Important events
Mar 312023
MATIC/USD: Top Solana NFT Project ‘DeGods’ Set to Migrate to Polygon Today
- Solana’s top NFT collection, DeGods, is migrating to Ethereum scaling solution Polygon today.
- 77% ($37m) of another popular Solana collection, y00ts, have already migrated.
- The migration has at least partly been caused by growing mainstream interest in Polygon.
Solana was once one the main contenders in the NFT space to take the crown from Ethereum. It even got an OpenSea integration last year, allowing users of one of the most popular NFT marketplaces to explore SOL NFTs more easily. But due to Solana’s unfortunate links to Alameda Research (the sister company of failed exchange FTX), SOL saw one of the biggest sell offs in the space over the course of 2022. And its NFT projects are beginning to think Polygon is a more appealing home.
The mass migration
Some of the most popular NFT projects on Solana, are moving en masse from the Solana blockchain over to the Ethereum scaling solution Polygon. At the time of writing, 77% of the NFTs in Solana’s ‘y00ts’ collection have made the translation – representing roughly $37m worth of tokens. What’s more significant however, is the migration of DeGods – currently the most highly valued NFT collection based on Solana. The collection is valued at around $160m (even with SOL’s currently depressed valuation) and is due to begin the migration process to Polygon today.
What’s causing the move?
These collections are taking notice of the increased mainstream adoption of Polygon, with partnerships already existing between the chain and major brands like Starbucks and Disney. They’re also trying to mitigate concerns surrounding SOL’s major price drop over the course of 2022. It wasn’t only organic interest that caused the desire to migrate however. DeLabs, the creators of y00ts, (who also happen to be the creators of DeGods) were in fact paid $3m by Polygon in January before the migration began. However, management at DeGods have denied that this is what caused the y00ts migration.
y00ts / DeLabs
Jan 302023
MATIC makes moves
Polygon is seeing some major inflows as the network prepares for a big change.- The token of Ethereum layer 2 scaling network, Polygon, saw some impressive gains last week. MATIC rallied by 18% over the course of the week – now sitting at a price of around $1.11. It now boasts a market capitalization of $9.6bn, making it the 10th most valuable cryptocurrency.
- The rally was helped along by excitement for an upcoming update to the network, which will make it zkEVM compatible. The update will improve its rollup technology – a process which allows it to complete transactions quicker and at a lower cost compared to Ethereum.
- Despite the rally, Polygon took a beating in the crypto market selloff of 2022. Since its all-time high of $2.92 in December 2021, the token’s value is still down by more than 55%. However with the network’s number of daily users rising by almost 300k in the first week of this year, its slump might be behind it.
Shubham's Web3 / Unsplash
Jan 092023
‘Y00ting’ off-chain
As its credibility continues to be damaged by the FTX fallout, Solana is losing one of its most highly valued NFT collections.- The creators of the popular Solana NFT collection, y00ts, reportedly received $3m to move the collection over to Polygon. DeLabs said that the funds will be used in its hiring efforts and continuing support for its NFT ecosystem.
- Solana’s reputation has been taking a beating since the collapse of FTX, as its sister firm Alameda Research reportedly held a large stake in the blockchain and were early investors in the ecosystem.
- Polygon however has been in a hurry to beef up its brand awareness and get big names on the chain. The layer 2 scaling solution has already signed deals with Disney, Coca-Cola and Starbucks , which the y00ts NFT collection might now be playing a part in.
DeLabs
Nov 092022
A challenger approaches
A new decentralized exchange has entered the market in the form of Bebop, but it launches at an uncertain time.- Bebop, a decentralized exchange backed by Wintermute, has launched on Polygon after having launched on Ethereum earlier in the year. The project hopes Polygon’s low fees and high speeds will help the project attract users.
- The group is hoping to win traders over with its features, which include zero-slippage trades and the ability to trade multiple tokens in one transaction which it calls “many-to-one” trading. Whether that will be enough however, remains to be seen.
