Several solutions exist to solve the scalability problems encountered by the Ethereum network. The Polygon (MATIC) blockchain, compatible with the Ethereum EVM, is one of them. In recent months, it has become increasingly popular thanks to the growth of its DeFi ecosystem.
The evolution of Polygon
Formerly named Matic, Polygon is what is called a commit chain of the Ethereum network, i.e. a blockchain that works in parallel with the main network and whose security depends on it in many ways.
Faced with the increasing congestion of the Ethereum network, caused in particular by the exponential growth of its ecosystems DeFi and NFT, many protocols among the most requested have chosen to deploy a version on Polygon to take advantage of more lenient costs. This is notably the case of Aave, Curve or Sushiswap, to name a few.
Thus, in the space of 3 months, the Polygon network has seen the number of daily active addresses multiply by 10, going from some 50,000 addresses in May 2021 to a peak of more than 600,000 addresses during the month of August.
For comparison, Polygon has averaged over 4 million daily transactions since May, compared to just over 1 million for Ethereum.
A DAO to rule them all
The increase in the number of addresses interacting with the network on a daily basis therefore also generates growth in the Polygon community.
Polygon therefore wishes to implement tools to allow its community to take part in decisions related to the protocol. To do this, the platform plans to create a DAO (decentralized autonomous organization), like many protocols before it.
“Over time, we have built a very large and vibrant community and we want to be able to leverage their combined strength and experience to be able to make the best decisions for the future of the Polygon ecosystem and scaling Ethereum to our future products.”
Polygon announcement
However, Polygon does not want to rely on widely used DAO models. Instead of directly empowering token holders, Polygon wants to rely on representative committees elected by the community.
“The community elects/approves members of the broader DeFi ecosystem who then function as working groups or committees.”
Although the DAO is currently only in the draft stage, Polygon imagines 3 types of committees:
- A Polygon-native projects committee, which would help operationalize small grants under $100,000 with a forum discussion and follow-up call if needed;
- A committee of Polygon blue chips, such as QuickSwap, Sushi, Aave, and infrastructure vendors (ChainLink, The Graph, etc.) to help formalize the process through forum discussion and a community signaling vote;
- A Web 3 developer integration committee and creation of tools to support Polygon with ChainLink, TheGraph, UMA, Covalent, etc.
Polygon is now encouraging the community to provide input on the issue, via the protocol discussion forum.
While DAO is the preferred form of protocols for decentralizing governance, not everyone sees it as a good idea. Recently, Vitalik Buterin published an article on his blog warning of their abuses, especially regarding vote buying and conflicts of interest.
