Polygon the Internet of Blockchains?

Polygon, otherwise known as “Ethereum’s Internet Of Blockchains” is a Layer-2 network built on Ethereum’s L1 blockchain and features its own native coin called MATIC. The network is built to help users construct and connect other Ethereum-compatible blockchain networks.

While Ethereum is hailed as one of the best blockchain development platforms, Polygon claims to solve pain points associated with the blockchain including slow transactions, high gas fees, low transaction throughput, scalability and security.

Polygon uses a Proof of Stake consensus and enables delegators to stake MATIC for rewards. It also enables the building of DApps and bridging between networks through the polygon bridge.

Number of Contributors

Since its launch in 2019, the number of contributors on Polygon has steadily risen. Contributions are either made through sending conventional Github requests, emails or through occasional bug bounty programs that reward contributors who can find security vulnerabilities on the network and solve them.

According to Github stats, there are currently 465 registered contributors to Bor, the master code of the Matic Protocol. Other projects such as contracts and testnets have 17 and 15 contributors respectively. However, these are just total figures and the number of ACTIVE contributors could be much lower.

Number of Issues

Contributors are free to raise issues through the Polygon Github Repos. A person who identifies an area to contribute to can also send an email to community maintainers saying “I want to help”. As of writing, Polygon Bor has 28 open issues with 83 having been closed so far. There are also some 26 opened pull requests with the community having addressed 178.

Number of Commits

Polygon has an average of 16 commits per week, which is a great figure to keep the network in check. According to GitHub, several commits are being pushed to the master code which is so far the one with the greatest hits.

Number of Releases

About 6 major releases have come to the Polygon Network since its debut. The latest one has been the Polygon Miden, a STARK-based Zero-Knowledge (ZK) rollup aimed at driving the Network’s scalability and interoperability through integrating it with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM).

Others have been SDK, Avail, Hermez, Nightfall, Miden and Zero, which work together with a focus on ZK (Zero-Knowledge) cryptography. It is expected that Polygon Hermez and Miden should integrate later in the year, boosting the network’s interoperability.

Number of Forks

According to Github, Polygon has had 138 forks since its launch. Most of these upgrades have been aimed at securing the network’s vulnerability which has constantly been at the risk of being compromised by bugs.

However, the most important upgrade has been the introduction of  Ethereum’s EIP 1559 (London Hard Fork) on mainnet in January 2022. Apart from the burning of the native MATIC token and better fee visibility, the burn is expected to drastically reduce circulating MATIC coins in a bid to bring deflation.

Track the latest developments on the Polygon Network HERE.

PN: “This data is not final and may be updated from time to time”