Secure Polygon (MATIC) On ZERO

Overview of Polygon

Polygon is a swiss army knife set of Ethereum scaling solutions focused on processing transactions quickly, cheaply and in bulk for web3 applications. 

Describing itself as ‘Ethereum in the fast line’, Polygon started out in May 2020 as a single Ethereum side-chain but has built on the MATIC Proof of Stake chain, investing heavily in rollup solutions to improve the efficiency of EVM-based DEFI and NFT-focused applications. 

Who founded Polygon?

Polygon was founded in 2017 by a trio of Indian entrepreneurs Jayant Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, and Anurag Arjun whose focus was on building solutions to the challenges of scaling blockchain usage.

Polygon’s Secret Sauce

Polygon is described as a Swiss Army Knife solution to scaling Ethereum because it offers a range of modular components tailored to different needs.

The Polygon Proof of Stake chain bridges from Ethereum using a trustless transaction channel called Plasma and is secured by the Peppermint consensus mechanism. However, developers can use Polygon Edge to custom-build their own EVM-compatible sidechain and define their consensus rules.

Edge is being expanded to create Supernets, customisable and interoperable Ethereum compatible blockchains that can be developed as public or private networks with their own consensus mechanisms or relying on Polygon Proof of Stake.

Alongside the development of Edge, Polygon is pouring $1bn into the development of Ethereum rollups, building both Zero Knowledge and Optimistic solutions. Polygon Hermez is already live with several other applications currently in testing.

Polygon Use Cases

Starting in May 2022 Polygon is one of two blockchains that are being supported by Instagram as they beta test the ability to share and post NFTs.

In April 2022 Polygon was chosen by Stripe as a preferred settlement layer for processing USDC payments to Twitter creators who choose to be paid in cryptocurrency.

Two global brands, Adidas and Prada, have collaborated on a Metaverse project featuring community-sourced NFT artwork built on the Polygon network.

Polygon is used by Opensea, the world’s largest NFT marketplace, to mint and sell non-fungible tokens.

Matic Tokenomics

There is a fixed supply of 10 billion MATIC premined at lunch in 2020 with the following distribution:

Private Sale: 3.80%

Binance Launchpad Sale (IEO): 19% of the total supply.

Team: 16%

Advisors: 4%

Block Rewards: 12%

Foundation: 21.86%

Ecosystem: 23.33%

All MATIC outside of block rewards will have been distributed by the end of 2022 with full circulation expected to be reached by 2025 when block rewards end and Validators will be paid solely via fees.

Just over 30% of the supply of MATIC is currently staked earning an average return of around 8% according to StakingRewards. 

Buying & Storing Matic

Buying MATIC is easy as it is widely available on centralised exchanges such as Coinbase, Binance and FTX, but check whether registration is supported in your country.

Read NGRAVE’s guide to how exchanges work so you can understand the process, costs and risks in buying MATIC.

Wherever you choose to buy MATIC the safest place to store it is on an NGRAVE ZERO cold wallet protected from online threats but conveniently accessible for transactions and trading.

Polygon Facts

• Polygon has pledged $20million to fully offset its carbon-dioxide emissions in 2022.

• Polygon claims to be capable of 65,000 transactions per second (TPS).

• Polygon has processed 1.8bn transactions and supports more than 135 unique addresses 

Reality Check

Polygon’s Peppermint Consensus Mechanism has an upper limit of just 100 validators questioning whether it can be considered genuinely decentralised.

Despite Polygon’s claim to support a theoretical throughput of 65,000 transactions per second its own data shows that TPS is currently around 30.

In December 2021 a White Hat Hacker exposed a Smart Contract bug that put 9bn MATIC tokens at risk. Fortunately for Polygon the Good Samaritan opted to discreetly raise the alarm and accept a $2million bounty - the largest ever DEFI bounty -  rather than taking advantage of a vulnerability that could have potentially collapsed the entire platform.