Polygon

Polygon provides scalable solutions through its multi-chain system. By processing transactions on sidechains, it helps in reducing the burden on the main Ethereum blockchain.

Transactions on the Polygon sidechains are much cheaper compared to Ethereum’s mainnet. This is particularly beneficial for microtransactions where high gas fees on Ethereum would be impractical.

The network’s sidechain architecture allows for faster transactions, which is crucial for applications requiring quick confirmations, like gaming or decentralized finance (DeFi) operations.

Polygon sidechains can handle many more transactions per second (TPS) than Ethereum’s mainnet, supporting a higher throughput which is beneficial for widespread adoption and larger-scale applications.

Being Ethereum-compatible means that developers can easily migrate or build decentralized applications (DApps).

While Polygon operates sidechains that conduct their own consensus, they benefit from the robust security model of Ethereum, as the finality of transactions is secured on the Ethereum mainnet.

Polygon’s architecture is designed for interoperability between Ethereum and other blockchain networks, allowing for the exchange of information and value.

Zero-knowledge proof is a cryptographic principle where one party (the prover) can prove to another party (the verifier) that they know a value x, without conveying any information apart from the fact that they know the value x. The essence of it is that it’s possible to prove the possession of certain information without revealing the information itself and without any interaction between the prover and verifier. In the context of Polygon, zero-knowledge proofs allow for the verification of transactions while preserving the privacy of sensitive data. This is particularly useful in creating anonymous transactions. Fundamentally, building this web of ZK-powered L2s comes down to one challenge: trustless, off-chain computation. In order to scale Ethereum, one needs to preserve Ethereum’s execution logic while making it more efficient. The best way to accomplish this goal is through zero-knowledge cryptography as it is capable of providing verifiable proofs that attest to the integrity of off-chain computations. Otherwise, scaling technologies often have to add additional social-economic mechanisms to mediate off-chain computations. The consequence of which is delayed settlement of transactions. Polygon 2.0 applies the open source, zero-knowledge scaling technology developed at Polygon Labs, and this will allow Ethereum to scale to the limits of the internet and enhance the scalability and efficiency of the Ethereum network by allowing transaction validation with a high degree of privacy and lower costs.

Polygon CDK is an open source toolkit that allows developers to design and launch ZK-powered chains on demand–or migrate existing EVM-based L1 chains into L2s–backed by the security of Ethereum. In practice, it means unlimited scale in an environment unified through the interop layer. The tools available in Polygon CDK are modular: Chains may use any parts of the stack they need, and none that they don’t. Configs will include, but are not limited to, customizable gas tokens, rollup and validium modes, support for different data availability solutions, and more.

Solving the scalability problem in blockchains means scaling access to shared state and liquidity across many chains. To do so requires a new approach to blockchain architecture, namely, aggregated blockchains.