Polygon has emerged as an excellent alternative to the Ethereum network, having established itself as an industry giant that has stood the test of time. However, its not without some centralization concerns.
This "sidechain" is tackling the key challenges faced by Ethereum, including high fees, bad(sometimes) user experience, and low capacity.
Polygon platform aims to create an "Internet of blockchains for Ethereum", which is essentially a multi-chain blockchain ecosystem that is compatible with Ethereum. To achieve this, they have developed a user-friendly framework that enables developers to easily launch their own Ethereum-compatible blockchains with just a single click.
Originally known as Matic Network, the project was later renamed Polygon to reflect its expanding ambitions. While Matic served as a basic Layer2 scaling solution for Ethereum, Polygon has since evolved into an infrastructure that supports a network of highly scalable and interconnected blockchains while preserving their autonomy.
Pros:
- EVM-compatibility leverages Ethereum's resources and community.
- Polygon can process up to 65,000 transactions per second, far exceeding VISA's capacity of 24,000 transactions per second.
- Transaction fees on Polygon remain consistently low, with a typical fee of approximately $0.01 regardless of the transaction amount.
Cons(including potential):
- Polygon is still too centralized with a low number of validators.
- Concerns with admin keys (5 out of 8 multi-sig contract, and 4 of the keys are controlled by the four co-founders).
- Potential obsolescence as Ethereum develops its own L2 solutions like Arbitrum, Optimism, ZK, etc.
In the current state of the Web3 industry, Polygon is one of the leading players and it should stay somewhat of a standard for the whole crypto space if they want to remain competitive and attractive. However, the old adage of "too big to fail" does not necessarily apply in the constantly evolving world of Web3. Show Less
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