Polygon is a decentralized Ethereum scaling platform that enables developers to build scalable user-friendly dApps with low transaction fees without ever sacrificing on security. Most recently, Instagram announced that they will be using Polygon for digital collectibles to showcase NFTs on the platform. Aside from that, financial services and SaaS company Stripe has also announced launching global payouts in crypto using Polygon. Various fashion brands such as Adidas Originals, Prada, and Givenchy have also released NFT collections on Polygon. With so many achievements under their belt, it’s no wonder that Polygon stays consistently in the top ten cryptocurrencies in the world.
We hosted an insightful Twitter Spaces AMA session with Arpit Sharma, Vice President of APAC Global Enterprises from the Polygon team to discuss their views on the current market, exciting projects, and what’s next for Polygon.
In case you missed the AMA session, don’t worry! We’ve got you covered! We have wrapped up the key takeaways in this article so everyone can read more and understand more about Polygon’s views and the potential of their ongoing and upcoming projects.
Listen to the Twitter Spaces AMA recording here.
Let’s dive into the main Q&A of the AMA session below.
What is the history behind Polygon Network and what are Polygon’s goals?
Formerly known as MATIC Network, Polygon was a project initiated in 2017. Polygon was founded upon the goal to solve Ethereum’s scalability issue. Despite bringing value to the Web3 space, many early adopters and users both realized that the Ethereum network was not yet ready for mainstream adoption. Most companies back then chose to create parallel ecosystems to solve scalability issues while Polygon opted to provide a layer-2 scalability solution on the Ethereum network. The first offering for Polygon proof-of-stake (PoS) became wildly popular when it went live in 2020. This in turn prompted top games, top DeFi protocols, and metaverses to start getting on board with Polygon. Eventually, Polygon realized that scalability was not a monolithic problem to solve, as they began discovering new approaches toward solving them. This realization transformed MATIC Network into Polygon–a powerhouse that further brought in numerous scalability solutions under one roof. Polygon has invested heavily in technology while they continue to build their PoS network. Supernets–which was initiated on Polygon–saw huge traction from enterprise clients because it provides the capability for enterprises to bootstrap their network right hassle-free. In the long run, Polygon aims to work towards the world of Ethereum, making it developer-friendly and democratizing web3 for everyone.
Which sectors is Polygon focused on？ What projects would Polygon like to see built on Polygon?
Besides early adopters and users of gaming, DeFi, and metaverse, Polygon is now seeing excellent results across industries and different real-world applications.
The first segment Polygon focuses on is the traditional non-digital clients (E. g. Retail, FMCG, F&B, banking, traditional finance, entertainment, etc) as there is huge potential in developing that sector. For instance, the Monetary Authority of Singapore announced two projects (Guardian and Orchid) during the recent Singapore FinTech Festival which are powered by Polygon. There was a live demonstration showcasing how Purpose Bound Money (PBM) can be dropped in your wallet to purchase food via the Grab app which is very popular in Southeast Asia. Another example would be Project Guardian where JP Morgan Chase and DBS conducted their first on-chain trade.
The second segment that Polygon focuses on is digital native businesses. Stripe announced their partnership with Polygon for cryptocurrency payment earlier this year. Starbucks is also tapping into Polygon as their partner to build their Web3 experience for Starbucks Odyssey, allowing Starbucks Rewards loyalty program members and Starbucks partners in the United States to earn and purchase digital collectible stamps in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Polygon also focuses on Superapps and platforms that cover different sectors like technology, HealthTech, and FinTech. Examples as such become critical for mainstream adoption.
In the third segment that Polygon focuses on, the government and public sector, Polygon emphasizes how Web3 can improve efficiency and citizen service delivery in this sector. The City of Lugano in Switzerland initiated Plan ₿ jointly with Tether, which will allow citizens and companies to use Bitcoin, Tether, and the city’s own LVGA stablecoin to pay their annual taxes, parking tickets, public services, and student tuition fees, paving the way for cryptocurrencies becoming a legal tender in the city. Polygon is joining the effort as an infrastructure partner, offering the rails on which the stablecoins will run.
Polygon will continue focusing on Web3 natives such as gaming, DeFi Dao, and Metaverse. They also hope to see more DeFi Dao and Metaverse projects because such projects hold the most potential for unleashing the true power of Web3, which is decentralization and bringing more power to the users.
What sets Polygon apart from other networks?
Polygon is a high-performing and reliable network. When aiming for mainstream adoption, this becomes really critical as we cannot afford to have a network that is always at risk of going down while transactions are being processed.
Polygon has more than 53,000 DApps on its network that relies on Polygon for deployments to date. The daily transaction volume on Polygon is around 3 million transactions and the Polygon network has processed over 2 billion transactions to date. These numbers allude to the network’s high-performing nature.
Secondly, Polygon as a company is very developer-focused and places huge importance on developer experience. Polygon has always focused highly on ensuring the transition to Web3 for developers is as seamless as possible. Developers and tech leaders in the industry had vouched for the superior developer experience they enjoyed on Polygon. They further commented that technical problems can be effortlessly solved on Polygon. Polygon takes pride in making a difference in the developer space and will continue doing so.
