Sandeep Nailwal, the founder of Polygon, announced a significant technical upgrade to the Polygon ecosystem with the introduction of the POL token. The announcement, made via Twitter, outlines how POL aims to revolutionize multi-chain staking and bring about a new era in token design.
POL: A Technical Marvel
According to Nailwal, “POL is a massive technical upgrade to MATIC. POL delivers the benefits of multi-chain staking without the added risks of restaking.” The token is part of the Polygon 2.0 proposal, which seeks to expand the Polygon ecosystem from a single chain to an interconnected network of Layer 2 solutions (L2s).
The Vision Behind POL
According to a recent blog post on Polygon’s official website, the POL token is engineered to serve as the “major tool for coordination and growth of the Polygon ecosystem, as well as the main driver behind the vision of the Value Layer for the Internet.” The token is designed to provide “practically unlimited opportunities” to its holders by enabling validators to oversee multiple chains and assume various roles, thus significantly accelerating the growth of the Polygon ecosystem. However, the introduction of POL rewards will replace the existing MATIC protocol rewards for Polygon validators, raising questions about the future role of MATIC and its potential impact on the asset’s market value.
Multi-Chain Staking and Enshrined Restaking
One of the most notable features of POL is its approach to “enshrined restaking,” which allows the token to be restaked across any number of chains on the network. Nailwal states, “POL can natively be used to stake any number of chains and participate in any number of roles. This lets stakers earn higher rewards with the same staked capital.”
Reducing Centralization
The POL token is designed to minimize reliance on trusted third parties, thereby reducing vectors of centralization. “Enshrined restaking fully avoids reliance on trusted 3rd parties, creating fewer vectors of centralization,” Nailwal explained.
A New Generation in Token Design
POL represents a third generation in token design, following Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH). While BTC does not allow holders to participate in securing the network, and ETH allows staking for network security, POL takes it a step further. According to Nailwal, “POL is designed from the ground up to be the first hyperproductive token — a third generation in token design.”
In a surprising turn of events, renowned on-chain analyst ZachXBT has exceeded his initial fundraising target, amassing a staggering $1,055,233 in donations, according to Nansen data. This remarkable achievement has been made possible through contributions from various entities and influential figures within the crypto industry.
Prominent supporters include Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, Coinbase Cloud’s protocol lead Viktor Bunin, CertiK, Justin Sun, Kraken co-founder Jesse Powell, and Polygon’s founder Sandeep Nailwal.
Changpeng Zhao, in a tweet, expressed Binance’s commitment by pledging $50,000 to the cause, while urging ZachXBT to persevere in his fight and emphasizing the importance of transparency in the industry.
Jesse Powell also expressed gratitude for ZachXBT’s work and pledged a donation of 10 ETH.
Brown Rudnick partner Palley, along with Jess Meyers and the team at Brown Rudnick, expressed their honor in representing ZachXBT’s mission to speak truth to power.
Sandeep Nailwal, founder of Polygon, praised individuals like ZachXBT for their contributions and pledged 5 ETH to support the legal battle.
The lawsuit filed by Huang accuses ZachXBT of damaging his reputation through false allegations made in an article published by ZachXBT approximately a year ago. Huang vehemently denies the allegations and is determined to prove their falsity through the legal proceedings. In a recent tweet, Huang stated that he initially expected an apology and expressed his intention to donate any monetary compensation received to charity.
Huang Licheng（Jeffrey Huang)，known as MachiBigBrother on Twitter, a former American-Taiwanese musician and technology entrepreneur, had been involved in a controversial incident in 2018 when he allegedly misappropriated 22,000 ETH from Formosa Financial. Furthermore, over the past four years following the collapse of Formosa Financial, Huang has been associated with a series of unsuccessful token launches and NFT projects.
In response to the lawsuit, ZachXBT expressed disappointment and asserted that the legal action taken against him is an attempt to stifle free speech. He remains resolute in his commitment to fight back and defend the principles of free expression.
To cover the legal expenses and protect the freedom of speech, ZachXBT has set up a donation wallet address for his followers and the wider community.This legal dispute has garnered significant attention within the industry, with key players showing their support for ZachXBT’s cause. The influx of donations and the rallying behind the principle of free speech highlight the crypto community’s dedication to transparency, accountability, and the pursuit of truth.
The Co-founder of Polygon Sandeep Nailwal has disproved one of the most harmful myths propagated by fervent blockchain skeptics and that is the fact that the Web3 revolution is not solely intended to address “new” problems.
Sandeep recently shared his opinions on how blockchain systems should handle many monetary, societal, as well as other issues on Twitter earlier this week.
He asserts that famous industry speakers shouldn’t disparage blockchain firms’ use propositions as being “imaginary” or unreal.
Sandeep further argues that a large proportion of blockchains, if not all of them, are concentrated on enhancing how current technical mechanisms meet “old” difficulties within and outside of the fintech industry.
Therefore, creating new application scenarios for blockchain-based technologies does not seem reasonable in the context of promoting blockchain integration on a global scale and addressing pressing cross-national issues.
