Polygon AMA - Session With Sandeep Nailwal

Polygon has been making waves throughout the entire crypto ecosystem. Formerly known as Matic Network, Polygon is a Layer 2 scaling platform designed to support the connection and development of Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks. It’s regarded as the solution to slow and expensive transactions currently plaguing Ethereum. The CEO of Altcoin Buzz, Shashwat Gupta, recently conducted an AMA session in our Telegram channel with Polygon COO Sandeep Nailwal. 

If you missed the Polygon AMA with Sandeep Nailwal, take a look through our recap to understand what Polygon is up to in recent days.

Q. Your efforts in helping out with the COVID situation in India got a lot of support. Can you tell me how that is going and what inspired you to start that?

I have been volunteering for people who had requirements for COVID – oxygen requirements, oxygen concentrators, and medicine at that point in time when the peak was really big in India. There were many days when we used to start with 10 – 15 people who had requested some sort of help. Then, by the afternoon, like half of them would perish. It was a really bad situation. 

My brother-in-law is also basically the head of a COVID department in a college. So he was also telling me the ground situation over there, so I was already very pained. Then my sister traveled to my place, and she got COVID. I then got it. Those were the kind of moments where I really got angry about it. 

I said that not only will I help my family to come out of it, but I will also help others to come out of it on a larger scale. That is how it all started, and right now, it’s going really great. We have a big volunteer community, and the team and funds are there. There are also a lot of NGOs which are helping. 

Q. Before we get to more Polygon-related questions, I wanted to know your thoughts on the current market and what would you say to new people entering the market in the last few months?

In my mind, I still don’t think that this is a bear market. I am a product and user growth person, and I think we have a larger number of users than ever before. We also have a product market fit like DeFi, which is a big market in itself, and we have NFTs. These things are going just bigger and bigger. 

That’s my personal opinion. Again, I’m not a financial expert. 

So, I think that the markets are fine with this kind of correction that we are seeing. It is actually very much required because we were just becoming or going parabolic, and that is generally very dangerous. We don’t want to do what we did back in 2017, where we had a three-year bear market. 

Q. Basically, what would you say to a new person getting into crypto?

For a new person entering crypto, I would say this is a good time, actually. The markets have come down a bit. Again, I’m not a financial expert. For traders, I have no answers. For investors, I think this is the time when you should start getting exposure to the market, considering that the prices are a bit down. But don’t go all-in right now. Just stagger your entry into the market for over the next two to four months. Maybe do 10% for every week, and overall in two-and-a-half months, you will completely enter into a position, which is an average position. 

The market might even correct from here. Many people are saying that it might correct more. So, I would simply say that don’t gamble on whether it will correct or go up or whatever. Just enter the market with small chunks like 5% or 10% a week, and that should be fine.

Q. I’m curious to know how you would explain, in a simple manner, the technological difference between BSC and Polygon.

Polygon, basically, is an aggregator solution. I would say in the first place it is wrong to compare Polygon and BSC because BSC is one chain while Polygon is a collection of various kinds of chains. I understand what you want to ask about the difference between the Polygon commit chain, which is used by a lot of developers, and BSC, right?

The main difference between BSC and the Polygon commit chain is that BSC is a separate Layer 1 chain. So that means that when you are on BSC, you are completely on BSC. It is one separate chain, whereas the Polygon commit chain is a Layer 2 on Ethereum. It does not exist without Ethereum. If the Ethereum chain stops, the Polygon commit chain will also stop. 

When I say stop, I mean there will be some problem with the chain because it’s completely tied to Ethereum; the staking, staking rewards, checkpoints, etc. are all tied to Ethereum. Also, the Polygon commit chain is secured by 100+ validators, which are public validators. Many dApps are running the chain. Many individual contributors are running the chain. Anybody from you on can participate in the auction and become a validator if you have enough stake in MATIC. So, it’s a publicly-run chain and completely decentralized. 

The Polygon commit chain essentially sends the commit, every half an hour, to Ethereum. This means whatever happens on the Polygon chain, there’s cryptographic proof that it was created by the 100+ validators on the Polygon chain. They do a Tendermint consensus on top of it. 

Using that Tendermint consensus, they put the commit on Ethereum. Using the commit, all the withdrawals and any kind of data that is being transferred from the Polygon commit chain to Ethereum happens.

Q. Why did you rebrand from Matic to Polygon?

Previously on the Matic Network, we were doing one kind of scaling solution on Ethereum, which was a proof-of-stake-based plasma. Then other solutions came in and were being hyped, like rollups, ZK-Rollups, and StarkWare. Who knows what kind of solutions will keep on coming?

What we decided as a team is that we want to create a long-term project. We don’t want to create something which is good for the next two years and then goes off into oblivion. We wanted to create something long-term; that’s why. Also, as firm believers of Ethereum, we believe it is going to be that ultimate settlement layer. 

So, our primary thesis is that we will become an aggregator or an enabler, which will provide different kinds of scaling solutions to developers who can build their dApps on these solutions and also get the power back to the developers, where developers can make their decision on which kind of scaling solution they need. So that’s the whole reason. 

We wanted to add more offerings to our scaling solutions. When we were doing that, we realized that if we do it under the banner of Matic, it might not fully reflect what we are looking to do. So we had to do something on a larger scale. Plus, we also thought that if we really become this successful aggregator, which takes care of 50% to 60% of the activities that happen on Ethereum, that would mean that we changed the world in a way.

If you see Ethereum, for example, it is a very thought-out kind of brand name. There’s a purpose, solidity language, and all that. So, we wanted to have a more meaningful brand name, and we feel that Polygon is that, as there is “poly,” and you can create various shapes. Polygon means there can be triangles, rectangles, squares, and pentagons. All of those can be Polygons, basically, so that means that there are multiple types of solutions over there.

For our offerings, we have already increased a few things to our current commit chain. It already offers plasma and PoS solutions. We have the Polygon SDK, which is like a Polkadot substrate, like an engine on top of Ethereum. We are also working very aggressively towards offering ZK-Rollups, but I can’t really talk much about that right now.

Q. In 2019, I have seen you spend hours and hours explaining to projects about Polygon, Layer 2, and everything. How have things changed now? 

I don’t think from our side that things have changed anyhow. My thought is that this community is still very small, and we need to reach out to each and every team until the time the space crosses, let’s say 5,000 or 10,000 dApps. We reach out to all the teams, explain to them what’s the situation, the importance of scaling, and how Ethereum is good for their application. 

Nothing has changed for us since then. Most of our team works 10 to 12 hours a day, and they are passionate about what we do. Our whole team is basically very driven for the cause of Ethereum and the cause of Polygon. So, we will continue to work hard to bring a lot of applications to our ecosystem and, eventually, the Ethereum ecosystem. 

Q. How does it feel to be Mark Cuban invested?

It feels really privileged to be invested by Mark. He is an icon, and there is so much to learn from him.

Q. Thoughts on the Titan failure?

Titan, I heard, was an algorithmic stablecoin, and I have seen more than half a dozen high-profile algorithmic stablecoins failing, so I’m not surprised. But I want to know if it was the team that did something or was it the failure of their mechanism?

Q. Thoughts on Altcoin Buzz?

Altcoin Buzz – I would love to see a media house led by founders from India become the leading media house in the world. Keep grinding.

 

Altcoin Buzz would like to heartily thank Sandeep Nailwal for taking part in the Polygon AMA on June 24 in our Telegram channel.

Join us on Telegram to receive free trading signals.

For more crypto news, check out the Altcoin Buzz News YouTube channel.

 

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