Today we’re going to answer the most common questions we see online about Polygon.
Let’s start with what’s Polygon MATIC?
If you used Ethereum while it was a Proof of Work chain, then you probably experienced slow transactions and insanely high fees.
There’s only so much block space and that limits the number of transactions that can fit inside a single block on-chain.
As more people use Ethereum, it gets slower and more expensive.
Polygon was built to offload traffic from the Ethereum main chain and ease congestion. It’s a scaling solution, built on top of Ethereum and is referred to as a layer 2 protocol. Ethereum being layer 1.
Polygon leverages the security of Ethereum, but is its own super fast blockchain.
Ethereum merged into Proof of Stake on September 15th, 2022 and has become faster and less expensive, but still needs to scale exponentially to accommodate its users. It will accomplish this through sharding and side-chains, like Polygon.
To learn more about Ethereum sharding, check out Bankless.
How Polygon MATIC works
As previously mentioned, Polygon is its own super fast blockchain. It has its own token (MATIC), client nodes, validator nodes and dApps. All Ethereum dApps can deploy on Polygon and are interoperable.
Polygon uses Plasma, which is a way to securely transfer data from the Ethereum main chain. It also uses ZK rollups, which execute transactions outside of Ethereum, but periodically commit off-chain transaction batches to an on-chain rollup contract.
That means lots of transactions can be included in one batch that’s submitted to the chain. It provides scalability, security and a better user experience.
Who created Polygon
The 3 founders of the MATIC network that became Polygon are:
1) Jaynti Kanani, who is the current CEO
2) Sandeep Nailwal, who is the COO
3) Anurag Arjun, who is the chief product officer
The team is based in India, but the project has expanded globally and has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in VC and institutional investment.
Mark Cuban and Balaji Srinivasa are the most notable investors.
Why use Polygon over Ethereum
Simple, to save money on fees and have your transaction go through faster.
Is MATIC a good investment?
This is a tricky question and one we answered in detail in this article. Nothing we say can be considered financial advice. Always do your own research DYOR and only invest money you can afford to lose.
At Blocks United, we run a MATIC validator node. You can get paid block rewards. It’s an excellent way to earn passive income for the long-term investor. This is how you get FREE MATIC tokens, but there is risk.
Check out our MATIC staking tutorial for more info.
Want to stake now? Connect directly to our Polygon validator node using Metamask, Coinbase wallet or Trust wallet.
Polygon MATIC bridge
When you’re ready to start using Polygon instead of Ethereum, you must bridge your tokens over. The ERC20 tokens that are available on Ethereum mainnet are also available on Polygon.
Connect your wallet to the Polygon dashboard to bridge your assets. You’ll need MATIC as the native gas token to move your assets once on Polygon, so ALWAYS BRIDGE YOUR MATIC TOKENS OVER FIRST. Then you won’t be stuck.
Some tokens use the Plasma bridge, which can take up to 7 days. That’s a security feature. Other tokens use the Proof of Stake bridge, which is much faster.
Bear in mind that you will need ETH in your wallet to bridge your assets over from Ethereum.
Polygon MATIC faucet
If you forget to bridge your ERC20 MATIC tokens over to Polygon first and they get stuck in your wallet on Polygon, use a faucet!
What is a cryptocurrency faucet?
It’s a website that gives away small amounts of crypto for free. They only distribute fractions of a single token, so that you can start using the network without buying the token needed for gas.
For a list of faucets check out our post, How To Get Free MATIC.
Polygon MATIC ecosystem
The Polygon ecosystem is enormous and quickly growing. As of November 2022 there are over 37,000 dApps. Explore the ecosystem here.
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