What is polygan? Investigation of Polygon network and MATIC token (MATIC) – digital currency

Ethereum's scalability problem is one of the challenges facing this blockchain network for a long time. Ethereum is very popular, the number of projects running on it and the number of transactions are very high. The set of these factors slows down the transaction speed in Ethereum and increases the cost of its transactions. Polygon It comes as a second layer solution to solve this problem.

In this article we are going to check that What is polygan? And how does it work? We will also take a look at its specialized currency, MATIC, talk about wallets and how to buy them, and explain some technical details about how this protocol works. Stay with us.

What is Polygon?

Polygan (Polygon Or MATIC ex) is a blockchain network known as Second layer solution (L2) To fix the problem Scalability (Scalability) Ethereum is built and compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). Polygon lowers transaction costs and enables faster execution of smart contracts and decentralized applications (DApps). The word Polygon itself means polygon in English.

If we want to describe Polygon or Metic in one sentence, we should consider it a protocol for building an interconnected network of blockchains, which works as a second layer solution on the Ethereum blockchain, and its purpose is to solve the Ethereum scalability problem.

So far, various networks and protocols have been created to solve this problem. Some of them, such as Cardano and Polkadata, are independent blockchains that, by supporting smart contracts and decentralized applications, are trying to become Ethereum's competitors, and others, such as Polygon, are second-layer solutions that use Ethereum itself to solve this problem. .

You may have come across terms like “first layer solution” and “second layer solution” before. Before continuing the discussions related to Paligan and examining its components in more detail, it is not bad to first take a look at the nature of these solutions and examine their differences.

First layer solutions

Layer 1 solutions are enhancements applied to the blockchain protocol. For example, Ethereum's transition from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake is a first layer solution. Considering that staking improves transaction speed and increases energy efficiency, Ethereum 2 can achieve greater scalability.

Another common first layer solution is sharding. Sharding is a scaling method that divides blockchain blocks into two components: state and transaction history. Each of these components is called a shard and both shards are processed in parallel.

You can think of sharding as dividing a problem into smaller pieces. This is done to reduce the workload applied to each computer in the ecosystem and, as a result, increase the speed of the network. If you want to take a closer look at sharding, we suggest the article “What is sharding?” read the

Second layer solutions

The second layer solutions are built on the same protocol instead of changing the underlying blockchain protocol. Second layer solutions do not make any changes to the blockchain protocol. These solutions increase the processing speed per second without sacrificing the security and integrity of the underlying blockchain protocol, while maintaining the decentralized nature and security of the blockchain.

One of the well-known examples of second-layer solutions in the world of digital currencies is the Bitcoin Lightning Network. Pseudo-Lightning allows users to perform transactions outside the main chain and only return to the main blockchain during final settlement.

Polygon is one of the examples of these second layer solutions that work on Ethereum. Polygon is a framework for building blockchain networks and scalable solutions compatible with Ethereum. The Polygon Network is actually a proof-of-stake sidechain that runs parallel to the Ethereum blockchain and is a fast and low-cost platform for decentralized Ethereum applications.

Given that Polygon supports the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), decentralized applications on Ethereum can be easily migrated to it. This allows users to use the same features as Ethereum, with the difference that they experience higher speed and lower fees. In 2021, along with the growing demand of customers to increase the productivity of services, the popularity of Polygan also increased.

Applications of Poligan (Metic)

Considering the fact that Ethereum is one of the most widely used blockchains and despite the advantages that Polygon brings to it, it can be assumed that this network has many applications. In this episode, we are going to take a look at some of them The most important uses of Polygon to have

• the payment
• Decentralized exchanges
• Blockchain games
• Other miscellaneous uses

the payment

The purpose of Metic platform design is to help decentralized software to increase the speed of their payments. By integrating a specialized Application Programming Interface (API) with its Software Development Kit (SDK), Polygon enables near-instant settlement. This decentralized software process enables sellers and users to instantly accept or make payments via any digital currency (most commonly ERC-20 tokens or Ether). This system is launched in three separate phases:

• Ethereum payments and ERC-20 based tokens
• Cross-chain payments and transfers with several different digital currencies, using Atomic Swap and the cooperation of liquidity providers.
• Payment system based on fiat currencies with the help of fiat currency liquidity providers

Decentralized exchanges

One of the important uses of Polygon is to increase the settlement speed for decentralized exchanges so that users can benefit from the possibility of faster and cheaper transactions on these platforms. QuickSwap, Dfyn and ComethSwap are examples of Polygon decentralized exchanges that have managed to attract a wide range of users over the past few months. Protocols such as Curve and mStable have also provided the possibility of low-cost and low-slippage exchange of stable coins.

Blockchain games

Metic also provides speed and performance enhancements for blockchain-based games. Blockchain games lag behind computer and console games due to low transaction speed and high network latency; But with the cooperation of Polygon's Commit Chain technology and the Ethereum network, developers and gamers can develop and use games more efficiently.

Polygon has come to the aid of the blockchain game industry at the best possible time; Because non-material tokens (NFT) and the markets of these tokens have increased the popularity of the blockchain and the digital currency industry. In the meantime, many gamers have turned to buying, selling and trading all kinds of in-game tokens.

