Polygon zkEVM Layer 2 deployed on Ethereum

During ETHCC 6, the Tremplin.io teams were able to conduct a series of interviews with key players in the ecosystem, today find our discussion about Polygon and its future with Jordi Baylina, co-founder of Polygon in charge of zkEVM.

Do you consider Polygon to be the pillar of Ethereum?

I think it’s fair to say that Polygon has become one of the pillars of Ethereum, especially considering the massive ecosystem built around it. Over the years, we have created a solid stack of technology solutions that bring numerous improvements to the quality of life of the Ethereum ecosystem, making it significantly more accessible.

For example, the Polygon Proof-of-Stake (PoS) chain has allowed projects to massively increase their scale by processing more transactions, which are considerably cheaper than native transfers on Ethereum. Last month, Polygon Labs released a proposal to upgrade Polygon PoS to a zkEVM Validium, a first-of-its-kind decentralized L2, secured by zero-knowledge (ZK) proofs. This upgrade will enable it to leverage ZK’s cutting-edge technology, which perfectly aligns with Polygon’s Vision 2.0 of unlimited scalability and unified liquidity.

Thanks to these benefits and its close ties to Ethereum, the Polygon ecosystem is used by some of the biggest brands and studios in Web2 and Web3, including Aave, Uniswap, OpenSea, Robinhood, Adobe, Draftkings, Starbucks , Stripe, Reddit, Adidas, and many more.

Additionally, the Polygon Supernets system enables Web3 teams to build high-performance, customizable application chains with flexible implementation options quickly and transparently. This allows developers to focus on their business model and usage strategies above all else.

Additionally, Polygon zkEVM, the first zero-knowledge (zk) scaling solution that is fully equivalent to an EVM, is currently under active development. Often considered the “Holy Grail of Ethereum scaling,” zkEVM is expected to revolutionize the blockchain ecosystem by making it even faster, more efficient, and more user-friendly. All these benefits will merge in the Polygon 2.0 update, which will unify liquidity across the ecosystem and transform L2 into the value layer of the Internet.

Jordi Baylina, co-founder of Polygon, at ETHCC 6
Jordi Baylina during ETHCC 6

Could you tell us a little more about the main reasons for the move from the MATIC token to POL?

POL is the next generation protocol token designed to become the major tool for coordination and growth of the ecosystem, strengthening Polygon’s role as a value layer for the Internet.

It is a “hyperproductive” token that allows its holders to act as validators and receive rewards, with two major game-changing features. First, POL will allow validators to support as many chains as they want and collect transaction fees from all of these chains. Second, each chain can offer its validators multiple roles and corresponding rewards.

Other major benefits of introducing POL will be enhanced security, infinite scalability, ecosystem support, frictionless operations, and community ownership. In order to attract more validators, some Polygon chains may choose to introduce additional rewards.

Overall, POL is designed to drive growth in the Polygon 2.0 ecosystem while providing virtually unlimited opportunities for POL holders.

What is your vision for Polygon in the near future?

Our vision is for Polygon to become the value layer of the Internet, enabling everyone to create, exchange and program value – just as the Internet allows people to create and exchange information.

This value layer will democratize access to the global economy while enabling decentralized finance, digital ownership, new coordination mechanisms and much more. It will also make gatekeepers and financial intermediaries, serving regular users above all, obsolete.

Polygon 2.0 is designed to achieve this goal by radically reimagining almost every aspect of Polygon, from protocol architecture to governance to tokenomics.

Jordi Baylina and the Zk of Polygon
Jordi Baylina in front of a poster on Zero Knowledge

How do things work within the protocol? AIP modification, developers, community?

We are primarily focused on improving zkEVM, our first decentralized layer 2 secured by zero-knowledge proofs, and developing the entire Polygon 2.0 infrastructure. At the end of June, for example, the Polygon Labs engineering team published a new proposal to upgrade the Polygon PoS chain to a validium zkEVM.

Validium will allow us to further reduce transaction fees. This upgrade will also result in significantly greater scalability than rollups, where throughput is limited by the amount of transaction data that can be posted to Ethereum.

This is a big development for the entire Polygon ecosystem, allowing us to make Polygon PoS more secure and better and bring it closer to Polygon 2.0. Likewise, we will continue to apply ZK technology to Polygon’s products and services in the future to further evolve them.

What is Polygon missing to become the perfect layer 2?

Between the Polygon PoS chain, zkEVM chain, Supernets, and other chains in the Polygon ecosystem, overall liquidity has become fragmented. This is one of the most pressing obstacles we want to overcome with Polygon 2.0.

By becoming the value layer of the Internet, Polygon will provide unlimited scalability and unified liquidity through ZK technology and eliminate this fragmentation. Among other things, we will be able to increase capacity to meet demand – all without losing access to liquidity or negatively impacting the user or developer experience.

In return, this will allow each chain to contribute to the network effects of Polygon as a whole, leveraging shared liquidity to allow users and developers to move seamlessly between chains. In turn, Supernets will also bring economic value in the form of new user experiences and assets to Polygon’s ecosystem, further strengthening Polygon’s network effects.

To find our full article on ETHCC 6, click here.

Polygon therefore continues to grow on different axes and clearly asserts itself as one of the pillars of the Ethereum and Web3 ecosystem. Find the latest innovation in this ecosystem with the launch of Portal.

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