain, mechanisms for locating consensus, and particular libraries for structure growth. Customized sidechains require a separate set of validators however may be EVM-compatible. With Edge, it’s also potential to create personal blockchains.
One other growth atmosphere that Polygon gives is Avail. It permits builders to work with incomplete knowledge and create a community with “gentle” nodes that obtain a random set of knowledge from the blockchain. With Avail, it’s potential to create a blockchain that data transaction knowledge for different blockchains, permitting the latter to extend the community throughput. Avail is at present in growth.
Rollups
Polygon’s native ecosystem options a number of merchandise that help rollups related to the Ethereum community. Most of those options are at present both in growth or launched on testnets:
Hermez — L2 answer constructed utilizing ZK-rollups expertise. ZK-rollups course of hundreds of transactions in a batch and put up some minimal abstract knowledge to the mainnet. This abstract knowledge defines the modifications that needs to be made to the Ethereum stake and cryptographic proof that these modifications are right. Miden — L2 answer that depends on ZK-STARK expertise to roll up hundreds of transactions right into a single Ethereum transaction.Zero — L2 answer for constructing decentralized functions utilizing ZK-STARK expertise. Confirmations on blockchain modifications are aggregated right into a single affirmation. Dusk — A privacy-focused L2 answer. The target market is the company section.
Polygon’s native token
Utility
As a local token of the Polygon ecosystem, the MATIC token serves the next functions:
Charges — The MATIC token is designed to be a utility token that features because the unit of cost and settlement between individuals who work together throughout the Polygon ecosystem.Staking — Polygon sidechains implement consensus utilizing a PoS layer through which community individuals stake MATIC as validators and earn staking rewards. Governance — MATIC token can probably be used for governance functions by voting on improve proposals associated to the Polygon community. In the mean time of writing, this characteristic has but to be launched.
Token allocation
MATIC has a complete fastened provide of 10 billion tokens, whereas the present circulating provide is round 8.7 billion. The circulating provide is anticipated to steadily strategy the entire provide by unlocking tokens allotted to completely different community contributors.
MATIC tokens have been allotted as follows:
Personal sale — 3.80percentIEO (public sale) — 19percentTeam — 16percentAdvisors — 4percentStaking rewards — 12percentFoundation — 21.86percentEcosystem — 23.33%
MATIC token allocation. Supply: Messari
Buyers who obtained MATIC through the IEO got speedy entry to their tokens. Personal sale buyers got entry to half of their tokens instantly, with the remaining being launched in October 2019. Tokens devoted to the Workforce, Advisors, Basis, and Ecosystem will likely be distributed over time, with 100% of the tokens estimated to be dispersed by This autumn 2022.
1.2 billion tokens that have been allotted to be given out as staking rewards are deliberate to be distributed for the primary 5 years of the community life. Rewards are divided per checkpoint and distributed to all stakers proportionally to their stake. The staking reward fee may very well be increased throughout decrease bonding charges and vice versa.
A quick overview of Polygon’s DeFi ecosystem
As Ethereum’s sidechain, Polygon PoS community gathered quite a few common Ethereum-based DeFi options in search of to benefit from decrease charges and better throughput. In the mean time of writing, Polygon has a complete worth locked (TVL) of $1.77 billion. Though TVL is down greater than 80% from its peak of over $10 billion, Polygon nonetheless has one of the vibrant ecosystems within the L2 area on Ethereum.
Polygon’s TVL. Supply: DefiLlama
Decentralized Exchanges (DEXs)
In response to DefiLlama, MM Finance at present has the biggest TVL within the Polygon ecosystem with 21% dominance. It contains platforms that provide AMM DEX and stablecoin swap. The second largest DEX on Polygon when it comes to TVL is Polygon-native Quickswap. Quickswap makes use of AMM and is a fork of Uniswap. Different notable initiatives launched on Polygon are Uniswap, Sushiswap, Curve Finance, and Balancer.
Lending
Aave is the biggest lending platform on Polygon when it comes to TVL. It’s adopted by Stargate Finance and QiDao. Stargate Finance is a liquidity protocol that gives liquidity swimming pools with immediate finality and empowers customers to switch tokens throughout completely different blockchains. QiDao is a zero-interest crypto lending platform that gives stablecoin loans.
Oracle networks
Polygon options many oracle initiatives, together with the most well-liked ones resembling Chainlink, Telor, Band Protocol, Gravity Protocol, Razor Community, and API3. A large set of oracle networks is without doubt one of the the reason why cross-chain initiatives that already help sure oracles can be a part of Polygon with relative ease.
NFT marketplaces
The Polygon ecosystem consists of assorted cross-chain NFT marketplaces, together with OpenSea and Refinable. OpenSea is taken into account the biggest NFT market within the crypto business with over two million NFT collections. Refinable is an NFT market with a local FINE token that gives entry to unique NFT gross sales. Different notable names embrace NFTrade, Zesty Market, and Treasureland.
Discover out extra about Polygon
Polygon gives a collection of instruments that customers can make the most of to attain decrease transaction prices and better transaction velocity. On the similar time, builders can use Polygon merchandise to attain elevated throughput for his or her initiatives or create new scaling options with their very own safety guidelines. Constructing on Polygon is kind of much like constructing on Ethereum because of its integration with EVM. This instantly makes Polygon accessible to the largest blockchain growth neighborhood.
The staff behind Polygon is targeted not solely on its flagship PoS community but additionally on introducing new scaling options for various audiences and utilizing varied applied sciences. This makes Polygon well-positioned to develop current Ethereum capabilities.
Stake MATIC on CEX.IO
CEX.IO clients can buy MATIC tokens utilizing varied cost strategies to affix the Polygon ecosystem and benefit from MATIC staking. To be able to begin staking MATIC on CEX.IO, customers simply want to carry tokens of their balances. No further actions are required to earn staking rewards. Whereas staking on CEX.IO, customers could commerce and transfer their MATIC tokens anytime. Examine our staking web page to be taught the present estimated annual yield for staking AVAX on CEX.IO.
