Opium Protocol is on Polygon (ex-Matic)
Solving blockchain trilemma
Blockchain trilemma
There’s much talk about decentralization, but in our opinion, the emphasis is often misplaced towards its technical side which tends to neglect the social side of the issue.
One of the acclaimed virtues of decentralized systems is that they achieve a democratizing effect through technological means.
The internet democratized access to information. DeFi has the potential to democratize access to finance. Once the domain of a few institutional players, now it’s open to retail investors. But if we are truly to succeed in such an endeavor, prohibitively high fees are an obstacle that ought to be overcome.
Computer science, however, is the art of trade-offs. There’s no such a thing as a free lunch, neither in finance nor in technology, which usually means that an improvement of a system component comes at the expense of another part of the same system.
Blockchain is no exception, as suggested by the blockchain trilemma — an assumption whereby the three main properties of a peer-to-peer system (security, decentralization and scalability) cannot be all improved at the same time.
Cryptoeconomics follows the same principle, which usually implies that blockchains with low fees tend to be more centralized than blockchains where fees are more significant. Thus, fees not only help guarantee decentralization and security from a technical perspective, but also bring centralization from a socioeconomic perspective. High transaction costs mean that fewer users can afford to make on-chain transactions and that they would pay only for high-value transactions. Does it imply that complex financial products will remain unaffordable for the masses?
We think we know the answer.
The constraints we mentioned so far apply to on-chain transactions. However, off-chain transactions are a totally different case, hence… welcome Polygon (former Matic) and the world of layer-2 solutions!
Scalability solutions
Layer-2 solutions are an active area of research and, as it stands now, it’s not a winner-take-all scenario. Currently, the most popular solutions are ZK-rollups, Optimistic roll-ups and different implementations of the Plasma model. There’s a broader spectrum of solutions that ranges from state channels to more exotic EVM-compatible sidechains, but they’ve not gained as much traction.
While the space is increasingly bullish on ZK scaling solutions and Optimism looms on the horizon, at the moment all eyes are set on Polygon. Polygon is a scalability solution that managed to improve some of the bottlenecks of plasma solutions, such as exit time withdrawal.
Generally speaking, the Plasma scalability model enables child-chains that are related to their main chain — in our case, the Ethereum mainnet — through a two-way peg whereby the child chains periodically commit a checkpoint to the root-chain. As the child chains can benefit from the security assumptions of their respective main chain, they can relax their own security assumptions in order to optimize the transaction throughput. There have been many discussions regarding some of the drawbacks of the Plasma design, from potential attack vectors due to the centralization of the validators to its data availability constraints. However, Polygon addressed most of the aforementioned concerns with its own architectural choices.
Aligned with the mission
Here at Opium our mission is to democratize and simplify access to complex financial products. In order to succeed in our undertaking, reaching a critical mass in terms of adoption is of paramount importance. Scalability, interoperability and low fees are all facets of the same challenge: large-scale user adoption. As the final launch of Ethereum 2.0 is an ever-sliding deadline, we are then looking forward to further collaboration with Polygon.
The reasoning underlying the integration of Polygon into the Opium ecosystem is the same as the rationale which led us to integrate PNetwork and launch Opium on Binance Smart Chain.
In fact, Polygon represents just the first, yet important, step of the Opium ecosystem’s layer-2 roadmap, as we plan to keep up with all the further developments in the space and both scalability and interoperability lie at the very core of our architectural and design choices.
Tutorial: How to find new products on Polygon (Matic)
First, you need to switch the network to Polygon (Matic) on Opium.Finance. At the top of the screen, click on the Ethereum icon.
You will see the popup with other networks. Click on Polygon (Matic).
After you may be asked to switch the network in your wallet.
Now you are connected to Polygon (Matic) and can explore products there.
To access the Turbo products, click on the “TURBO” tab.
Congratulations! Now you are on the Turbo page.
Please read the article about Turbos before using them:
Tutorial: How to transfer funds to Polygon (Matic)
- The link to Matic Bridge V2–the page where you can transfer your assets from Ethereum to Polygon–is at the top of the screen when you are on the Polygon network. Click on the button and you will be redirected to the Polygon page.
Matic Bridge V2 https://wallet.matic.network/
First, connect your wallet.
Sign the transaction to log in.
Now you are on the main page. Click on the “Move funds to Matic Mainnet” button.
In this widget, you can swap your tokens from Ethereum to Matic. Choose the token and amount you want to transfer. Click on the transfer button.
Now confirm one transaction with a Final deposit.
Once the transaction is confirmed, it could take up to 10 minutes to receive the funds on Polygon.
Stay tuned
Opium Protocol is a universal and robust DeFi protocol that allows for creating, settling, and trading decentralized derivatives.
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