What Is Polygon Crypto? How Does MATIC Work?

Image of a geometric background in white and grey. In the centre of the image is the Polygon network logo and a text saying Polygon.

Since it’s a relatively new cryptocurrency, you may be wondering what is Polygon crypto. This digital assets aims to solve the problems of lack of trust and centralization that traditional cryptocurrencies face, as well as the scalability problems inherent in blockchains. If you’re interested in learning more about what is Polygon crypto, you may find the information about this interesting project here.

What Is Polygon Crypto?

Polygon is a network of secure L2 solutions and standalone side chains. Its goal is to increase scalability of the Ethereum blockchain and reduce the cost of transactions. MATIC aims to do that through the multi-chains of its platform. In addition to the internal MATIC PoS Chain and MATIC Plasma Chains developments, the Polygon project will support Optimistic Rollups, ZK-Rollups and Validium. If you’re confused by that information, don’t worry, in a little bit we’ll explain in more detail what is Polygon crypto’s network way of working.

What Is the Polygon Crypto History?

Gainti Kanani, Sandip Nailwal, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjeli could be described as what is the Polygon crypto’s creating team. The platform test network was launched in 2017 under the name of MATIC network.
The Polygon team created a Plasma Chains scaling model and a Proof-of-Stake (PoS) based Ethereum MATIC PoS Chain sidechain. Over time, this sidechain has become a popular scaling option for various applications.

In April 2019, the company held an IEO (initial exchange offering) of the MATIC token and raised $ 5.6 million. In February 2021, the developers of MATIC Network changed the name of the project to Polygon. The rebranding was scheduled to coincide with the move from a second tier solution for the Ethereum blockchain to a multi-chain system similar to Polkadot.

What Is Polygon Crypto’s Consensus Mechanism?

The consensus mechanism on all Polygon chains is Proof-of-Stake (PoS). This means MATIC uses the same mechanism as Cardano, Avalanche, and Polkadot, and soon Ethereum, once it upgrades. Unlike Bitcoin’s outdated Proof-of-Work mechanism, the consensus mechanism of Polygon doesn’t work with mining rewards, instead, you can stake the crypto and earn passive income that way.

Screenshot of the Polygon website

How Does the Polygon Network Work

If you want to know what is Polygon crypto’s blockchain method of work, explained in simple words, we can put it that way:

Polygon handles transactions on a separate Ethereum-compatible blockchain. Then, it returns the transactions to the main Ethereum blockchain post-processing. In doing so, the network load on Ethereum is lowered and Polygon can speed up transactions and lower their costs to under a cent.

What is Polygon crypto’s network unique feature is the plasma sidechains, which are similar to side chains but offer more security and convenience. The plasma chain is a separate blockchain that runs alongside the Ethereum one, the primary blockchain. Plasma chains link up with the main blockchain to allow assets to transfer between them safely. Polygon uses the side chains to cut gas costs, one of the biggest Ethereum issues, and can handle 65,000 transactions per second, unlike Ethereum’s 17. If you’re wondering where MATIC fits here, what is Polygon crypto’s connection to the plasma chains is that the native token is used to pay for all transactions on them.

You should know that Polygon can’t be considered a real competitor to Ethereum, as it’s built on the network and is dependable on it. This could be considered as what is Polygon crypto’s network potential issue in the future, as Ethereum is going to upgrade and possibly solve its issues for itself.

The Polygon Scaling Solutions

If you’re curious what are scaling solutions that Polygon offers, you can find them listed below. Keep in mind the team is constantly developing and evolving the network, you so can find the upcoming solutions on their website.

🟣 Polygon PoS: EVM-compatible Ethereum sidechain, secured by permissionless set of Proof-of-Stake validators

🟣 Polygon Hermez: An open-source zk-rollup optimised for secure, cheap and usable token transfers on Ethereum

🟣 Polygon Edge: A modular and extensible framework for building Ethereum-compatible blockchain network, both private and public

What Is Polygon Crypto’s Biggest Benefit?

The Polygon architecture is multi-functional. It allows other applications to select the optimal scaling solution that best suits their needs. We’ll give you a couple of examples to understand what is Polygon crypto’s network biggest advantage.
If a DeFi protocol that wants to store a considerable amount of dollars in smart contracts, then it’ll likely want to improve security and opt for an entry level Ethereum, stripping its sovereignty. On the other hand, an NFT market would reduce security to minimize transaction costs, and thus use the Security Layer. Developers of gambling applications could use the Polygon Network Layer to benefit from the fast block creation speed.

As you can see, there are many people and projects in the decentralized space that can benefit from the diverse services that the MATIC network provides.

What Is Polygon Crypto’s Biggest Competitor?

The Polygon network is very successful at what it’s doing, however, it’s not the only one in the market that is trying to make Ethereum better. Some of the other networks that provide what Polygon is aiming to do – fast and cheap transactions, are:

  • Solana
  • Cardano
  • Avalanche
  • Kusama
  • Fantom

The mentioned platforms aim to improve the Ethereum technology and provide the users with more benefits at lower prices. You have to consider that even if Polygon isn’t the only one doing what it’s doing on the market, the way this network works makes it stand out from its competitors.

What Is Polygon Crypto’s Progress?

The network of MATIC token is evolving very fast, positively influencing its token on the way to sucess. More than 1 million addresses have already been created on Polygon, with over 80 million transactions per day. There are over 50 assets, including MATIC, on the PoS blockchain and many projects are migrating to the MATIC PoS chain, including Uniswap, SushiSwap, Polkamarkets. As the Polygon creators continue to release new scaling solutions, the interest in the platform only continues to grow.

What Is Polygon Crypto Going to Be Used for in the Future?

The Polygon network is an innovative solution to the issues of the most popular programmable blockchain – Ethereum. It provides cheap and fast transactions on the blockchain while using side chains to execute them. What is Polygon crypto’s biggest advantage is that this network is favored by many who want to use Ethereum but don’t want to pay high gas fees or wait a long time. The team behind the network is also constantly improving it and that’s why users are hopeful that in the future it’ll continue to be very useful, even if Ethereum improves after the upgrade to Proof-of-Stake.

While it can’t be known for certain how the MATIC token will behave in the future or what its use cases will be, for now we can remain optimistic that the native token of the Polygon blockchain is going to be used on there as long as users pick this cheaper way of using the largest blockchain in the world. If the Polygon network grows even more, it’s likely that the value and adoption of its token will do the same. Both the blockchain, and its utility token, seem more than promising and we’re only left to wait and see how they’ll perform further.

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