Polygon, scaling Ethereum at scale
Polygon (formerly Matic Network) was born in 2017 in India, founded by Jaynti Kanani, Sandeep Nailwal and Anurag Arjun. The thesis was simple: Ethereum is too slow and expensive for the masses, we need a layer 2 (L2) that cuts fees by 99 % while keeping Ethereum's security. Today, Polygon is one of the most-used L2 ecosystems globally with ~3-5 million transactions per day.
MATIC → POL migration in 2024-2025
In September 2024, Polygon initiated the migration of its native token MATIC to POL. Why the change? Because Polygon is no longer limited to a single L2, but becomes a "chain ecosystem" (Polygon PoS, Polygon zkEVM, Polygon Miden, AggLayer, and all Supernets chains). POL is designed to secure ALL these chains simultaneously via a single staking token — the equivalent of DOT for Polkadot.
The migration was 1:1 (1 MATIC = 1 POL) and the majority of holders migrated during 2024-2025. In 2026, POL is the reference token — although many wallets and exchanges still display "MATIC" historically.
Multi-chain architecture
- Polygon PoS: the historic chain, Ethereum side-chain, ~7,000 TPS, fees ~$0.01
- Polygon zkEVM: a ZK rollup inheriting Ethereum L1 security, perfect for DeFi
- Polygon Miden: zkVM for private transactions and complex programs
- AggLayer (2024): the aggregation layer unifying liquidity across all Polygon chains
- Polygon Supernets / CDK: lets projects (Immutable, Aavegotchi, Astar) launch their own custom L2
Institutional adoption
Polygon signed massive partnerships with tradTech brands: Starbucks Odyssey (NFT loyalty), Reddit Avatars (NFTs for 17M users), Stripe (USDC payments), Adidas, Mastercard, Disney, Nike RTFKT. On the traditional finance side, Polygon hosts the tokenized fund BlackRock BUIDL and several Franklin Templeton offerings.
This "Web2 mainstream" adoption differentiates Polygon from other DeFi-pure-oriented L2s (Arbitrum, Optimism, Base). Polygon targets global brands wanting to onboard hundreds of millions of users.
Competitors and 2026 positioning
Polygon faces strong competition: Arbitrum and Optimism dominate in DeFi TVL, Base (Coinbase) benefits from exchange wallet network effect, zkSync Era and Scroll are catching up on ZK tech. Polygon bets on its differentiation: specialized chain portfolio + AggLayer + Web2 mainstream adoption. 2026 market cap ~$5-8B (vs $20B in 2021).