UPDATE: Guide on How to Move Assets Between Ethereum, BSC, and Polygon
Polygon, formally known as The Matic Network is a platform designed for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. This Layer 2 scaling solution is backed by BINANCE and COINBASE and is already used by many projects such as Aavegotchi, Cometh, Neon District, and Arkane Network.
It is vital to understand from the offset that Polygon is a protocol built for connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. It is not the new Ethereum. Polygon is a project trying to solve problems already inherent with the current Ethereum ecosystem by providing higher throughput and dealing with high gas fees.
Essentially Polygon is trying to combine the best of Ethereum with other blockchains into one solution whilst also adding a better user experience.
One major focus of Polygon is to diminish gas fees and increase transaction speed. All transaction fees on Polygon side-chains are paid in MATIC tokens (the trading ticker remains as MATIC for now) which are significantly lower than on Ethereum. The protocol has already achieved up to 10,000 transactions per second (TPS) on a single sidechain on an internal testnet which is significantly faster than the 14 TPS Ethereum can achieve.
One of the first and most successful projects to launch on Polygon has been Aavegotchi, a DeFi engrained digital collectibles game that aims to become the most innovative DeFi and NFT application in existence. Moreover, Aavegotchi wouldn’t be feasible on Ethereum due to the high gas fees making the game unplayable.
The potential use-cases for Polygon are many when you consider the central ambitions are to diminish gas fees and increase transaction speed. Integrating MATIC token payments to decentralized applications is simple and can obviously be a useful tool for developers of decentralized exchanges (DEX) looking to offer customers fast and cheap transactions.
One of the premier DEXs, Uniswap still experiences problems when it comes to speed and high gas fees with some transactions costing up to $200. Not an issue when you’re moving huge amounts of tokens but a bitter pill to swallow when you just want to buy a new outfit for an avatar in a virtual world or use the Aavegotchi dapp for example.
The theory has been put to the test in 2021 with the launch of QuickSwap. The dapp has quickly become the most popular exchange on Polygon in regards to users and transaction volume at the time of writing.
Ethereum is the blockchain development platform of choice, but it has limitations such as low throughput, poor user experience in regards to gas fees, and delayed finality. Therefore many projects are exploring Ethereum-compatible blockchains as a way to mitigate these limitations while still leveraging Ethereum’s thriving ecosystem. However, there is no specialized framework to build such blockchains nor a protocol to connect them.
Enter Polygon
Polygon believes it has the solution for these issues as a protocol and a framework for building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. It can offer a range of benefits to developers such as:
- One-click deployment of preset blockchain networks
- A growing set of modules for developing custom networks
- Interoperability protocol for exchanging messages with Ethereum and other blockchains
- Modular and optional “security as a service”
- Adaptor modules for enabling interoperability for existing blockchain networks
Overall, Polygon can deliver the best of Ethereum and sovereign blockchains into an attractive set of features built by developers, for developers.
Getting Technical
Polygon can provide scalable, secure, and instant transactions using sidechains based on an adapted implementation of the Plasma framework for security and a decentralized network of Proof-of-Stake (PoS) validators. In human language Polygon allows anyone to create scalable dapps while ensuring a better user experience in a secure and decentralized way.
The Polygon solution means that any project can have a dedicated, optimized iteration of Ethereum which combines the best features of stand-alone blockchains such as sovereignty, scalability, and flexibility and Ethereums security, interoperability, and developer experience and support. Furthermore, Polygon supports two types of Ethereum compatible blockchains. Firstly, Stand-alone and secondly networks that leverage security as a service.
For the full architecture and technical breakdown of Polygon please download the light paper.
Polygon on DappRadar
The Polygon network continued successfully attracting thousands of users in 2021. Consequently, DappRadar developers saw the need to integrate Polygon services on the platform.
In order to meet the user demand for Polygon capabilities, DappRadar introduced the Polygon Token Swap service. Additionally, the Polygon network has now also been integrated into the DappRadar Portfolio Tracker tool.
Both of these services allow Polygon users to interact and monitor their Polygon DeFi activity. Swap MATIC and other Polygon-based tokens, or track your dapp usage statistics with the handy Portfolio Tracker and Token Swap on DappRadar.
Of course, you can also track dapp activity on Polygon on the official Polygon Rankings page. Browse through numerous games, exchanges, and DeFi dapps built on the Polygon blockchain and find user activity and sales data for your favorite dapps.