Meanwhile, It was confirmed earlier this past week that Polygon (MATIC) is currently employed as a technical system for police reports in the Firozabad district (Uttar Pradesh, India)
The use of Polygon (MATIC) for receiving and handling police reports will increase the immutability and transparency of the legal system
Polygon (MATIC) zkEVM commences onboarding Dapp
According to US.Today, Polygon’s (MATIC) most recent project, zkEVM, garnered media attention back in August 2022. This platform opens doors for ZKP-based protocols that were not available in the past.
Recall that back in September, Polygon introduced the gnosis bridge for Web3 users to transfer assets to their Ethereum crypto wallet.
According to Polygon, the gnosis bridge is the best method for Web3 teams to move their safe assets between polygon and Ethereum.
Interestingly as per the integration, users can now use safe multi-sig technology without sacrificing ease of use, cost, or security.
Previously Matic Network used to be the name of Polygon. Ethereum’s Polygon Network, a scaling solution for Ethereum, is powered by the Polygon (MATIC) token. Polygon leverages Layer 2 sidechains—blockchains that operate in parallel with the Ethereum main chain—Polygon intends to offer quicker and less expensive transactions on the Ethereum network.
The number of nonfungible tokens (NFT’s) sold on the layer-two protocol Polygon reached an all-time high last month at just short of 2 million.
According to Dune Analytics, this marks a near 60% rise in comparison to November and the third consecutive monthly increase for the network.
An Ethereum-based scaling solution seeking to construct, distribute and manage securities on blockchain technology, Polygon’s ecosystem has grown exponentially over the past twelve months, registering in excess of 3,000 decentralized applications on its network, in addition to a total value locked figure of $3.86 billion.
Alongside this, the number of unique daily active proof-of-stake chain addresses on the network is also expecting a new all-time high, aiming to surpass the record of 566,516 printed on Oct. 2, 2021, with the most recent data from Jan. 5, 2022, calculating 554,163.
Related: Here’s how Polygon is challenging the limitations of Ethereum, as told by co-founder Sandeep Nailwal
In an interview with Cointelegraph last month, co-founder Sandeep Nailwal revealed that Polygon has found a niche in attracting a high proportion of gaming companies and platforms to build NFT’s on their network, as opposed to the collectibles and art often witnessed on Ethereum.
Polygon’s native token, MATIC, reached a peak price of $2.92 on Dec. 27, 2021, and has subsequently fallen to $2.11 at the time of writing in line with a wider market decline.
Polygon (MATIC), a layer-two network designed for scaling and application infrastructure development on Ethereum (ETH), has been making rounds among blockchain enthusiasts as of late. From its $1 billion investment into zero-knowledge technology to co-launching a $200 million Web 3.0 social media initiative and up to integrating with Opera’s web browser to make its decentralized apps accessible to 80 million Android mobile users, the network’s momentum is going strong.
But partnerships and business aside, the technological capacities of the network, especially when compared to Ethereum, are also attracting the attention of many blockchain developers. In an exclusive interview with Cointelegraph, Polygon co-founder Sandeep Nailwal talked about the extent of the network’s adoption.
Cointelegraph: What are the current gas prices and transaction speeds for Polygon? And how does that compare to Ethereum?
Sandeep Nailwal (SN): From the Polygon Scan Explorer, you can see that the average block time is around 2.3 seconds. As for Ethereum, that is 15 seconds. And then the gas fees, you can see 0.001 MATIC tokens; this is a point fraction of a penny.
CT: Have there been any notable nonfungible token (NFT) drops on the Polygon network recently?
SN: None of them have become like CryptoPunks or anything, but I think Polygon’s biggest kind of support is from the gaming companies […] They all added to NFT. If you go to market, talk to any random 10 different gaming teams, they will tell you six to seven are building on Polygon.
But the notable drops on NFT, the biggest, have been Dolce and Gabbana, the brand. They made a $7 million sale recently. There are other big luxury premium watch brands, and these guys are coming in. Apart from that […] Elon Musk minted an NFT. Jack Dorsey minted NFT of his first-ever tweet, and […] Mark Cuban — all those were on Polygon networks only.
#NFT sales have seen astronomical growth since 2020.
2020 total sales: $340 million
2021 total sales: $9 billion (so far)
Let’s see what happens in 2022, with NFTs in sports, gaming, and #metaverses now gaining traction. https://t.co/VDD8v2YwVo via @cointelegraph
— Waz (@DaveWaslen) November 30, 2021
CT: What are some popular decentralized apps built on the Polygon blockchain? And what does their total value locked (TVL) look like?
SN: Polygon is now used by all the decentralized finance applications in Ethereum. The only one remaining was Uniswap. And the community signaled a week back that they are also launching on Polygon now. So as for the popular dApps, I would say Uniswap, Aave, Decentraland, etc. I think the TVL across the bridges is around $5 billion or $6 billion.
CT: What is your objective for investing in zero-knowledge technology?
