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What Are the Top 3 Things People Get Wrong About Polygon (MATIC)?
Keeping cryptocurrencies straight can be a tough task, especially when a project like Polygon rebrands itself. This is exactly what happened to Matic, it rebranded itself in February 2021 to henceforth be known as Polygon. Despite the rebrand, it hasn’t stopped the ethereum layer-2 solution from becoming one of the most popular, and widely used blockchains in the world.
Today Polygon is used for NFTs, and DeFi applications that were previously exclusive to ethereum. In 2021, Polygon is cutting edge technology, so naturally people misunderstand a few things when doing their research. Here is a list of the top 3 things that people get wrong about Polygon.
1) Polygon and Matic are Two Different Blockchains
It can be pretty confusing when your favorite cryptocurrency project re-brands itself. The first thing that people get wrong about Polygon, is that it is different from Matic. In reality, they’re the same blockchain under two different names. Matic was built and launched in 2017 amidst the cryptocurrency ICO boom. At the time, the project and the token were called MATIC.
Then in February of 2021, Matic rebranded the name of the blockchain and project to Polygon. Although the project goes by a different name, the name of the core token remains the same.
Still, despite the best efforts of Polygon’s marketing team, there are still those who think Matic and Polygon are two totally separate entities. If you’re one of those people, it is best you start thinking about Polygon and Matic as the same.
2) Polygon is the Same Thing as Ethereum
Polygon is branded as a layer-2 scaling solution to Ethereum. It comes complete with a lengthy technical feature set such as zk-rollups, optimistic rollups, and plasma chains. These jargony terms really just amount to one thing; scalability.
Polygon is capable of handling thousands of transactions per second, something that Ethereum only wishes it could do. One of the things that people get wrong about Polygon is that they think it’s an add-on or attached to Ethereum in a direct way. The reality is that Polygon is no more attached to Ethereum than Binance Smart Chain, Crypto.org’s Cronos, or Avalanche.
Each of these blockchains have their own implementation of the “Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)”. The component of Ethereum that allows it to run smart contracts can actually be deployed on other blockchain infrastructure in an attempt to increase the scalability of Ethereum based smart contracts.
Although some of these platforms are called ethereum layer-2 solutions, it is worth noting that they’re separate from Ethereum, and connected through something called a “bridge”. In order to get cryptocurrencies from one blockchain to another, one must “bridge them” from one chain to another. In other words, removing them from the chain they came from, and adding them to the destination chain.
Reverting back to the original thing that people get wrong, Ethereum and Polygon are definitely not the same thing. They’re two totally different blockchains, each with a totally different core token. At the center of polyogn is MATIC and at the center of Ethereum is ETH.
3) Polygon Fixes Ethereum’s Scaling Issues
Polygon does not fix Ethereum’s scaling issues. If anything, Polygon takes DeFi and NFT market share away from Ethereum.
It is true that Polygon reduces the load on Ethereum by reducing the activity and number of transactions taking place on Ethereum. But this doesn’t solve the Ethereum scalability problem, it simply diverts traffic to another blockchain. One chain’s scalability issues aren’t solved by reducing traffic, they’re solved by addressing the reason why the chain has low transaction throughput. The transaction throughput of Ethereum is the same before and after Polygon came into existence.
We can look at Polygon in another way to determine if Polygon helps solve Ethereum’s scaling issues. It is possible to bridge every asset from Ethereum onto Polygon; this includes ETH, BAT, DAI, and WBTC. In this way, Polygon actually looks like a mirror of Ethereum.
Users of Polygon can do pretty much anything they’re able to do on Ethereum, as long as the developers of the smart contracts have deployed their code on both blockchains. In this sense Polygon is solving Ethereum’s scalability problem by being an extension of Ethereum. I actually don’t buy this narrative for the same reason I illustrated above. Polygon and Ethereum are two totally different blockchains that can talk to one another through a bridge. Ethereum still has the same scalability issues with or without Polygon. Its existence isn’t solving anything for Ethereum, it’s just moving the problem somewhere else.
Conclusion: Polygon is an Interesting, Independent Blockchain
Ethereum’s scalability problem has actually spawned a wave of fragmentation and innovation.
Polygon is a natural response to the excess traffic seen on Ethereum. The same can be said for any other blockchain that implements a blockchain capable of hosting smart contracts for DeFi and NFTs.
These blockchains that have implemented an Ethereum Virtual Machine are piggy backing off the years of development that have taken place around Ethereum.
Now, blockchains like Polygon have the opportunity to cultivate their own independent communities. They’re capable of interacting with any other chain that is based on Ethereum, forming a network, or internet of blockchains.
One thing that people get right about Polygon is that it is an interesting cryptocurrency and blockchain project.
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