Decentralized games and software of different tokens such as Aavegotchi, Neon District, Zed Run and Cometh have been able to achieve a more scalable user experience with Polygon.

Other uses

Polygon has many other uses that cannot be explained in this article; But as an example, we can refer to the plasma scaling solution. Plasma performs cross-chain atomic swapping for tokenized and non-tokenized assets.

Most decentralized software needs a way to sign transactions without sending the private key due to concerns about user privacy. Because of the improvements it has made for scalability, Polygon has the ability to create a framework for open authentication, thereby facilitating the use of decentralized software.

History of Poligan (Metik)

Poligan network was born in October 2017. Of course, at that time, it was called MATIC. The Metic project was created by three Indian founders, Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal and Anurag Arjun, and their goal from the very beginning was to solve Ethereum's scalability problem.

Of course, the initial idea of ​​Paligan belonged to Jayanti Kanani, the current CEO of Paligan, who noticed the high traffic and low scalability of the Ethereum network while working on the Crypto Kitties game. At this time, Ethereum had more than 12,000 pending transactions and its network was not really able to meet this volume of user needs.

To implement his idea, he enlisted the help of Sandeep Nilwal, who was a blockchain developer, and Anurag Arjun, who he already knew. The three started their collaboration in the city of Mumbai and the result of this collaboration was a network whose token is now (at the time of writing) among the top 30 digital currencies on the market.

By using side chains, Plasma bridge in Ethereum and decentralized validators, Metic was able to solve the scalability problem of Ethereum to a great extent. Of course, at that time, plasma technology was highly popular and was used in other projects; But Metic managed to achieve more impressive success in this competition and become one of the most popular scaling solutions of its time.

Metic launched its mainnet in mid-2020, and it was met with widespread acceptance as Ethereum transaction fees were very high at the time. This wide acceptance made the Metic team realize that in order to respond to the needs of users, it should expand its work scale. Finally, on February 9, 2021, Metic changed its name to Paligan, and the overall perspective of this project changed along with its name change.

Currently, although Polygan itself operates on the Ethereum blockchain, it plans to become a bridge between blockchains and different networks; That is, exactly what we need for the global adoption of blockchain and the revolution of this technology. Polygon is no longer just a simple scaling solution, but a protocol that enables the development of different scaling solutions and connecting them to each other.

How does polygan work?

So far in the article, we talked about the general goals of Polygan and the reasons for its popularity among digital currency users. Now you understand that the main purpose of Metic is to solve the problem of scalability of blockchains and create interaction between them.

In this part of the article, we are going to enter more carefully into the technical details of Polygan and examine it from different aspects. By reading this section, you will understand what innovations this network uses to achieve its desired scalability and where its features such as security and interactivity come from.

The most important features of Polygan are:

• Compatible with Ethereum
• Scalability
• security
• Esteghlal
• Modular capability
• User experience

Compatible with Ethereum

One of the interesting features of Polygan is its multi-layered architecture. Polygon consists of four layers called “Ethereum”, “Security”, “Polygon Networks” and “Execution”. Polygon's Ethereum layer allows it to access the benefits of Ethereum, including security and programmability. This layer is actually a set of smart contracts that enable operations such as finalizing transactions, staking, and resolving disputes.

The Polygon protocol enables the communication of different chains in its ecosystem. Using this protocol, messages can be transferred between any two Polygon chains or between Polygon and Ethereum chains. This protocol also makes it possible to run all Ethereum-compatible blockchains with just one click. Thanks to Polygon's modular design (which we'll talk about in the next section), users can choose the module that best suits their needs.

Scalability

Undoubtedly, Polygon can be considered one of the very good projects that have started their work with the aim of increasing the scalability of Ethereum. Polygon uses its own chains and scalable consensus algorithms, which is beneficial to both users and projects.

Despite Ethereum's plan to launch Ethereum 2 and use the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm, this blockchain currently relies on proof-of-work, which reduces scalability in this blockchain. As we mentioned in the previous sections, Ethereum transaction fees are high and sometimes you have to pay more than 10 dollars in fees for a transaction; While the approximate transaction fee in Polygon is $0.0009. The same fee difference exists in exchanges of non-similar tokens, ERC-20 tokens and other interactions.

Polygon's solution to this problem is to use the Proof of Stake consensus algorithm. In Polygan's Stake Proof Algorithm, validators must stake their Metic tokens in contracts called “Staking Management Contracts” and become Polygan's full nodes. These contracts are written on the Ethereum mainnet. The task of validating transactions and creating blocks, like all other blockchains, is the responsibility of these validators.

security

The Paligan team's claim is that increasing scalability in this network is not at the cost of sacrificing security, and they have used their own solutions to ensure the security of assets and transactions.

The side chains that Poligan provides to its users include two general categories: “Stand-alone Chains” and “Secured Chains”. Independent chains are chains that have their own consensus mechanism and are not dependent on Ethereum for their security. The truth is that setting up an independent chain and securing it is not an easy task, and for that reason, this option is not suitable for a wide range of general purpose users. A better option for these users is probably secure chains.

