Polygon (MATIC) Network: The Ethereum Scaling Solution

Summary

Polygon (POL) is an Ethereum scaling solution designed to make blockchain transactions faster, cheaper, and more efficient. By processing transactions on a Proof of Stake network that works alongside Ethereum, Polygon helps reduce congestion and high gas fees while maintaining compatibility with Ethereum's ecosystem. It supports decentralized applications (dApps), DeFi protocols, NFTs, and blockchain gaming, making it one of the most widely adopted scaling networks in the cryptocurrency industry. In September 2024, Polygon upgraded its native token from MATIC to POL as part of its Polygon 2.0 roadmap, and POL now powers gas, staking, and security across the network. Investors can gain exposure to Polygon through platforms like iTrustCapital, where POL can be bought, sold, and held within a Premium Custody Account for everyday investing or a Crypto IRA for long-term retirement savings.

Introduction

Polygon, previously known as Matic Network, is a full-fledged multi-chain ecosystem. Without sacrificing security, it combines Ethereum and other sovereign blockchains to solve the usual blockchain bottlenecks, like high gas fees and slow speed.

Key Facts:

Attribute	Details
Token Ticker	POL (formerly MATIC)
Total Supply	10 billion tokens (POL is now inflationary, ~2%/yr)
Founding Year	2017
Co-Founders	Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun, Mihailo Bjelic
Consensus Mechanism	Proof of Stake (PoS)
Transaction Capacity	Up to 65,000+ TPS per sidechain

The Problem with Ethereum

Until recently, Ethereum has been the preferred platform for blockchain developers. However, the platform's shortcomings are multifaceted and deeply entrenched in how the network is built. It has the limitations of low throughput, high gas fees, and slower transaction finality. While Ethereum has made significant progress with its transition to Proof of Stake, there remains demand for Layer 2 scaling solutions.

As a result of these issues, projects began exploring solutions to eliminate these drawbacks while still leveraging Ethereum's ecosystem. From this backdrop, Polygon offered a solution to the problems - a protocol that enables building and connecting Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. The protocol is so helpful that new, preset blockchain networks can be deployed with a single click.

Polygon vs. Ethereum: Key Differences

Metric	Polygon	Ethereum Mainnet
Transaction Speed	~2 seconds	~12-15 seconds
Average Gas Fees	Fractions of a cent	Variable (can be $1-$50+)
TPS Capacity	65,000+ per sidechain	~15-30 TPS
Consensus Mechanism	Proof of Stake	Proof of Stake

How Does Polygon (POL) Work?

Polygon works by using a four-layer architecture to process transactions off-chain before settling them on Ethereum, enabling faster and cheaper transactions while inheriting Ethereum's security.

Polygon combines the best of the Ethereum blockchain and the best of other blockchains into a developer-friendly environment. It works by offering a growing set of modules that allow developing custom networks and interoperability protocols for exchanging messages between Ethereum and other blockchain networks. Polygon draws the best features of standalone blockchains, like sovereignty, scalability, and flexibility, and the best features of Ethereum, like security, interoperability, and developer experience.

To achieve this, Polygon leverages a four-layer network:

Ethereum Layer – Functions through a set of Ethereum smart contracts to facilitate checkpointing, staking, dispute resolving, and message relaying.
Security Layer – Serves as a meta-blockchain running in parallel to Ethereum and looks after validator management and Polygon chains validation.
Polygon Networks Layer – Works as a bouquet of several sovereign blockchain layers to help perform transaction collation, local consensus, and block production.
Execution Layer – Interprets and executes transactions on top of the other layers.

Who Created Polygon (POL)?

At its core, Polygon has a decentralized team of contributors from all over the world that continue developing the open-source network. Polygon was founded by four co-founders: Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal, Anurag Arjun, and Mihailo Bjelic. Of the four, Sandeep Nailwal remains actively involved and, as of June 2025, leads the Polygon Foundation as CEO.

Jaynti Kanani, Polygon's co-founder and original CEO, has a decade of experience in software development and data science; he stepped away from day-to-day work on the project in 2023. Sandeep Nailwal, who now serves as CEO of the Polygon Foundation, also served as the Co-Founder and CEO of ScopeWeaver.com, a company that leverages dapps (decentralized applications) for business solutions.

Anurag Arjun helped define Polygon's early product roadmap, acting as the bridge between its research, economics, and engineering functions. He left in 2023 to found Avail, a modular blockchain project. Mihailo Bjelic, the last of the co-founders to depart, stepped down from the board in May 2025, leaving Sandeep Nailwal as the sole remaining founder.

In its early years, alongside the founding team, a rich and diverse advisory board guided the project. The board has Hudson Jameson from the Ethereum Foundation, Ryan Sean Adams from Bankless, Anthony Sassano from EthHub, PeteKim from Coinbase, and John Lilic from ConsenSys.

Polygon Capital Funding, Acquisitions, and Investments

Polygon was founded in 2017 and has raised roughly $450 million in total. Early backers included Coinbase Ventures, ZBS Capital, MiH Ventures, and investor Mark Cuban, and the project ran a Binance Launchpad token sale in April 2019 that raised about $5 million. Its largest raise came on February 7, 2022, when Polygon secured $450 million in a round led by Sequoia Capital India, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Galaxy Digital, Tiger Global, and others. On August 14, 2021, Polygon acquired Hermez Network for $250 million. Polygon has also backed ventures including Splinterlands and MakiSwap.

Why was Matic Rebranded to Polygon?

Matic rebranded to Polygon in February 2021 to reflect its expanded mission as a multi-chain scaling platform supporting multiple Ethereum scalability solutions, including Optimistic Rollups, ZK-Rollups, and Validium. The token kept the MATIC ticker until September 2024, when Polygon upgraded it to POL on a 1:1 basis as the foundation of its Polygon 2.0 roadmap, which unifies the network's chains and introduces the AggLayer for cross-chain interoperability.

