Ethereum set out to change the world with its Blockchain technology. But, its popularity exposed a set of problems in its technology (here’s the first part in case you missed it). And, that’s where Polygon jumped in!
Polygon, previously known as Matic, allows faster and safer transactions on the Ethereum Blockchain network. How?
Imagine being swamped with work. Your to-do list keeps getting bigger and bigger. Oh no! You have to now work round the clock and say goodbye to every little break that you planned. Doesn’t it add stress and slow you down? In moments like this, you wish you had some friends who could assist you and things could run just as smoothly as ever.
The main Ethereum chain is no different. As the transaction load increases, it gets difficult to manage the speed and cost of transactions.
Polygon is a group of such star friends (sidechains) who share Ethereum’s burden - the labour is distributed among all and the job is done in no time!
The main Ethereum chain is the leader, and it can delegate transactions to other layers (sidechains). Now, with more people in the team, more work can be done in a given time period. But, how does the leader interact with its sidekicks?
Enter: checkpoint nodes.
They act as managers - they collect all the work done by members and send it back to the leader. Technically, these nodes are bundled pieces of information, and act as communicators between the main chain and the sidechains. Since the main chain can delegate, it becomes free of congestion and the overall speed of the network increases.
A single Matic sidechain can theoretically process 2^16 transactions per block and possibly millions of transactions on multiple chains in the future.
Speed: Check ✔
Scalability: Check ✔
Now, a Blockchain is decentralised. There is no central authority to process transactions, or even supervise all that is happening on the network. Anyone and everyone can contribute to this network. With hundreds of thousands of participants continuously processing transactions every second, how does one assure that all these transactions are authentic and verified? You need some kind of rule, right? After all…
Here steps in a “consensus mechanism”, which is a set of rules to verify transactions taking place on the Blockchain network.
The Plasma sidechains have their own consensus mechanism of “Proof-of-Stake”. Here, the users are required to “stake” an amount of their tokens to have a chance of being selected to validate blocks of transactions and get rewarded for doing so. The miners who have purchased the highest stake in the system generally have a higher chance of getting selected. But, to keep this mechanism from being dominated by a few wealthy stakers, the selection process of nodes uses a combination of randomisation and stake value.
Now, if the users have to stake their own tokens to validate transactions, do you think they will be willing to tamper with the Blockchain?
There. Security: Check ✔
Now, this is where the Matic token (MATIC) comes into the picture. Similar to Ether, MATIC is Polygon’s native token and is used for transaction fees across the network. Software developers and ecosystem contributors can also build dApps on Polygon by paying MATIC tokens to use the platform and its development framework.
Higher transactions per second + high speed = low transaction fee
Cost: Check ✔
Now, higher transactions per second + high speed + low transaction fee = awesome user experience.
UX: Check ✔
There’s more! For developers, Polygon offers customisable integrations to their DApps, allowing developers a hassle-free building experience and a smooth user experience for their end-users.
Polygon looks quite like the best of all worlds of the Blockchain network, isn’t it? Its growth also paints a similar picture.
It has registered 250+ apps, more than 60 million transactions and 7,00,000 unique users.
But, hey. There’s a kahaani me twist.
The whole Polygon framework is built on Ethereum right now (it plans to scale up to other Blackchains too), and it aims to solve shortcomings of Ethereum. But, it looks like Ethereum does not need Polygon anymore.
It is self-sufficient, and can solve its own problems. How? Well, picture abhi bhi baaki hai mere dost!
Stay tuned for the next part.
Until then, read on.
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If you want to dive deep into the architecture of Polygon, here you go -
And, for the techies out there, check out this whitepaper! - https://github.com/maticnetwork/whitepaper
Hi, ReadOn team. The 2nd part was also fun to read. Thank you.
Would it be possible for you to share some insights into the on-ground / real-life use cases of the Ethereum platform? Also, if you can throw some light on what the DApps on Polygon are being currently used for.
If it is too much of an ask, please don't pay heed.