SN: We had committed $1 billion for zero-knowledge technology, which we believe is the holy grail of blockchain scaling. And privacy is the second element; that’s one thing where everybody gets confused. So you use ZK to verify computations back on Ethereum without sending back the entire data. Instead, you simply provide proof that everything was correctly computed on layer two and put a […] succinct proof back to Ethereum.
CT: In your opinion, would further Ethereum upgrades empower the network’s capacity to match that of layer-two solutions?
SN: Even if 2.0 comes in here, that will not provide enough scalability. Next year, the proof-of-stake [POS] upgrade will keep everything the same; like Ethereum has 13 transactions per second [TPS] right now, maybe it will go to 20 TPS [after POS], but not more than that. So that does not add anything to scalability. And let’s say in three to five years, even if the sharding comes, we’ll have a projection of 64 shards. And with each acting at 20 transactions per second, but that’s still 1,280 transactions per second overall, right? That’s still not enough for the entire world.
Related: Uniswap v3 contracts deployment on Polygon approved with 99.3% consensus
CT: What does Polygon’s adoption currently look like?
SN: There are 3,000 plus active development teams on it. This was posted by Alchemy some time back. It should actually be up to 5,000. The daily active users on Polygon have become 50% more than Ethereum, and with gaming NFTs, we are seeing so much happening on Polygon.
What’s going on at Polygon? There seems to be a disturbance in the force over there. Is the Ethereum Layer 2 project alright? Are they doing everything above board or is there something sinister going on? Are they even decentralized if they can hard-fork just like that? Or did they follow the proper procedures and their critics are just uninformed? Can we even answer all of those questions? Probably not. But we can present all the information available and let you all get to your own conclusions.
Let’s start with DeFi Builder Nathan Worsley’s accusation. Or is he just requesting information? Worsleyrecently tweeted, “Are we all supposed to just shut up and forget about the fact that over a week ago Polygon hard-forked their blockchain in the middle of the night with no warning to a completely closed-source genesis and still haven’t verified the code or explained what is going on?”
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Related Reading | Polygon: Ethereum’s Friend Is Looking To Make Big Strides
The “middle of the night” part is arguable since everyone is in different timezones and the Polygon blockchain is everywhere. However,he cleared up whythe issue is important, “Until the code is verified there are no security guarantees about the billions of dollars in assets the chain currently secures.” And tweeted proof of everything else, “Here’s the commit that was hard-forked into production.”
To add credibility to his claim, DeFiance Capital’s Zhu Su joined the chorus asking for answers. “Was this to patch a critical bug? Why and how did this happen?”
The criticism got a response from Polygon’s co-founder Mihailo Bjelic. “We’re making an effort to improve security practices across all Polygon projects,” Bjelic tweeted. “As a part of this effort, we are working with multiple security researcher groups, whitehat hackers etc. One of these partners discovered a vulnerability in one of the recently verified contracts. We immediately introduced a fix and coordinated the upgrade with validators/full node operators. No funds were lost. The network is stable.”
Ok, that sounds reasonable. Bjelic also promised, “A detailed blog post coming, we are finalizing additional security analyses.” A question lingers in the air, though. And crypto enthusiast J. Vicente Correa asks it in the most direct way possible, “U can fork the chain by yourself and take all my funds as u wish?”
And Polygon’s Mihailo Bjelic answers in the most political way possible. “Absolutely not. The network is run by validators and full node operators, and we have no control over any of these groups. We just did our best to communicate and explain the importance of this upgrade, but ultimately it was up to them to decide whether they will do it or not.”
MATIC price chart on Poloniex | Source: MATIC/USD on TradingView.com
A Node Operator Has Some Criticism Of His Own
In the same thread, Polygon node operator Mikko Ohtamaa blasted the way the company handled the whole thing and also showed receipts. “Next time it happens can you at least announce a critical update to all Polygon node operators. Now this looks super unprofessional and confusing for the community. It was not mentioned or pinned down in any major channels or publications.”
He got a response from Polygon’s other co-creator, Sandeep Nailwal. “This was a security update, and hence pre-public-announcement could’ve escalated things.”
Ok, that makes sense. However, Ohtamaa had more complaints. “Some bug fixes” for a critical patch is not good. If there is a critical fix you co-ordinate with validators.” Plus, he reinforced Nathan Worsley’s original complaint. “It’s really obvious it is a critical security bug if you do unannounced no notice hard fork in the middle of a weekend.”
According to Ohtamaa, “there are multiple open source projects out there” that have done similar operations in a more effective manner. Someone asked what could Polygon have done better. Heanswered with a seriesof simple steps.
Prepare the patch privately.
A few days before, announce a critical security fix is coming. All node operators need to be prepared.
Distribute the patch at the preset time.
Not downplay the criticality of the patch and make idiot-looking release notes.
Related Reading | How Polygon Sealed A $400M Deal To Get Ahead In The Ethereum ZK Rollup Race
So, is there something rotten at Polygon? We will have to wait for the “detailed blog post” Bjelic promised to know for sure.
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