Polygon (MATIC), formerly known as Matic Network, is a multi-chain scaling solution designed to scale and develop infrastructure on Ethereum, enhancing transaction speed and reducing costs without sacrificing security. Launched in 2017 by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, and Anurag Arjun, Polygon seeks to address some of Ethereum's major limitations, including its throughput, poor user experience (due to slow transaction speeds and high gas fees), and lack of community governance.
The platform's native token, MATIC, is used for governance, staking, and gas fees within the Polygon ecosystem, enabling users to interact with decentralized applications (dApps).
Polygon provides Layer 2 scaling solutions which operate on top of the Ethereum blockchain, allowing dApps to achieve high transaction throughput with low latency. The Polygon software development kit (SDK) is a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications, from fully sovereign blockchains to protocols. Polygon uses a modified version of the Plasma framework, to increase the scalability of blockchains like Ethereum by aggregating transactions on sidechains that connect to the main blockchain, combined with proof-of-stake (PoS), thus reducing the network congestion and gas fees associated with transactions directly on Ethereum.
Polygon supports other scaling architectures, including zk-Rollups and Optimistic Rollups. Its integration with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), enables developers to build scalable dApps without leaving the Ethereum ecosystem.
Polygon's transition to Polygon 2.0 focuses on incorporating zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs to enable more efficient cross-chain interactions, to enhance scalability and interoperability within the blockchain space. This shift is accompanied by a change in the native token from MATIC to POL, maintaining the initial supply but introducing an inflationary model to support the network's long-term sustainability.