- It’s a pretty uncertain time for a DeFi project to be launching, with the effects of FTX’s downfall still being processed by the industry. The decentralized exchange space is also fairly overcrowded, with big names like Uniswap still dominating the market.
GuerrillaBuzz Blockchain PR Agency / Unsplash
Oct 252022
A hacker’s QuickSteal
Add another one to the board folks – QuickSwap has become the latest DeFi platform to suffer an exploit.- Polygon-based platform QuickSwap was exploited for $220k on Monday. The exploit took the form of a flash loan attack, where loans are used to manipulate the price of an asset. Decentralized exchanges like QuickSwap are prone to attacks as they require no personal info from users.
- The attack seemed to take its toll on the platform, as its operators announced that the protocol’s lending pool would be shutting down. The funds had also been funneled through the now-sanctioned Tornado Cash within hours of the attack.
- QuickSwap’s exploit is only the latest in a growing list of DeFi attacks. This year alone, crypto market maker Wintermute was hacked to the tune of $160m in September, and Wormhole Bridge had $320m worth of assets stolen.
Illustration by TradingView
Oct 202022
Reddit users upvote NFTs
Reddit has gone full NFT-mode, with the craze finally seeming to have won the community’s upvote.- Over 3m ‘Reddit Vault’ wallets have been created since July when its NFT marketplace launched as everyone races to get one of its Polygon NFTs. After initial skepticism from the community, the platform’s NFT marketplace now boasts more wallets than OpenSea’s 2.3m, proving once and for all that there is in fact an appetite for JPEGs.
- This is only the latest of Reddit’s ventures into the NFT world this year. The platform released its profile picture NFT collection in July, followed by a free Polygon NFT airdrop to help power users who are active in the Reddit community, and that same month it said it’ll be scaling its Ethereum-based community points – all of this has helped grow wallets on platform.
- Its user base may be on board, but the NFT industry isn’t exactly booming right now. Weekly trading volume for NFTs has plummeted by almost 90% YoY with some wondering whether the space has a sustainable future. If we’ve learned one thing from last year though, it’s that hype goes a long way.
Brett Jordan / Unsplash
Sep 132022
Pumpkin Spice tokens
Who doesn't love a nice, warming NFT on a crisp fall day? Well Starbucks now has you covered.- Starbucks has announced an NFT rewards program based on the Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Polygon. The program will reportedly allow access to merchandise and events and is part of the company’s wider metaverse push dubbed ‘Starbucks Odyssey’. The waitlist for the ‘experience’ opens on Monday.
- The NFT collection will include ‘limited edition’ tokens which can be traded on a new NFT marketplace based on the Starbucks Odyssey app. A portion of the proceeds from trades will go towards charitable causes which have yet to be disclosed. Meaning sipping your Pumpkin Spice latte will make you feel even more warm and tingly inside.
- Nifty Gateway will power the new NFT platform, which has made headlines for its collections based on music by The Weeknd and famous NFT artist Beeple. Starbucks’ NFT plans drew some criticism from its employees for its impact on the environment. Altho with Ethereum soon moving to the eco-friendly proof of stake, critics might be won over.
Sep 052022
Polygon’s getting noticed
Brand giants are putting their backing behind Polygon, causing the layer 2 scaling solution’s token to enjoy some tasty gainz.- Layer 2 scaling solution Polygon popped by almost 15% last week and more than $7m in short trades of the protocol’s token MATIC have been liquidated. The token now has a market cap of around $7.5bn with its high speeds and low costs making it one of the ‘popular kids’ of the Ethereum layer 2 scaling family.
- MATIC has big name brand deals to thank for its recent growth. Trading app Robinhood announced a Polygon integration on Thursday, which prompted the token to jump more than 6% in one day. Other high-profile integrations include OpenSea beginning to accept it and Zuckerberg’s Meta adding Polygon NFT support on Facebook and Instagram.
