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The Polygon platform and MATIC coin

Jodie Humphries avatar
Jodie Humphries
- 3 min read
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Polygon is a decentralised platform that aims to help Ethereum applications to scale. This enables developers to overcome the speed constraints and high transaction fees of Ethereum, building scaleable dapps. Polygon is based in India and was established in 2017 by three founders considered India's first crypto billionaires.

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This article is over two years old, last updated on April 13, 2022. While RateCity makes best efforts to update every important article regularly, the information in this piece may not be as relevant as it once was. Alternatively, please consider checking recent cryptocurrency articles.

How the Polygon crypto platform works?

With Polygon, Ethereum can be transformed into a multichain system or an internet of blockchains. Over 7000 web 3 applications have been built on the Polygon platform. Many web 3 projects built on Ethereum are being migrated to Polygon for the lower gas fees and faster transactions. Thanks to the complete compatibility with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), developers find it convenient to migrate to Polygon. Some of the best-known business dapps, such as Dolce and Gabbana, and popular NFT marketplace, OpenSea, are built on Polygon. 

Polygon is sometimes referred to as a layer 2 aggregator, as it's building an ecosystem of blockchains that can easily connect with each other on top of Ethereum. Polygon offers a range of technology components that create a scaleable architecture by boosting throughput without sacrificing security.

After a partnership with Alchemy Pay, Polygon now allows hosted applications in its DeFi ecosystem to conduct transactions on their DeFi apps with traditional payment platforms like Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and local channels. This has also simplified DeFi app payments on e-commerce platforms such as Shopify.

The number of daily active users on Polygon often surpasses those on Ethereum. But Polygon is not an Ethereum competitor; rather it facilitates getting more value from the Ethereum network. 

The rise of the Polygon MATIC currency

The Polygon cryptocurrency is called MATIC. In fact, the network was previously known as the Matic network. Polygon MATIC is amongst the 20 largest cryptocurrencies globally by market capitalisation. 

The MATIC price appreciated towards the end of 2021 when most other cryptocurrencies were falling, and it was one of the best performing cryptos of 2021. Some industry observers base the MATIC price prediction on the popularity of the platform with DeFi sites, NFT developers and crypto investors and believe that it may appreciate in the future as well. 

Polygon doesn’t have a native wallet, so you can hold your MATIC in wallets like MetaMask, Coinbase, Bitski, Venly, or WalletConnect. The MATIC bridge can be used to bridge tokens from Ethereum to Polygon. When you initiate such a bridge, you will see the gas required for the transaction, and you can choose to continue. The bridge will take some minutes to be executed. 

Validator nodes on the Polygon blockchain participate in consensus group work and perform checks on the Ethereum Mainnet. Validators verify transactions and add new blocks on the blockchain for rewards.You can earn rewards from MATIC staking by delegating your tokens to a validator of your choice. You share risks and rewards with validators.

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This article was reviewed by Personal Finance Editor Mark Bristow before it was published as part of RateCity's Fact Check process.