What is Polygon?

Matic is a popular altcoin among sports fans.Before you Trade MATIC, it is vital that you understand what you are investing in. Let's find out what's MATIC and how it functions.

Formerly known as Matic Network, Polygon (Polygon) is the first streamlined, user-friendly platform for building up Ethereum's infrastructure and scalability. Polygon SDK's core is a modular, adaptable architecture that allows for creating a wide variety of applications.

Polygon allows the creation of several types of infrastructure depending on the developer's needs, including optimistic rollup chains, ZK rollup chains, stand-alone chains, and more.

With Polygon, Ethereum is effectively upgraded to a true multi-chain platform (aka Internet of Blockchains). Similar to systems like Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, etc., this multi-chain system features the same openness, transparency, and dynamism that have made Ethereum so successful.

Polygon is a hybrid of the Plasma Framework and the proof-of-stake blockchain design. To facilitate the execution of scalable and autonomous smart contracts, Polygon makes use of the Plasma framework offered by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

Existing Plasma-POS chain-based ecosystems will not be affected in any way. The Polygon team is adding additional functionality to the platform's current, reliable technology to meet the developer community's varying requirements better. To accommodate a bigger ecosystem, Polygon will keep improving its foundational technologies.

Polygon claims a block confirmation speed of less than two seconds and the ability to handle up to 65,000 transactions simultaneously on a single side chain. Using this technology, developers may build decentralized financial apps that can be accessed anywhere in the world using a single, unified blockchain.

Because it is built on the Plasma framework, Polygon has the ability to host an infinite number of decentralized apps without the usual limitations seen on proof-of-work blockchains.

Polygon's native cryptocurrency, MATIC, is an Ethereum-based ERC-20 token. The tokens are utilized for payment services on Polygon and as a settlement currency among users in the Polygon ecosystem. MATIC coins are also used to pay the transaction fees on Polygon's sidechains.

How is Polygon different?

Polygon describes itself as a Layer 2 scaling solution, which indicates that it has no plans to improve its underlying blockchain technology anytime soon. The project aims to make scalability and near-instant blockchain transactions easier to implement.

Polygon is developed on top of an altered version of the Plasma framework, which relies on checkpoints established by proof-of-stake transactions on the Ethereum blockchain. Each of Polygon's sidechains can now process up to 65,536 transactions per block because to this innovative technique.

Polygon's commercial sidechains are built to accommodate existing Ethereum-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

While Polygon now only works with the Ethereum base chain, the network plans to expand support for other base chains depending on user feedback. Polygon would then become an interoperable decentralized Layer 2 blockchain platform.

Polygon is one of many blockchains that have reached carbon neutrality. These efforts are a part of Polygon's Green Manifesto, which promotes environmentally conscious blockchain development. Polygon has pledged $20 million to be used by local organizations that are implementing Web3 technology to create a better, more sustainable future for all people. Among these is exploring alternative methods for off-chain retirement of carbon credits.

Polygon invested $400,000 in carbon credits through their collaboration with KlimaDAO. Those credits are equivalent to around 90,000 tons of CO2 emissions. Using the offset aggregator tool provided by KlimaDAO, the tokens were burned in exchange for BCT and MCO2 carbon credits generated from offsets certified in accordance with the Verified Carbon Standard.

Polygon has taken the first step toward sustainability by achieving carbon neutrality. Though proof-of-stake is used to validate transactions on the network, it still has an effect on the environment despite being more efficient than proof-of-work. That is true for both native smart contracts communicating with the Ethereum network and for standalone Polygon operations.

How many MATIC tokens are in circulation?

Every month, new MATIC tokens are unlocked. There are a total of 10,000,000,000 MATIC tokens that can ever exist.

Only 3.8% of the maximum MATIC supply was issued at the initial private sale in 2017. Another 19% of the total supply was sold at the April 2019 launchpad sale. $5,000,000 was raised with each MATIC token priced at $0.00263.

The remaining MATIC tokens are dispersed as follows:

• Team tokens account for 16% of the total supply.
• Advisor tokens account for 4% of the entire supply.
• Network Operations tokens account for 12% of the total supply.
• Foundation tokens account for 21.86 percent of total supply.
• Ecosystem tokens account for 23.33 percent of total supply.

Network security

Staking is fundamental to the Polygon ecosystem since it is a Layer 2 solution that employs a network of proof-of-stake validators to secure assets. Those who wish to participate in the network's PoS consensus process and are willing to stake their MATIC tokens in exchange for MATIC tokens will be accepted as validators on the network.

Network participants who are not interested in validating transactions directly can still participate in the staking process and receive staking rewards by delegating their MATIC tokens to another validator.

Polygon furthers decentralization by employing block producers at the block producer layer in addition to proof-of-stake checkpointing. By serving as checkpoints and fraud-proof processes, these block producers finalize the main chains.

Founders

In October of 2017, Polygon (then known as Matic Network) went live. Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, and Anurag Arjun, two seasoned blockchain coders and a business consultant, founded Polygon.

The Polygon team made significant contributions to the Ethereum ecosystem prior to making the switch to its network in 2019. On Ethereum, the team worked to create the Plasma MVP, the WalletConnect protocol, and the popular Dagger event notification engine.

Team members included Jaynti Kanani, co-founder of Polygon. Jaynti is the current CEO of Polygon. He is a full-stack developer and a blockchain engineer.

Jaynti was instrumental in getting Web3, Plasma, and the WalletConnect protocol working on Ethereum. Jaynti has worked as a data scientist at Housing.com before being involved with blockchain.

Sandeep Nailwal is a blockchain programmer and entrepreneur who helped start Polygon and now serves as its chief operations officer. Polygon (formerly Matic) was founded by Sandeep, who was formerly the CEO of Scopeweaver and the chief technology officer of Welspun Group.

The sole co-founder of Polygon, with no background in programming, is Anurag Arjun. He has worked as a product manager for IRIS Business, SNL Financial, Dexter Consultancy, and Cognizant Technologies, among other companies.

Where can you buy MATIC?

MATIC is available on the licensed cryptocurrency exchange CryptoForce and several other national and international exchanges.

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