- Investors are cautiously optimistic of the price gains as the protocol still has a ways to go to recover its previous highs. MATIC remains down by almost 70% from its all time high of $2.92 in December 2021 and has been battling against the bear market along with other cryptocurrencies. Could this be the beginning of a comeback?
Polygon
Sep 012022
Matic takes to the high seas
Polygon jumps on the OpenSea bandwagon as the NFT marketplace begins accepting MATIC for the first time.- Top NFT Marketplace OpenSea announced Polygon integration on Wednesday, meaning the layer-2 blockchain’s MATIC token can now be used as a payment method. High gas-fees have long been a complaint of OpenSea users on Ethereum, so the integration with Polygon’s cheaper network will prolly be welcomed with open arms.
- Polygon’s MATIC token dropped more 10% over August, altho being integrated with the world’s top NFT platform might cause an increase in volume as its use-cases build. In a tweet, OpenSea stated that users can expect to save around 35% in gas-fees and will now be able to carry out bulk NFT transactions.
- OpenSea has been in troubled waters recently tho. The platform reportedly processed around $5m worth of NFT transactions one day last week, which is a whopping 99% drop compared to the $405m processed during its record high on May 1. Polygon may’ve been welcomed aboard, but the voyage could be a choppy one.
Pokrie / Pexels
Aug 262022
A new social collectible
Social media network Reddit is handing out swag bags to its loyal users in the form of Polygon-based “Collectible Avatars”.- Reddit has begun launching its new series of Collectible Avatar NFTs, which were being air dropped for free to some of its most hardcore users on Thursday. The collection is minted on the Polygon blockchain and is an extension of the platform’s Avatar Builder.
- Outside of the free drop Reddit also sells NFT avatars through its own platform, and recently released a limited series of ETH-based CryptoSnoos NFTs – altho, it’s been interesting to see the company avoid using the word “NFT” in their sales bc the terminology can appaz be divisive, a tactic also employed by the likes of CocaCola.
- Reddit’s been exploring the world of blockchain for years now, a venture that’s actually been met with relevant success. It rolled out a tokenized “Community Points” initiative in 2019 and has been playing around with various scaling platforms since then to try and bring its tokenized rewards to a wider audience.
Redditinc
Aug 112022
When lines get blurred
Developers of Blur Finance give a refresher course on how to carry out a crypto rug-pull – by making off with $600k worth of tokens.- DeFi yield aggregator Blur Finance has done a disappearing act in what’s turned out to be a pretty nasty crypto rug-pull. On Tuesday the BNB Chain and Polygon-based project deleted all of its social media accounts and made off with around $600k of tokens – causing its BLR token to fall 99% to a price of $0.00064 (which might as well be 0 tbh).
- Crypto security firm PeckShield was first to raise the alarm by tweeting that the platform’s devs had removed a large quantity of tokens from its smart contracts. The project lured investors with ridiculous yields of 4,000% APY and with around 754 BLR holders impacted, the rage is almost palpable.
- It seems to be rug-pull season for Polygon. Just last week, the devs of Polygon-based Web3 game Dragoma disappeared with $3.5m in a rug-pull that makes Blur Finance look like child’s play. A Chainalysis report has estimated that rug pulls totaled around $2.8bn in 2021 alone, but will this year give that record a run for its money?
Maxim Hopman/ Unsplash
Jul 212022
The Holy Grail of Web3, apparently
Polygon are bringing zero-knowledge rollup to Ethereum, with some considering it a significant technological breakthrough.- Polygon will launch zkEVM (zero-knowledge Ethereum Virtual Machine) in 2023, in what’s dubbed the first Ethereum-compatible scaling solution that uses zero-knowledge proofs. In cryptography, zero-knowledge is a computationally intensive method in which one party can prove to another party on the blockchain that a statement is true without needing to decrypt the code in question.
