Polygon

Polygon is one of the most popular Ethereum scaling solutions. If you haven’t read about rollups and why Ethereum needs scaling, start there.

What is Polygon?

Polygon (originally called Matic) is a suite of scaling solutions that run alongside Ethereum. The simple pitch: transactions that cost $5-20 on Ethereum cost fractions of a cent on Polygon, and they’re way faster.

Think of it like express lanes on a highway. The main highway (Ethereum) is congested and slow. Polygon builds express lanes next to it — you can zoom through at high speed, and periodically the express lanes merge results back into the main highway.

flowchart LR
    subgraph ethereum["Ethereum (Layer 1) 🐢"]
        E1["15-30 tx/sec<br/>$5-20 per tx"]
    end
    subgraph polygon["Polygon (Layer 2) 🚀"]
        P1["Thousands of tx/sec<br/>< $0.01 per tx"]
    end
    polygon -->|"Posts summaries back to"| ethereum

A Brief History

2017 — Founded as Matic Network by Indian developers (Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun)
Started as a sidechain — ran its own Proof of Stake consensus alongside Ethereum
2021 — Rebranded to Polygon, expanded vision from one chain to a whole ecosystem of scaling solutions
Now — Offers multiple solutions including a sidechain (Polygon PoS) and a ZK rollup (Polygon zkEVM)

How It Works

Polygon PoS (the original chain)

The original Polygon chain is technically a commit chain — it processes transactions on its own, then periodically bundles them up and commits checkpoints to Ethereum.

sequenceDiagram
    participant User
    participant Polygon as Polygon PoS
    participant ETH as Ethereum

    User->>Polygon: Send transaction (< $0.01 fee)
    Polygon->>Polygon: Process transaction fast ⚡
    Note over Polygon: Batches many transactions
    Polygon->>ETH: Commit checkpoint<br/>(periodic summary)

It has its own set of validators running proof-of-stake consensus. This makes it faster and cheaper than Ethereum, but it’s not a true rollup — its security doesn’t fully inherit from Ethereum. If Polygon’s validators collude, funds could theoretically be at risk (though this hasn’t happened).

Polygon zkEVM (the newer rollup)

This is Polygon’s ZK rollup — a true Layer 2 that inherits Ethereum’s security. It generates zero-knowledge proofs for every batch of transactions, so Ethereum can verify them mathematically. See rollups for how ZK rollups work.

The MATIC/POL Token

Polygon has its own token (originally MATIC, migrating to POL). It’s used for:

Gas fees — paying for transactions on Polygon (very cheap)
Staking — validators stake tokens to secure the network
Governance — token holders can vote on protocol changes

Why It Got Popular

A few reasons Polygon blew up:

EVM compatible — If your app runs on Ethereum, it runs on Polygon with minimal changes. Developers don’t need to learn a new language or framework
Incredibly cheap — Gas fees of < $0.01 mean you can actually use blockchain for small transactions
Fast — ~2 second block times vs Ethereum’s ~12 seconds
Big ecosystem — Uniswap, Aave, Curve, and hundreds of other DeFi apps deployed on Polygon
Indian founders — Personally cool to see an Indian-founded project become a top-10 blockchain

Polygon vs Other L2s

	Polygon PoS	Arbitrum	Optimism	zkSync
Type	Sidechain/commit chain	Optimistic rollup	Optimistic rollup	ZK rollup
Security from	Own validators	Ethereum	Ethereum	Ethereum
Speed	~2 sec blocks	~0.25 sec	~2 sec	~1 sec
Fees	Very low	Low	Low	Low
Maturity	Most established	Very popular	Very popular	Newer

My Take

Polygon is a great entry point into L2s because it’s cheap, fast, and has a huge ecosystem. The tradeoff is that Polygon PoS doesn’t have the same security guarantees as a true rollup (like Arbitrum or zkSync). Their zkEVM addresses this, but it’s newer.

If you’re just starting out and want to try DeFi without paying $20 per transaction on Ethereum, Polygon PoS is probably the easiest place to start.

Whizzy 💭

Explorer