Rapture #260: Polygon is Killing the Game
While most L1s/sidechains have been struggling to gain traction, Polygon has continued to see increased adoption even during this bear market. Furthermore, their BD team has been on fire in terms of getting splashy headline partnerships done and their tech team is gearing up to likely launch their zkEVM in the next year.
Let's dive into some of the significant feats Polygon has accomplished this year despite the bear market.
Splashy BD partnerships
Disney, Starbucks, Nike, Reddit, Meta, and Robinhood all have done deals with Polygon this past year.
Starbucks launched a NFT-driven rewards program, dubbed Starbucks Odyssey, on Polygon. They plan on implementing a marketplace that enables trading along with buying-limited edition NFTs in January.
Nike is set to launch .Swoosh, a destination for virtual apparel, this January on Polygon.
Reddit launched a collectible avatars initiative and already more than 5 million of these NFTs have been minted on Polygon.
I could go on and on, but you get the picture. All of these splashy partnerships are largely stemming from the leadership of CEO Ryan Watt, who often takes a backseat in terms of crypto fame compared to Sandeep Nailwal, the technical Co-Founder of Polygon.
While these headlines are definitely splashy and Polygon is doing an amazing job of being the entry point for recognizable traditional corporations to play around with crypto, I don't think any of the solutions these corporations are building are that compelling.
Could always be wrong though. Maybe Starbucks Odyssey will set a new trend with rewards programs.
zkEVM gearing up for mainnet launch
Yet splashy partnerships is not the only cylinder firing for Polygon.
In July, Mihalio Bjelic, one of the co-founders of Polygon, announced that their team was working on a zkEVM. Polygon's zkEVM will be the first EVM-equivalent ZK L2 to hit the market. Usually from announcement to final testnet deployment, there is a multi-year delay.
Yet just earlier this week, Polygon impressively launched the final testnet for their zkEVM. This testnet includes many new features. While I won't go too heavy on the tech, the new features will lead to lower fees and increased throughput. Furthermore, the testnet adopted EIPs that enable support for multi-sig contracts like Gnosis Safe, which is foundational infrastructure in terms of supporting the functionality of DAOs.
Adoption up in 2H of year
While big partnerships are nice, the real way to gauge success of a network is adoption. Adoption on Polygon has actually increased this year despite the bear market.
Daily active addresses have increased 42%, from 227,000 to just under 400,000, sine July 1st 2022. Nearly all other L1s have seen their daily active address numbers decrease in 2H 2022.
Furthermore, NFT mints have gone parabolic on Polygon recently. At the end of July, there were approximately 50,000 users who minted NFTs. That number recently surpassed 300,000. The Trump NFT drop definitely helped juice those numbers recently.
Adoption is definitely trending positive for Polygon.
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