- Co-founder Sandeep Nailwal expects zkEVM to cut gas fees by 90% as well as facilitating a significant increase in throughput capability. His partner in crime, Mihailo Bjelic, declared that Polygon’s zkEVM will offer the three Holy Grail properties of Web3: scalability, security, and Ethereum compatibility, believing the “breakthrough technology” will accommodate mass adoption.
- But what about Ethereum’s merge? Wasn’t that supposed to sort all this stuff out? According to the guys at Polygon, gas fees are unlikely to change dramatically post-merge, and that zkEVM will actually serve to help Ethereum as it transitions to a proof-of-stake consensus. Regardless, Polygon’s native token MATIC is loving all of this – flirting with the $1 mark after an 80% reversal in the last month.
Jul 152022
Beauty and the Blockchain
Polygon gets Disney’s approval to take its hand in developing new blockchain tech that can be used by the conglomerate.- Polygon has been chosen to participate in Disney’s Accelerator program – a scheme that aims to develop new technology, with a particular focus on ‘immersive experiences’ provided by augmented reality (AR), non-fungible tokens (NFTs), and artificial intelligence (AI) characters.
- Disney will provide investment capital to Polygon, as well as an office/development space at its creative HQ in Los Angeles. While Disney did not clarify its reasons behind choosing Polygon, the Ethereum scaling platform is becoming a proven player in web3 – already linking up with Instagram, Adidas, and Prada to provide a launchpad for NFTs.
- MATIC rose 11% upon the news, leaving it up 46% already this month. The upward price action goes against the general bearish grain of the crypto market and puts the token back above where it was before Bitcoin had a massive hiccup and tanked to $17k. Not quite a fairytale, but it’s something.
Jul 122022
The great Terra migration
Look away Terra fans (you brave few): a load of DeFi projects on the platform just migrated to Polygon.- Over 48 projects running on Terra have now jumped ship to Polygon, confirmed by Polygon Studios CEO Ryan Wyatt in a tweet on Monday. Included in these projects are the OnePlanet NFT marketplace, metaverse platform Lunaverse, and play-to-earn game Derby Stars.
- A handy $20m was put aside to help these projects migrate in May, with Polygon clearly wasting no time to reap the opportunities of Terra’s collapse. Polygon, a layer-2 scaling solution on Ethereum, could prove a lucrative place for web3 developers, with the ecosystem housing big names such as Stephen Curry, Adidas, and Decentraland, while also offering low gas fees of just $0.0025 on avg.
- MATIC has made around an 80% gain since its June 18 low of $0.31, bouncing with the rest of the market after Bitcoin put in lows around a similar time. However, the positive news had little to no impact on its intraday price, with the token actually falling 1.5%. We just hope investors are donning their crypto winter coats – it might be a while before the frost thaws.
May 182022
Polygon crunches the numbers
Polygon gets cosy with number crunchers Ernst & Young, providing its blockchain for the major accountancy firm.- Polygon will give Ernst & Young (EY) the keys to its blockchain, running and managing the accountants' supply chain. By doing so, EY hopes to solve bottlenecks by tracing its products through creating tokens to represent assets on the supply chain.
- EY and Polygon first linked up last September. The company reckons more businesses will be pivoting to blockchain technology as demand for handling high transaction volumes and settlement times grows.
- However, MATIC was in free-fall last week, falling as low as 51% at one point. While it recovered slightly to close the week down “only” 23%, its performance was a stark reminder to investors how badly altcoins can bleed while Bitcoin is struggling.
EuroCarGT / Wikimedia Commons
May 172022
A Moon Shaped Polygon
“Come to us,” says Polygon to estranged Terra projects, “we’ll scale you good and proper.”- Polygon is opening its doors to projects that once ran on Terra. Ryan Wyatt (CEO of Polygon Studios, a subsidiary that oversees NFT and gaming projects) tweeted on Monday he and his team are “working closely with a variety of Terra projects” to migrate them over to the Polygon blockchain.