Thirdly, Polygon is a Tech Powerhouse. Polygon has the best teams working on projects and initiatives like PoS, Polygon Edge, Polygon Zero, ZK EVM, Polygon Miden, Polygon Hermez, and many more. The research focus that Polygon has becomes critical in setting us apart from others. From a technological life cycle standpoint, Polygon is way ahead on the curve. Polygon continues to invest heavily in its research space. Polygon is heavily invested in ensuring the success of any project that chooses to be built on Polygon by providing guidance and hand-holding throughout the process. The initiatives Polygon has made in its business and technological areas differentiate them from others.
What are Polygon’s upcoming projects?
Polygon made some breakthroughs in the traditional finance space a couple of weeks ago.
In Project Orchid, the issuance of Purpose Bound Money (PBM) in the form of commercial digital vouchers was tested during the Singapore Fintech Festival (SFF) 2022. In Project Guardian, JP Morgan Chase and DBS had also conducted their first on-chain trade during the festival. Worldpay, a subsidiary of the publicly traded FIS Group, will also soon enable USD coin (USDC) settlement for clients on the Polygon blockchain as part of a broader strategy. These breakthroughs ensure the community that we are heading in the right direction toward the next step which is adoption.
As mentioned above, Starbucks is building its Web3 experience surrounding its loyalty rewards program on Polygon. Meta Instagram and Reddit had also recently launched digital collectibles on Polygon which is a defining milestone for Polygon because NFTs have now become easily within reach for traditional Web2 users.
This paves the way for the Web2 developer community to start exploring deeper into Web3 which will fuel the next cycle of Web3 growth. In the retail space, Flipkart, India’s e-commerce giant, is making a major foray into Web3 with a bold experiment in the future of shopping on Polygon. Flipkart announced ‘Flipverse’, a Metaverse experience, on Polygon. They also announced its very first NFT drop at Flipkart, FireDrops, hosted on Polygon’s blockchain.
Polygon also partnered with Stripe and is a part of Disney Accelerator. There are also many Metaverse experiences that are being worked on currently and will be announced very soon.
On a refreshing note, Polygon had been working on citizen service delivery solutions. In the Indian province of Uttar Pradesh, the police have started a Polygon-based registration for police complaints on the blockchain network. The Police Department will be able to track complaints on-chain which is unheard of. Multiple state governments in India had also started issuing certificates on Polygon to track benefits. Cases as such confirm the trend that Web3 is now becoming mainstream, touching more people than ever.
There will be a lot of interesting announcements from the product teams and protocol teams that have been working on ZK EVM, Polygon Avail, Nightfall, and Polygon ID as well. The community should definitely stay tuned for that.
How would Polygon continue to build in current market conditions?
The recent FTX situation is very unfortunate for the industry. However, despite that, Polygon still needs to keep on building. Polygon has a clear technology focus which is making protocols better.
The current challenge to overcome is how Polygon should bring more to the Web3 space and how value can be added to current businesses via Web3 applications. Making the Ethereum network become mainstream by bringing more users to Web3 became our objective and Polygon stayed true to that.
Secondly, Polygon’s teams also remain committed to technological research and are very hopeful that industry-defining research will come out from the House of Polygon. With Polygon Avail, the data availability problem can be addressed and this will be critical for taking scalability to the next level. Polygon ID and Polygon Supernet are also gaining huge traction.
Even under current market conditions, huge traction can still be seen from large clients, which is evident from Polygon’s official announcements. In times of turmoil, the best we can do is continue building and double down on the efforts in making the Ethereum network mainstream. Again and again, the tenets of decentralization and its principles, which stands out during times like these, should be revisited.
Being a long-time partner of Bitrue, what types of activities has Polygon done with the Bitrue community in the past?
Some of the past activities with Bitrue include Bitrue’s partnership with Polygon Studios. Through this partnership, Bitrue will be able to identify young GameFi projects that are seeking support from Polygon Studios & assist with developmental support, then later provide them with access to the strong Bitrue community, comprising of 4 million users, through key marketing events such as Yield Farming and BTR Votes.
Secondly, the Bitrue community can add a lot of value to Web3 projects cutting across use cases. Polygon is highly bullish on this and is related to work closely and add value to this. Bitrue supports the MATIC Mainnet where there are numerous quality DeFi projects already on Bitrue that are a part of Polygon’s ecosystem.
Below are several high-quality projects listed under Polygon ecosystem:
QUICKSWAP
BEEFY FINANCE
SYNAPSE
MULTICHAIN
PEGAXY
GAINS
and many more.
What are Polygon’s future collaboration plans with Bitrue?
Polygon is having a Staking campaign on Bitrue, that offers up to 12% APY with MATIC Yield Farming. Go ahead to the Yield Farming page on Bitrue and start your staking. There will be more to come in the future. Please follow the official Twitter accounts of Bitrue and Polygon for more updates!
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That wraps up the AMA session. As a concluding remark, Polygon shared that the cryptocurrency and Web3 space is a spectacular field that is continuously evolving. However, Polygon also reminds users that it is extremely important to diligently Do-Your-Own-Research (DYOR) before diving into the world of Web3. A new era of the Internet is being built and the community is hopeful. To a very large extent, Web3 has already started becoming mainstream and we are at the cusp of where Web3 is heading to. The adoption curve will take off exponentially very, very fast, and very, very soon. Through tough times, the community should stay steady, lean on the basic tenets of Web3, and stay hopeful.
If you want to know more about Polygon, please visit their official websites and social media channels
