Polygon NFT Marketplace

The incredible surge in the growth of digital art is the most interesting recent trend. The popularity of NFT is growing not only among collectors but also among investors and traders. We are figuring out where you can buy or sell NFT.

So, What Is NFT?

NFTs are non-fungible tokens. Unlike ordinary tokens and crypto, NFTs are unique: each digital collectible that exists is unique. NFTs are works of art, real estate, or, for example, artifacts in a computer game; they are all unique and cannot be copied.

What Is an NFT Marketplace?

NFT trading platforms are marketplaces or, more simply, “NFT shopping centers” where digital collectibles can be sold, bought or exchanged. Marketplaces are created specifically for non-fungible tokens, and all kinds of digital works are stored, displayed, sold even sometimes created here.

NFT Blockchain Platforms

NFT projects are developed in Flow, WAV, and the Ethereum networks and are based on second-level solutions and sidechains. Each blockchain has its own NFC standards and can interact with various wallets and marketplaces. For example, a token issued on Finance SmartChain can be sold only on platforms with support for BSC assets.

Today we are talking about the Polygon platform — one of the most promising and interesting for now.

Gas Fees and NFT

On NFT marketplaces, when putting NFTs up for sale, users must pay a commission (gas fees or gas price). This fee varies at different times of the day. It also strongly depends on how the Ethereum network is configured, on-demand in the network, on the current value of Ether, on how large a contract you are trying to execute and how fast. Understanding these processes is important for both NFT creators and collectors. Sometimes the commission exceeds the price of the created work of art: to enter the marketplace and later put up for sale their first NFT gif, users sometimes spend $ 70–100.

When gas prices increase, it is not profitable for many (especially novice) artists to create, mint, or buy someone else’s NFT. However, there is a way out: some artists introduce gas into their works, making them more affordable, shifting the commission payment to the buyer.

Polygon

Polygon is a network of secure second-level solutions (L2) and autonomous sidechains. Its goal is to increase the versatility of Ether and reduce transactions costs.

The Polygon architecture is multifunctional. It allows other applications to choose the optimal scaling solution best suited. For example, an NFT marketplace looking for an opportunity to reduce the transaction fees but willing to partially sacrifice security may choose Security Layer with its set of sharing validators. The blockchain platform is also attractive for low fees and higher transaction processing speed than Ethereum.

In May 2021, Polygon (MATIC) entered the TOP Twenty of CoinMarketCap with a market capitalization of about $13 billion, and in October, Bitwise Asset Management launched a fund based on this token.

In July 2021, Polygon introduced the Polygon Studios division focused on blockchain games and the NFT ecosystem. It will promote targeted products and support developers engaged in these segments. The division plans to attract major brands, popular content creators and investors who want to work in the appropriate direction.

Why Are Second-Level Scaling Solutions Needed?

The bandwidth of Ethereum is about 30 transactions per second (Transaction per second, TPS). At the same time, network users actively use DeFi protocols and trade NFT. As a result, at the time of writing, the number of unconfirmed transactions in Ethereum is 190,000.

To grow the throughput of Ethereum, users launch second-level solutions (Layer 2, L2) on top of the blockchain, which process transactions outside the main network. They can be divided into two types:

• Status channels are solutions that allow transactions to be made outside the main network (off-chain). The latter acts as a “judge” — finalizes transactions by including them in blocks. Examples of status channels are the Lightning Network in Bitcoin and Litecoin and the Raiden Network in ETH.
• Sidechains are separate networks that are tied to the “parent” blockchains. Users can make transactions with tokens and cryptocurrencies in the sidechain and, if necessary, return them to the original network. Examples of such solutions are Liquid Network in Bitcoin and OMG Network in Ether.

Another sidechain for the Ethereum ecosystem — Polygon — was launched by developers Sandeep Nailwal, Jainti Kanani, Anurag Arjun and Mikhailo Beli in 2017 under the name Matic Network.

In February 2021, the developers of Matic Network renamed the project Polygon. They presented an updated project development strategy, according to which the L2 solution will gradually turn into a multi-chain system.

Polygon Today: Focus On NFT Marketplace And DeFi

The architecture of Polygon allows different L2 solutions to interact with each other, preventing the creation of disparate systems.

“Developers will no longer have to make compromises in the context of speed, scalability or instrumentation. The Polygon L2 solution aggregator will provide an opportunity to focus on creating applications with real benefits and without the current limitations of Ethereum,” Polygon says.

The project supports second-level solutions Polygon PoS and ZK-Rollups at publication. In the future, developers will add Optimistic Rollups and Validum Chains.

The cost of transactions in the Polygon network is much lower than in Ethereum. At the time of publication, you need to pay more than $ 51 to transfer NFT to Ethereum, whereas in Polygon — $ 0.00591.

Users pay Polygon commissions in the native MATIC token. It can be purchased on dozens of centralized and decentralized exchanges and in various exchange services.

Polygon is one of the largest and dynamically developing L2 solutions, which recently surpassed Ethereum in the number of active addresses. We believe that the demand for the native MATIC token will only grow. Our goal is to give users the easiest and most profitable way to purchase it.

The service sends MATIC directly to Polygon — customers do not pay a commission of the main network. It also supports Bitcoin, Ether, TON Crystal, Tron and Tether.

According to the analytical service AwesomePolygon, more than 170 NFT projects are working in the sidechain, including OpenSea and Decentraland. The Polygon Studios division is engaged in promoting such projects and blockchain games.

The Polygon DeFi ecosystem has 100 projects with blocked funds (Total Value Locked, TVL) of about $4.6 billion. Among them, Aave and Curve are the leading DeFi protocols regarding the volume of blocked funds.

L2 Solutions After Switching To ETH2

In an article for Cointelegraph, Sandeep Nailwal notes that the transition to Ethereum 2.0 will increase the network speed to 50 TPS and the launch of sharding — up to 3000 TPS and above.

This bandwidth will allow Ethereum to compete with Visa and PayPal. However, Nailwal considers it insufficient to solve users’ problems and unlock the network’s potential.