Secure chains use a unique Polygon model called “Security-as-a-Service”, which is either directly provided by Ethereum or provided by a group of trusted validators.

A major part of Paligan's security operations is implemented in its security layer. Polygon's security layer is responsible for managing the pool of validators. This layer can work as a meta-blockchain (extra-blockchain) in parallel with Ethereum, or it can be implemented directly on Ethereum and Ethereum miners act as its validators.

Validators periodically check the authenticity of transactions in Polygon chains and receive rewards in return. Other activities, including the distribution of rewards, also take place in the same Polygan chain.

Esteghlal

One of the interesting features of Polygon, which has recently been further enhanced, is its independence from Ethereum. In October of this year, a report was published by blockchain development platform Alchemy, which showed that the number of active applications on Polygon is increasing rapidly and its ecosystem is becoming independent from Ethereum.

According to the report, more than 3,000 applications are now running on Polygon, and the development speed of the network is twice that of Ethereum at the same time. In addition, the number of applications developed exclusively on Polygon exceeds the number of applications that jointly operate on Ethereum and Polygon. While many people see Polygon as more of a complement to Ethereum than a competitor, new data shows the network's increasing independence.

Modular capability

Polygon offers a wide range of modules that developers can use to develop their own personalized blockchains. Consensus, governance, different execution environments and different virtual machine embedding methods can be mentioned as some of Polygon's modules.

In general, Polygon's modular capability means the possibility of developing personalized and independent blockchains with diverse and diverse applications.

User experience

The set of features of Polygan, some of which we have mentioned so far, brings a more comfortable and pleasant user experience for users. Almost zero fees, higher speed, instant finalization of transactions and features like this, all are provided to improve the quality of user experience and ease of work for users.

In addition to good user experience, Polygan has also provided a suitable environment for developers and minimized the complications related to development in this network. Developing projects on Paligan does not require technical knowledge at the level of the protocol or token staking, nor does it require obtaining a license for this.

What is MATIC token?

MATIC is the native currency of Poligan network, which plays two main roles in this network:

• Wage: The main use of Metic Token is to pay transaction fees on the Polygon network. This token is designed as a utility token that acts as a payment and settlement unit among participants in the Polygan ecosystem..
• Staking: Metic sidechains enforce consensus using a proof-of-stake layer, and network participants stake their Metic tokens into this layer to act as validators and earn rewards. Computational resources are needed to perform various operations in the Polygon network, such as validating blocks and publishing proofs. The Metic Token is paid as a reward to the providers of these resources for ensuring security and maintaining the integrity of the network.

At the time of writing this article, the price of Polygon is $1.80. The peak price of Metic was 2.46 dollars on May 17, 2021 (May 27, 1400).

Poligan wallets (Metik)

Like all other digital currencies, you need a digital currency wallet to store Metic tokens. Since the Polygon network is fully compatible with Ethereum, all Ethereum wallets can be used to hold Metic Tokens. This includes software wallets and hardware wallets.

So it's clear that the number of wallets you can use to hold Metic is huge. In the meantime, some of the best Paligan wallets (Metik) from the perspective of the Erzdigital website are:

• Trust Wallet
• MyEtherWallet
• Metamask
• Atomic Wallet
• Ledger
• Trezor

In the table below, you can see the same wallets as well as the link to download or access them.

Don't forget that in the world of digital currencies, there are no middlemen and you are responsible for ensuring the security of your digital assets. So keep your private key in a safe place, don't share it with anyone and don't forget to make a backup copy of your wallet.

You know that the private key in digital currency wallets is the recovery phrase (Recovery Phrase) of 12 to 24 words that is provided to you in a specific order at the beginning of the wallet setup.

These words are the password for your access to your digital assets, and if you have them, you can access your assets from any software and device; But if you forget them, it is possible to lose access to all these assets.

Buy Poligan (Metik)

To buy Metik, the best way is to visit the website of an Iranian digital currency exchange.

It is enough to search for the terms “Paligan purchase” or “Metic purchase” in Google. By doing this, you will come across a list of Iranian exchanges where you can easily purchase your desired digital currency using your bank card after registering and authenticating your identity.

We also suggest you to use the Paligan shopping page of the Erzdigital website. Authentication on this page is instant and by entering information such as national code and phone number, you will be directed directly to the payment page.

Frequently asked questions

Conclusion

In this article, we tried to have a comprehensive overview of Poligan network and describe its goals and applications. In addition, we took a look at its native token, Metic, and reviewed its price, wallets, and how to buy it.

By reading this article, you must have realized that the ultimate goal of Polygon and the reason for its popularity is to solve the scalability problem that has always existed in popular blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum. Of course, Polygan has gone one step beyond its competitors and in addition to providing a scalability solution, it has become a protocol that others can use to develop their own scalability solutions.

Currently, scalability has become one of the fundamental challenges of blockchains. In fact, the driving engine of Ethereum 2 development and its replacement with the current Ethereum network was to solve this challenge. To what extent Ethereum 2 will be successful in achieving this goal, and what effect its launch will have on networks like Polygon, is an issue that will be determined over time.