Anyone familiar with crypto ecosystems knows that despite Ethereum boasting a long and successful run since its launch, actually interacting with any ERC20 native protocol is quite frankly like dragging your nuts over broken glass. High gas fees, slow transaction speeds, and massive scalability issues should — on paper, remain a massive obstacle for Ethereum’s blockchains and others that launch on its ecosystem.
From the days of ETH-based blockchain games like Cryptokitties which became viral overnight, every wave of mass adoption in the cryptocurrency space has bought the network to its knees with skyrocketing gas prices. Whilst the London Hard Fork was supposed to help solve these issues, recent news-worthy events such as DiversiFi paying $23m…. yes $23,000,000 for a gas fee suggests these issues have just not been solved.
Matic Network (now Polygon) was created and designed to remove these barriers to truly mass adoption — looking to offer a solution by providing a platform enabled to allow decentralized applications that run on Ethereum’s blockchain, without high gas prices or slow transaction confirmations.
Matic Network Origins
Originally designed in October 2017 by Jaynti Kanani (an Indian data scientist who worked at Housing.com at the time), Matic started as a layer 2 solution for Ethereum’s scalability issues.
Kanani was not alone in the founding of Matic Network. To bring the idea to fruition, Kanani reached out to people in his work circles including Sandeep Nailwal (a blockchain developer) and Anurag Arjun (a business consultant). The trio would later go on to found the Mumbai-based Matic Labs in May 2018.
Matic Labs started as a blockchain consulting firm that aimed to help other projects launch their own layer 2 solutions using sidechains and the Plasma framework to facilitate scalability while maintaining the security of on-chain assets.
The Plasma framework is a second-layer scaling technology that provides a method for executing smart contracts off-chain using child chains known as plasma chains.
It was first proposed by Vitalik Buterin and Joseph Poon in a whitepaper describing solutions to scalability without sacrificing security and decentralization. At its core, the Plasma framework targets decentralized applications that don’t need to record every single transaction on the blockchain. The Plasma framework aims to maximize the scalability of sidechains without sacrificing the security of assets.
Matic Labs was one of the most successful projects to utilize the Plasma framework leading to the success of some of the early projects that were built on top of Matic Network.
Polygon’s Architecture
At its core, the Polygon architecture is a four-layer blockchain structure with the Ethereum main net acting as one of the layers. Others include security, the execution, and the Polygon network layer, whilst it offers a wide variety of modules for developers to use in easily configuring their custom blockchains
The Ethereum layer in Polygon’s multi-layered architecture is made up of smart contracts that are developed on Ethereum’s main blockchain. These contracts are designed to handle transaction finality, communication between Ethereum and various Polygon chains, and various staking processes.
Running side by side with the Ethereum layer is the security layer that provides a mechanism that regulates the security of smart contracts. The Polygon network layer is a mandatory layer upon which all blockchains and decentralized applications on Polygon are built on. The execution layer is also mandatory and acts as Polygon’s Ethereum Virtual Machine designed to execute smart contracts.
This layered structure that Polygon features enable chains that build on top of Polygon to communicate with one another as well as with Ethereum’s main chain thus enabling decentralized interoperable dApps. It also enables diverse platforms across the Ethereum ecosystem to exchange value without overwhelming or congesting the main Ethereum network.
Matic’s rebrand to Polygon is set to help Ethereum fight off rivals. Polygon facilitates a future where different blockchains on Ethereum’s ever-expanding ecosystem no longer operate in closed-off siloes and instead leverage Ethereum’s network effect to achieve interoperability and scalability. The ultimate goal is to have Ethereum as the foundation for a Web 3.0 experience where users have open access to decentralized applications with zero intermediaries.
To achieve this vision, Polygon deploys a variety of scaling solutions, including Optimistic rollups, Plasma Chains, ZK-rollups, and a Proof of Stake sidechain.
Conclusion: What Makes Polygon Unique?
Polygon adds to the growing stack of projects such as Cosmos and Polkadot that attempt to solve blockchain’s scaling and interoperability issues. However, Polygon stands out for the fact that it is compatible with Ethereum’s Virtual Machine thus giving dApps developers an easy transition from Ethereum’s Solidity programming language.
What’s more, Polygon offers flexibility in terms of security implementation as dApps that build on top of its platform don’t need to adopt Polygon’s security structure. This leaves the dApp developers room to go beyond Polygon’s security and scalability solutions.
