Ethereum 2.0: Is Polygon The Next Big Thing?
Polygon, a secondary scaling solution for the Ethereum blockchain is one of the prominent blockchain technologies predicted to blow up in 2021. They received a lot of buzz and came to solve the gas fee issues users face with blockchain, especially in NFT transactions. They have also been home to a lot of innovative launches, currently holding over 7000 DApp milestones. Quite recently, Polygon went on to secure $450 million of funding in a round led by Sequoia Capital India to help fund the company’s Web 3 aspirations.
SoftBank, Michael Novogratz’s Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global, Republic Capital, hedge fund manager Alan Howard, and Kevin O’Leary of ABC’s “Shark Tank” were among the 40 venture capital firms who participated in the round.
Progress so far
https://twitter.com/MemesPolygon/status/1487056627937079297?s=20&t=CI0bPLlyxBipRt2TTPm0zA
Sandeep Nailwal, Jaynti Kanani, and Anurag Arjun created the company, which received a “significant investment” from US-based billionaire Mark Cuban last year. Last year, it welcomed Serbian cofounder Mihailo Bjelic. Polygon’s token was distributed through Binance’s Initial Exchange Offering in 2019, raising approximately $5 million for the firm.
Polygon is developing a set of scaling options similar to what Amazon Web Services offers Web2 developers, including Polygon PoS, Polygon Edge, and Polygon Avail. The team is also investing in zero-knowledge (ZK) technology, which will be critical in onboarding Ethereum’s next billion users.
“Web3 expands on the open-source concepts of the early internet, allowing users to create value, control the network, and reap the benefits. “The underpinning of this next stage in the Web’s evolution will be Ethereum, scaled by Polygon,” Polygon cofounder Naiwal said in a statement. “Technological disruption did not begin with Web2 and will not finish with it. That’s why we’re ecstatic to see some of the same companies that helped fund the previous wave of innovation now supporting our Web3 vision.”
Polygon is proposing several options to help Ethereum users deal with high transaction costs and congestion. Ethereum has exploded in popularity as a result of new applications in decentralized finance (Defi) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are built on it.
Polygon has attracted several Web3 initiatives in the last year, including DeFi protocols like Aave, luxury brand Dolce & Gabbana, as well as NFT firms like OpenSea and Mark Cuban’s Lazy.com.
“Today, Polygon is the platform of choice for building on the blockchain. Thousands of developers across a wide spectrum of applications are turning to Polygon and their comprehensive set of scaling solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem,” said Shailesh Lakhani, managing director at Sequoia Capital India. “This is an ambitious and proactive team that places a high importance on innovation.” “We are ecstatic to be leading this substantial fundraising round,” says Sequoia Capital India.
https://twitter.com/CoinbaseWallet/status/1490813574104510465?s=20&t=DtvECN24U3qZHHOGAXb4aA
Why Polygon?
Polygon is the platform of choice for building on the blockchain today. In a statement, Sequoia India managing director Shailesh Lakhani said, “Thousands of developers across a spectrum of applications are choosing Polygon and their comprehensive suite of scaling solutions for the Ethereum ecosystem.”
“This is an ambitious and proactive team that places a high importance on innovation.” “We are ecstatic to be leading this substantial fundraising round,” says Sequoia Capital India.
Polygon’s big funding represents a turnaround story for the company, which struggled to attract venture capitalists in its early years. Polygon, despite its technological prowess and speed of execution, was previously overlooked by others, according to many web3 pioneers, because the crew was mostly headquartered in India. Polygon said in a statement that the funds will be used to develop Web 3 apps such as Polygon PoS, Polygon Edge, and Polygon Avail, which are akin to Amazon Web Services’ services for Web 2 developers.
https://twitter.com/0xPolygon/status/1490739661656178688?s=20&t=DtvECN24U3qZHHOGAXb4aA
Institutional Investors and Polygon
Bringing in institutional investors will aid Polygon in brand development and alliance formation.
According to Sandeep Nailwal, co-founder of Polygon, “In the market, we have a very liquid token and a good treasury.” To raise finances, we did not need to go to the market. As the global market continues to peek into the crypto realm, we recognized that, although we are 5 to 10 times bigger than Solana and 20 times bigger than Avalanche in terms of organic metrics (daily active users, transaction volume)”
He further goes on to say “we don’t have as much visibility as we could and our projects were able to perform a lot of institution-led marketing.”
According to him, the financing will also aid Polygon in the development of larger developer ecosystems in several markets.
How Polygon Has Dominated The Market
Gas fees on Polygon are non-existent in most cases and very small in rare situations when compared to most other networks. This gave it a good market entry. This has helped them enable more people to access more ethereum products as well as scale transaction operations.
Despite the market turbulence at the moment, Polygon (MATIC), an Indian-based cryptocurrency that powers the Polygon blockchain network, grew quickly in popularity last year. While the value of major crypto coins such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, and others plummeted in June of last year, the value of MATIC increased by about 35%.
Following the bear market, some investors were on the lookout for the next great thing. Polygon (MATIC) looks to have slipped between the cracks. It is one of the top 15 largest cryptocurrencies in the world, and it has grown extremely popular in India. Due to an increase in customer demand, companies like CMC Markets decided to include the currency on their platforms.
https://twitter.com/Polyunofficial/status/1491493586256674816?s=20&t=CI0bPLlyxBipRt2TTPm0zA
Community-first Perspective
Polygon has always been a community-first project and owes its success to the ecosystem of early believers, developers, and stakeholders, as impressive as that lineup is. This is not going to change. This financing round, according to the core team, is a tide that lifts all boats, demonstrating the value of community in making Web3 a reality.
We wish them well, WAGMI!
