On this planet of Ethereum Layer-2 blockchains, one title stands out for its reputation, big-name help and ubiquity – Polygon.

From leisure and model loyalty to gaming and ticketing, Polygon has turn into a go-to blockchain for builders seeking to join high quality manufacturers, apps and instruments with the safety and energy of Ethereum, delivering beautiful developer help, excellent consumer expertise, and the speeds, affordability and reliability you’d anticipate from an Ethereum Layer-2.

What has made Polygon into the large it’s at the moment, and why ought to or not it’s in your radar? Right here’s our full information to Polygon in 2024.

What’s Polygon?

Created in 2017 by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, and Anurag Arjun – and initially often known as the Matic Community – Polygon is an Ethereum Layer-2 blockchain.

Launching just some months earlier than CryptoKitties, the primary widely-popular blockchain sport, would sluggish Ethereum to a crawl, Polygon got down to construct on Ethereum’s safety and decentralised nature while providing a platform for high-volume apps to run easily, effectively, and reliably.

Polygon was rapidly picked-up by incoming blockchain builders, with the likes of 1inch, SushiSwap and Curve Finance all leveraging Polygon for DeFi instruments, initiatives and platforms – and as soon as NFTs entered the fold, quite a few marketplaces had been fast to supply help, equivalent to OpenSea, Aspect and Magic Eden.

It’s native token, $MATIC (quickly to be $POL), has been a high 50 cryptocurrency for a lot of its existence, sitting at #21 on the time of writing with a market cap of $4.1B USD. $MATIC counts as a governance token, permitting holders to each take part in and assist to form the way forward for the community.

2024 has been a giant 12 months for Polygon, because it noticed extra NFT transactions in a 24-hour interval over Ethereum for the primary time, injected $100M USD into Web3 gaming alongside fellow Ethereum Layer-2 Immutable, and pledged 1 billion $POL tokens over the following 10 years to promising blockchain initiatives – totalling $410M USD on the time of writing.

What makes Polygon distinctive?

On high of being one of many pioneering Ethereum Layer-2 blockchains, Polygon stands out for the large variety of big-name manufacturers which might be powering their Web3 choices with the community.

Starbucks, Warner Music Group and Sq. Enix are simply among the huge names which have trusted Polygon as their blockchain of selection for coming into the Web3 market, and Polygon has made an actual status because the go-to blockchain for mainstream manufacturers that wish to increase their horizons.

On the technical aspect, Polygon makes use of “sidechains.” These are separate blockchains that run parallel to Ethereum, processing transactions independently earlier than pushing them to the primary Ethereum community, serving to to each handle the load on Ethereum , and be certain that merchandise and apps on Polygon function easily and with out challenge.

Charges on Polygon are a fraction of these on Ethereum. On the time of writing, an ERC-20 token switch prices round $1.68 USD on Ethereum, while it’s lower than 1 cent on Polygon, making it a sexy choice for customers and builders alike.

The Historical past of Polygon

Polygon started life in 2017 because the Matic Community, rapidly gaining traction as one of many first publicly out there Ethereum Layer-2 blockchains, performing as a serious gateway for builders seeking to construct high quality blockchain apps, video games and instruments.

The Polygon mainnet went reside in 2020, resulting in a surge of each developer and consumer curiosity – and by the point NFT market hit their all-time highs on the finish of 2021, Polygon had firmly established itself as one of many main Layer-2 options, with a whole lot of dApps and thousands and thousands of customers around the globe.

2022 and 2023 noticed Polygon’s affect develop even additional, as Meta (homeowners of the Fb and Instagram social networks) introduced that they’d be partnering with Polygon to permit for the combination of NFTs into their platforms – and though this was finally cancelled as NFT curiosity cooled, it nonetheless signified Polygon’s place within the business.

This era additionally noticed a groundbreaking partnership between Polygon and fellow Ethereum Layer-2 Immutable – lengthy thought of to be rivals – to spearhead the event and adoption of Web3 gaming, resulting in developments in zero-knowledge expertise and ample help for builders.

2024 has seen Polygon proceed to tread new floor within the blockchain area – though way more within the background than beforehand. Their partnership with ChainGPT has seen them experiment with AI integration in blockchain, while their acquisition of Toposware has furthered their research, improvement and product capability in zero-knowledge expertise.

Whether or not on the entrance web page or behind the scenes, Polygon has been a constant standard-bearer for blockchain expertise, serving to to convey numerous manufacturers, firms and customers into the Web3 fold – and as we wrap up 2024 and head into 2025, Polygon is for certain to proceed leaving a sizeable mark on the blockchain business.