The co-founder and CEO of Kiln, which specialises in staking, has just taken over the management of one of Polygon's 100 validators. He highlights the "very effective" strategy of the blockchain's commercial teams.

Your 3 free articles this month are up

The research your peers are already using

The Big Whale gives financial institutions the market intelligence, network, and platform to move with confidence in digital assets. Trusted by 150+ firms.

How do you explain Polygon's success?

The protocol launched in 2021 at a time when fees on Ethereum were really high, so the timing was perfect for them. The "price" aspect played a big part. It enabled them to raise funds, expand very quickly and sign major contracts with well-known players. They've become a major player in the ecosystem, with a fair amount of exposure, even if their internal organisation is still rather vague.

Why do giants like Meta or Walmart choose Polygon?

Because Polygon offers one of the most affordable user costs on the market and they allow Web3 projects to be developed under satisfactory technological conditions.

As Polygon is not a true layer 2 relying on Ethereum's security, is this network vulnerable to attacks?

The cryptographic proofs of transactions carried out on Polygon are placed on Ethereum, so it's not entirely accurate to say that Polygon doesn't benefit from its security at all. On the other hand, as Polygon has its own consensus system, its intrinsic security depends on the value immobilised in "staking" on the validators.

Currently, around $3.6 billion is "staked" in the form of MATIC tokens, which means that an attacker would need to raise $1.8 billion to attack the network. That's not a huge sum... For Ethereum, we're talking about around $14 billion.

Grégory Raymond

Gregory Raymond is a French journalist specializing in economics and cryptocurrencies, currently head of research at The Big Whale.

Voir tous les articles ↗
Raphaël Bloch

Raphaël Bloch is co-founder and CEO of The Big Whale, a news platform focused on cryptocurrencies. A former journalist at Reuters, Les Echos, and L’Express, he is a graduate of emlyon and the CFJ.

Voir tous les articles ↗
Share this article
Weekly Briefing
Every Friday, cut through the noise with independent analysis on curated news delivered straight to your inbox.
Read by 30,000 professionals
Latest Report
The major shift of banks towards digital assets and blockchain
Download Report

Sind Sie bereit, Ihre Strategie für digitale Vermögenswerte zu beschleunigen?

Kontaktiere uns →