The name Polygon was more suggestive in its mission to support these various Ethereum scalability solutions. The network decided to implement its vision through a new Polygon SDK to help developers build their DApps on a scalable and Ethereum-anchored infrastructure.

The name Polygon also signifies the network's variety of interoperability mechanisms, including its asynchronous messaging systems based on the Ethereum Virtual Machines and state channels. According to Sandeep Nailwal, the tagline 'Polkadot on Ethereum', although not an official one, sets an "easier to understand narrative for the community."

The Ethereum Scaling Solution

Ethereum has always led the charts as the most favored blockchain for dApps. Yet, its growing adoption has also led to increased congestion in the network, making it slow and relatively costlier. The situation has become so bad that users spend hundreds of dollars in transaction fees in some cases. Amongst this backdrop of Ethereum issues, Polygon arrived. It took the novel approach of scaling Ethereum by utilizing a diverse ecosystem of existing scaling solutions rather than competing with them. It was when some developers started calling it the Ethereum Killer, while the more appropriate title should have been "Ethereum Scaling Solution."

In fact, "Ethereum Killer" is not the right title for any of Ethereum's competitors, including Polygon. Ethereum is the leader of the pack when it comes to the competitive decentralized application space, and it will continue to remain so for the foreseeable future. Following Ethereum's successful transition to Proof of Stake, the network has made significant strides in addressing its scalability challenges. However, Layer 2 solutions like Polygon continue to play a vital role in the ecosystem. After all, there is enough space for multiple players in the growing blockchain market.

Polygon addresses Ethereum's inherent and structural issues, like low throughput, poor UX, and lack of sovereignty. It makes it possible for Ethereum to become synergistic with the ZK rollups, Optimistic Rollups, Enterprise Chains, Polygon Plasma and PoS, and the standalone sidechains. To address the issue of high gas fees and the slow speed of Ethereum, Polygon offered a service comparable to Web2, with very low transaction fees and instant transaction finality. The developer experience was equivalent to Ethereum and did not require any protocol-level knowledge. Neither did it ask for token deposits, fees or permissions.

How to Stake Polygon for Staking Rewards?

Staking is integral to Polygon's ecosystem. It is a Layer 2 Solution and leverages a network of PoS validators for asset security.

Validators stake their POL tokens as collateral and become a part of the network's PoS consensus mechanism. Validators are responsible for verifying transactions, proposing new blocks, and maintaining network security. In return, validators receive POL tokens as rewards.

Delegators are network members not interested in becoming a validator who can delegate their POL tokens to another validator. By delegating, they remain eligible to participate in the staking process and earn a portion of the rewards without the technical requirements of running a validator node.

In addition to Polygon's PoS checkpointing, the network leverages block producers at the block producer layer, obtaining a higher degree of decentralization.

The mission of Polygon is to help new projects spin up a dedicated blockchain network. Polygon, with its stability as a Layer 2 solution, helps blockchain developers with the immensely useful features of convenient scalability and instant blockchain transactions. The technology of Polygon is highly efficient, where each sidechain on the network can achieve more than 65,000 transactions per second. The network is capable of supporting a variety of DeFi protocols available in the Ethereum ecosystem.

Buy & Sell POL at iTrustCapital

If you’re interested in buying or selling POL, you can do so at iTrustCapital.

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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is the difference between Polygon and Ethereum?

Polygon is a Layer 2 scaling solution built on top of Ethereum, while Ethereum is a Layer 1 blockchain. Polygon processes transactions off-chain and settles them on Ethereum, offering faster speeds (65,000+ TPS vs. ~15-30 TPS) and significantly lower gas fees while still benefiting from Ethereum's security.

Is POL the same as MATIC?

POL is the native cryptocurrency token of the Polygon network. The project was originally called "Matic Network" before rebranding to "Polygon" in February 2021, and the token kept the MATIC ticker until September 2024, when Polygon upgraded it to POL on a 1:1 basis as part of Polygon 2.0. POL now fuels gas, staking, and security across the network. You can buy and sell POL at iTrustCapital through a Premium Custody Account or a tax-advantaged IRA* account.

What is Polygon used for?

Polygon is used for building and deploying Ethereum-compatible decentralized applications (dApps), executing fast and low-cost transactions, staking to earn rewards, and accessing DeFi protocols. It serves as a scaling solution that makes blockchain technology more accessible and affordable.

How does Polygon reduce gas fees?

Polygon reduces gas fees by processing transactions on its own Proof of Stake sidechain rather than directly on Ethereum's mainnet. Transactions are bundled and periodically checkpointed to Ethereum, distributing the cost across many transactions and resulting in fees that are fractions of a cent.

Is Polygon a good Layer 2 solution?

Polygon is one of the most widely adopted Layer 2 solutions for Ethereum, supporting hundreds of decentralized applications and DeFi protocols. Its combination of high transaction speeds, low fees, and Ethereum compatibility has made it a popular choice for developers and users seeking scalable blockchain solutions.

How does Polygon staking work?

Polygon staking involves either becoming a validator by staking POL tokens as collateral to verify transactions and earn rewards, or delegating POL to existing validators to earn a share of their rewards. Validators maintain network security while delegators can participate without running technical infrastructure.

What makes Polygon different from other Layer 2 solutions?

Polygon distinguishes itself by offering multiple scaling solutions under one umbrella, including Plasma chains, PoS sidechains, Optimistic Rollups, and ZK-Rollups. This multi-chain approach provides developers with flexibility to choose the scaling solution that best fits their application's needs.

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