Polygon: Ethereum’s Internet of blockchain
The explosion of NFT and DeFi applications on the ethereum network skyrocketed the prices of transactions. It usually takes anything between $30 to $40 to swap tokens on Uniswap. On the other hand, it supports only 15–20tps(transactions per second). This results in a major bottleneck for the mass adoption of blockchain technology.
What is Polygon?
Polygon is a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. Polygon’s aim is to solve these problems by making blockchain more user-friendly. They started with the creation of PoS(Proof of Stake) based Ethereum’s sidechain, a layer 2 solution by taking transactions off-chain and providing finality on the Ethereum mainnet for all off-chain transactions.
The result was amazing. It supported transactions up to 65000 per second and has a block time of less than 2secs. They launched the “Matic” coin which is used to pay for transactions on the network. Transaction costs are negligible.
Also, the network is very developer-friendly as it supports solidity. So, all the existing projects on the Ethereum mainnet can easily migrate to the polygon.
There are currently more than 3000 dApps running on the polygon network.
Later on, they realized that multiple layer 2 projects were coming each using a different solution of either plasma chains, roll-ups as per their requirement. They were facing developmental hurdles to create them as well as lacked interoperability with each other which defeated the core purpose of decentralization.
So, they decided to take it further and provide the framework and protocols to build and connect all Ethereum compatible chains and hence they become Ethereum’s Internet of blockchains. It combines the best of Ethereum and sovereign blockchains into a full-fledged multi-chain system.
With polygon, any project can easily set up a dedicated blockchain network providing sovereignty & scalability with Ethereum security.
Polygon supports two types of chains:
1. Secured chains: These chains use security as a service instead of creating their own consensus mechanism. They can either take advantage of Ethereum security itself using fraud or validity proofs or a shared set of polygon’s validator. They are provided using PoS polygon side chain and zk-rollups.
In near future, they will also support optimistic roll-ups and Validum chains.
2. Stand alone chains: They provide framework to create an independent sidechain. They also provide protocols to connect them with Ethereum via bridges.
Advantages
Now, developers have complete freedom to use polygon’s framework and protocols to build network as per their need. For example, DeFi application can use framework to create secured chains and have security of Ethereum and compromising on high transaction speed and cost.
On the other hand, gaming applications can create independent chains by compromising on security and having high transaction speed with neglible costs. And the best part, every project will be interoperable with each other.
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