A chat with Polygon's Arjun Kalsy

A few weeks ago I was looking into Polygon (formerly known as Matic) and had the fortunate opportunity to chat with Arjun Kalsy, VP of Growth, about the basis of their system.

It was a bit of an asynchronous conversation, but we got there in the end.

Keir: Why was Matic renamed? Was it because the ecosystem grew from the blockchain Matic into something bigger?

Arjun: So back in 2017 when we first started building the scalability solution the primary thinking around scalability was around using Plasma technology, and one of our co-founders was a part of the Plasma research group. He proposed our first infrastructure, and we started with the name Matic Network.

But fast forward to 2021 - now you see the conversations of scaling shift to optimistic rollups, zk-rollups, and then we also realized that in the future there will be multiple scaling technologies built to support Ethereum, and it's not going to be a future where there is just one solution which solves all your problems.

This is why we realized that we would have to build something more comprehensive: something which is like a multichain ecosystem that is built around the Ethereum ecosystem and acts as a natural extension of Ethereum, and then provides a layer of scalability that has all the different scaling options which a developer might need - whether it's optimistic rollups, zk-rollups, you may want to create your own chain, you may want shared security...

So when we built this we realized that now our mission had expanded. The research we need to do, the kind of teams we need to build, and the focus we need to have has to be much broader, which is when we decided that we need to come up with a new name or rather, rebrand and reenergize ourselves for this new mission.

And this is when we came up with this name, Polygon, which mathematically is basically an N-sided figure that can fit any shape or size, and that's what we aim to be. Like a platform that has the highest amount of scalability and also the highest amount of flexibility for the developer, where we put all the different options on the table, and then the developer can build any kind of solution which he or she wants to do.

Keir: Has the renaming and rebranding cause problems?

Arjun: Not really. I think with the logo and even with the communication that's been over a long period of time, and even up till now it's Polygon (previously Matic Network) so that the users and general community are able to make that connection. And as time progresses over the next few months we will then remove that "previously Matic Network" and just stick to Polygon.

Keir: From what I understand there is an ERC20 token called Matic on the Ethereum mainnet, which is what you get when you go to an exchange and buy Matic. This is not the native cryptocurrency of the Matic mainnet, but is used to stake and participate as a validator on the Matic network. Is this correct?

Arjun: So you are talking about the ERC20 token - the Matic token, which is on the Ethereum mainnet, which is basically what you get when you go to the exchange. Yes, this is not the native cryptocurrency on Matic.

So the Matic which is used on the Polygon chain, or the Matic chain, is basically used to pay the gas fees. This Matic is different from the Matic you will get on Ethereum, which is the ERC20 Matic, and our staking happens on Ethereum.

This is how we have designed it, the reason being that because we checkpoint transactions to Ethereum, and also have staking on Ethereum, makes it a lot more secure. So this is how we have designed the staking and the token which is on the exchanges. You can exit with that onto Ethereum and then you can stake that onto the network.

Keir: At the moment, in order to obtain Matic native cryptocurrency, you need to go to the faucet to obtain a little bit (otherwise you can't submit transactions because you can't pay for gas), and then move Ethereum assets onto Matic using a bridge, and finally, using Quickswap to convert those assets to Matic native cryptocurrency if you need more gas than the faucet can provide. Is that correct?

Arjun: In order to obtain MATIC native cryptocurrency - any time a user creates a new wallet on the Polygon automatic network we automatically airdrop that wallet 0.001 MATIC, which is enough to do forty to fifty transactions, so even if a new user were to come to Polygon with no MATIC tokens of currency and they would still be able to do forty, fifty transactions.

What we recommend people is that you enter the Polygon network through the bridge, let's say, with any sort of cryptocurrency and then what you can do is you can go to one of the exchanges: Quickswap, etc., just swap that out for maybe two to five MATIC, which frankly is enough for all the transactions you need to do, and then the rest of it - you can keep transacting away.

So we do this very small airdrop to ensure that anybody can enter the Polygon network and immediately start transacting without having to worry about first having to get MATIC and then how will they pay for gas, and so on.

Keir: Here's my final question: Polygon's big selling point is that it offers the functionality (and possibly the security) of Ethereum, but with much lower contract deployment and transaction costs. However, if the Ethereum team ever gets version 2.0 out the door, that selling point will no longer be relevant.

What is your take on that?

Arjun: Regarding Ethereum 2.0 - so even when or if Ethereum 2.0 goes live, you would still need some sort of layer two or some sort of scalability solution, the reason being that Eth 2.0's theoretical limit is something like a hundred thousand transactions per second.

However, if you have millions of people, or even hundreds of thousands of people doing thousands of transactions a day, then if you want to: imagine how many transactions you can do in a day? Just imagine the number of times you tap your phone, which gives you roughly an idea of the kind of transactions which typically a person can do in a day. View social media, etc.

If hundreds of thousands of users are doing thousands of transactions per day even Eth 2.0 with a hundred thousand transactions per second would not be able to provide the scalability required.

This is the reason why you will always need some sort of scalability solution as the usage of blockchain technology ramps up, and as big banks get into it, governments get into it with CBDCs and all of that.

So it's something like the Internet, right? You have the Internet but then you also have content delivery networks which provide high speed at last mile, something like that. So there will always be a requirement of some sort of scalability.

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Arjun for taking the time to answer my questions.

About the Author

Keir Finlow-Bates is a blockchain researcher, inventor, and author of the book "Move Over Brokers: Here Comes The Blockchain", which you can find out more about at www.thinklair.com