Polygon’s Position in the Blockchain Ecosystem
Why does Polygon exist?
In the current blockchain ecosystem, Ethereum (ETH) has taken over as the primary layer-one (L1) solution that many other layer-two (L2) blockchains have built upon. However, it faces 3 big challenges including low throughout, not being user-friendly, and presenting developers with limited options. The Polygon network looks to resolve these main issues while serving as a sidechain running alongside ETH.
What is Polygon?
Polygon is a Layer 2 (L2) scaling platform that leverages the ETH security, with a primary focus to increase the usage of DeFi tools and other applications by connecting blockchains together. Polygon has an EVM (Ethereum Virtual machine) that utilizes the main ETH code, allowing developers to migrate projects over seamlessly.
Polygon’s Proof of Stake (POS) chain is a sidechain to ETH utilizing the POS consensus mechanism. However, Polygon is not just a single sidechain running alongside ETH, they are a series of blockchains that can help to scale ETH with the end goal of equipping developers with user friendly and flexible tools to fast-track ETH into a multi-chain platform.
Polygon serves as the commit chain to the main ETH chain, functioning as a transaction network that operates alongside the main chain. The Polygon commit chain groups up clusters of transactions and processes them all together before sending the data back to the main ETH chain. Polygon can process larger amounts of data (up to 65,000 TPS) and take a snapshot of that data so that ETH isn’t required to do so.
Polygon supports two major types of ETH compatible networks:
1. Stand-alone chains: Reliance on its own security by having its own POS consensus model. This presents the highest level of independence and flexibility, but lower security levels.
2. Security chains: Utilizes security as a service model provided directly by ETH through a pool of proven validators. These validators can be shared between multiple projects. This offers the highest level of security but sacrifices independence and flexibility.
Polygons’ Architecture
1. Ethereum layer: This layer is made up of different ETH based smart contracts and is responsible for staking, transaction approval, and interaction of ETH blockchains and numerous Polygon chains.
2. Security layer: The layer works alongside ETH to provide additional validator services, adding an extra layer of security.
Note: The above layers-one, and two are optional and are not required for Polygon to function
3. Polygon networks layer: This the core ecosystem of projects where blockchain networks developed on Polygon. Every blockchain that exists within this ecosystem has its own community where local consensus is reached and blocks are produced.
4. Execution layer: This is commonly referred to as Polygon’s EVM (Ethereum virtual machine) and its main function is to execute smart contracts on the Polygon blockchain. The compatibility with the EVM smoothens the user experience for the developers using the ETH chain.
Polygon’s architecture is deliberately designed to be generic and abstract to allow other applications that are looking to scale to choose the best scaling solutions that fits their needs.
Resource: Link to Polygon Lightpaper here