- Total assets on Terra plummeted from $31bn to $400m as almost all the liquidity keeping the projects alive disappeared overnight after the network fell apart. Since some of these projects may be short of extra cash, Polygon will take care of any costs and resources needed to help them migrate.
- For DeFi projects, Polygon isn’t a bad place to live. The network is home to over 19k dApps – up from 3k in October – and offers the security of the Ethereum blockchain, which is a trait that Terra (clearly) did not possess.
Apr 292022
Polygon is popular with the dApps
Polygon boasts a new decentralized applications (dApps) milestone, making it one of the most scaled blockchains.- dApps running on Polygon have increased six-fold since October, reaching a total of 19k as of April 26. Polygon attributes the growth to the rising popularity of DeFi and NFT-based apps.
- There’s a footnote to all of this, though. While Polygon boasts strong adoption, active 24hr addresses on the network have slumped from 18k to 3k this year, as per on-chain analysis site Sanbase. It’s all well and good pocketing dApps, but each needs a use-basis to encourage volume on the network.
- MATIC may have felt the burden of these sleepy dApps. Since active addresses have fallen, so has the price. We’re not saying this is a clear correlation, but the token is down 51% YTD after an uptick in December that reached ATHs of $2.92.
Polygon / Unsplash
Apr 252022
It's a bird... it's a plane... it's Supernet
Polygon continues to push for mass adoption with its new Supernet chains, aiming to support devs in their blockchain endeavors.- Supernet wants to be the hero Polygon needs by reducing the limitations and costs on developers looking to build projects on the blockchain. The crypto project announced a $100m support fund, claiming the Supernets will help “ignite mass adoption of Polygon and Web3.”
- It will become part of Polygon Edge – a blockchain network that lets users customize their own features. Polygon has over 10k dApps scaled on its network, but now Supernet will run on top of it and free devs of server costs and other technical stuff that previously got in their way.
- There’s been some mainnet spring cleaning to improve its scalability outside of Supernets too. Polygon recently announced a new blockchain called ‘Avail’ to its ecosystem, which is designed to reduce the stress data has on other areas of the network.
Annie Spratt / Unsplash
Apr 152022
Polygon pledges to save the environment
Polygon vows to go carbon neutral in 2022, putting $20m into lowering its energy-intensive tech.- The folks down at Polygon have pledged $20m to go eco-friendly, starting off with a $400,000 purchase of carbon credits through KlimaDAO – a decentralized autonomous organization that provides carbon offsetting technology for blockchains.
- Polygon amassed over 90k tons of CO2 emissions in the 12 months leading up to Feb 2022. That’s a lot. Like, 12,000 American-households-per-year a lot. Almost all of it comes from interactions with Ethereum’s mainnet, which still uses an energy-intensive proof-of-work model.
- MATIC traded down 3% on Thursday morning. Given that Ethereum aims to move to a greener, proof-of-stake model by the end of 2022, any interaction Polygon has with its mainnet will be lower in carbon emissions anyway.
Apr 082022
Polygon avails its blockchain
Polygon runs a testnet of Avail – an (apparently) blazing fast, scalable, and flexible new blockchain – to add to its ecosystem.- The upgrade will improve scalability on the platform. As a layer-2 protocol (dubbed Ethereum in the fast lane), Polygon’s latest upgrade wants to speed things up even further, with Avail reducing the stress data has on other areas of the blockchain.
- Data is expensive, dude. Blockchains mostly avoid storing the data from decentralized applications due to cost (there’s prolly quite a lot of it), and instead dump it on third-party servers. Avail will seek to fix this, helping to host and verify off-chain data all by itself for blockchains that have integrated with it.
- MATIC was up 3% on Thursday, as it looks to recover from a 13% drop since the week's beginning. With Ethereum’s long-awaited merge around the corner, a lot of projects like Polygon will again have to prove they can offer something ETH can’t, as the merge is set to resolve a lot of the No.2 crypto’s drawbacks.
Polygon