Is Polygon (MATIC) Dead?

2024 has been most unkind to altcoins. And even some previous bull market darlings are not immune.

Among some of the biggest losers in the top 100 projects in the last year, we have Quant, Arbitrum, Cosmos, XRP, Litecoin, Aptos, and Polygon (MATIC).  In addition, we know that more than 90% of alts NEVER reclaim their old all-time high after a bear market.

I hope you know that. We talk about this here frequently. So it begs the question, can these blue chip projects find their footing again? And more specifically, can MATIC? Is MATIC Dead? Let’s see what we’ve found out about Polygon.

The Agg Layer

Layer 1 chains not named Bitcoin and Solana have taken a hit and have yet to recover in 2024 so far. Polygon is down 30% in the last year and ~25% in the last 90 days. So we are asking the question “Is MATIC Dead?” The biggest current innovation MATIC is up to is its Aggregation or Agg Layer.

Aggregation covers one of the industry’s biggest problems: Fragmented liquidity. Crypto is bridged from ETH to some L2 and then it’s trapped there. Only apps on that L2 can use that liquidity. That means there are time and financial costs to move it from one L2 to another. So most don’t, even when they have a good reason to.

Source: X

The Agg Layer is like a cross-chain communication and gas-paying system. That means that Optimism users will be able to share their liquidity with Arbitrum dApps. And vice versa. This alone would be a huge benefit. But it does more than that.

Developers can use it to onboard more users. Appchains often do better with onboarding than most. They and other consumer chains see the most benefit from using Agg Layer. Build it once and deploy it across many chains. Plus, there is no bridging or wrapping of tokens involved. Both users and developers like that.

Source: X

That’s one less risk. This clip does a great job of explaining the benefits for developers. They can concentrate on their protocol and worry less about airdrops liquidity mining and other things to power up a marketplace for their app. The liquidity will already be there if users like what you built. Oh yeah, and gas fees are cheaper for everyone too.

Have you used the Agg Layer yet? If so, let us know in the comments below.

zkEVM

Polygon also has zkEVM. Polygon takes scaling for EVM chains to a new level. First, it adds zero-knowledge proofs. We mention these a lot as they are common now on Ethereum Layer 2 solutions. They help in 2 areas: Privacy & scaling. The privacy argument is pretty clear. If the sender and the receiver of a transaction are unknown because they are hidden by ZK tech, then that is inherently more private.

Source: X

But the scaling argument is important too. Zk tech allows the faster, cheaper, and still private bundling of transactions together. This means faster confirmation times when using Ethereum. A zkEVM chain processes thousands more transactions per second than Ethereum does. And that’s how it helps Ethereum scale.

Here is the great thing. zkEVM is already compatible with EVM chains and apps. They don’t have to do anything  All Ethereum smart contracts are already compatible with zkEVM. You just need to sign up and get started. The use cases for Polygon zkEVM are many, as you can see here. But a couple of the more interesting ones are:

• Games for speed and security
• TradFi is also for speed and security since it inherits Ethereum security
• Healthcare for speed and privacy to enable the sharing of digital health records.

Source: X

Although you hear about zkEVM less than some other Layer 2 protocols, it’s one of the fastest growing. Games and DeFi in particular are coming to rely on it when they want to be a part of EVM but need better functionality for their projects.

POL Token

Now let’s take a look at something we have not talked much about lately. The conversion of the MATIC token to POL. On September 4th, POL will replace MATIC as the native token for the Polygon PoS blockchain.

MATIC is mostly the gas, staking, and governance token now. But POL will have more utility. Along with being the native token for staking and to pay gas, with POL you can use it on the Agg Layer and in zkEVM. Developers will like the option of using POL in zkEVM if they do not have or do not plan to launch their token.

Source: X

The token swap will be 1:1 for everyone and no changes in tokenomics. This move will make it easier to share in protocol rewards. And not only from the Polygon PoS chain. From zkEVM and Miden or Cloud CDK use.

As I said, the token will be more versatile and more valuable. We haven’t even mentioned Miden and Polygon’s popular CDK (Cloud Development Kit) for appchains yet. Polygon is innovating in many ways and is very clearly NOT dead.

It’s not even close. If you have or are considering Polygon as part of your long-term portfolio, then see these current prices as what they are. A gift to get this great project at a discount.

Disclaimer

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