Reddit Posts
Sunflowers ready to bring Polygon network on it's knees once more. Be careful and don't get rekt like I was
Is there any new and legit projects in crypto anymore? If feels like everything is being rug pulled or simply screwed up by devs all the time
Recently boomed Sunflower Farmers game has disappeared. Soft rug pull anyone?
The Legend of Sunflower Farmer: How a Farmville P2E game threatend the Polygon ecosystem into submission.
Are Sunflowers the beginning of the end for Polygon?
The Tale of Polygon and some Sunflowers. Or: Why Polygon is slowing down.
Mentions
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by a deleted user. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://forum.pol... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > ####**Has plenty of competitors, including itself** > > Currently, Polygon PoS is competing against optimistic L2 blockchains like Arbitrum One and Optimism. Arbitrum has nearly [2x the TVL as Polygon](https://defillama.com/chains), and Optimism has almost caught up. > > Polygon's future zkEVM rollup is also competing against other zkEVM rollups. Once its zkEVM is released, it's possible it's going to split the Polygon community between those who want to stay on the sidechain and those who want to use the zkEVM. **If you look at their [zkEVM testnet](https://explorer.public.zkevm-test.net/txs?block_number=143530&index=0&page_number=1&page_size=50&pages_limit=200), fees are paid in Ether, not MATIC.** That's bearish for MATIC token utility. > > **TVL has dropped considerably compared to L2s** > > One year ago back in Jan 2022, [Polygon TVL was $4.8B USD](https://defillama.com/chain/Polygon) while the combined [Layer 2 rollup TVL was $5.4B USD](https://l2beat.com/scaling/tvl). While L2 TVL has increased a little despite the bear market, Polygon's TVL has collapsed by 75% to $1.2B. > > **Growing dApp competition from L2 rollups** > > A year ago, Polygon PoS was unique in that it was the only network besides Ethereum that had OpenSea support. Now OpenSea supports a dozen different networks, including competing Layer 2 rollups networks like Optimism, Arbitrum One, and even Arbitrum Nova. So there's a lot more competition. > > **Declining social media support** > > With L2 rollups developing so quickly, many in the Ethereum community have turned against Polygon, creating a narrative that it's "just a sidechain", not a true Layer 2. > > The 0xPolygon subreddit has become more of a ghost town with noticeable amounts of spam posts. I don't think its mods are checking regularly anymore. > > ####**Less resistant to DDoS attacks and spam** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it's at risk of DDoS attacks. > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **It has a Gas Cartel** > > Spam attacks were eventually mitigated when the whole Polygon validator community chose to [lock priority fees at a 30 Gwei minimum](https://cryptoslate.com/polygon-matic-to-raise-gas-fee-to-30-gwei-to-prevent-spam-transactions/). That's not an offical part of protocol. Polygon validators have colluded off-chain and are running **gas cartel**, like OPEC. > > However, it still gets tons of spam transactions, which I have experienced first-hand many times. All my Polygon accounts with activity on them were randomly sent spam tokens and NFTs. Many of these tokens are part of scam that try to trick you into interacting with them by selling them. Other are advertising sketchy website links. > > This is the downside of having sub-penny transactions. > > ####**Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. Many parts of Polygon still require Ethereum and pay fees in ETH instead of MATIC. OpenSea's NFT are usually quoted in ETH instead of MATIC. The MATIC token its originates on Ethereum and is bridged over to Polygon PoS as an ERC-20 token. Staking is also done on the Ethereum mainnet. The periodic Polygon checkpoints require paying Ethereum fees too. > > Thus Polygon's success depends on Ethereum's success and security. > > Going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which costs Ethereum gas fees. The first time bridging over to Polygon can be stressful. Their documentation says it should only take [22-30 minutes](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/develop/ethereum-polygon/getting-started/) when it often takes many hours as many people including me have found out the hard way. > > ####**Numerous reorgs** > > Polygon has [multiple reorgs every day](https://polygonscan.com/blocks_forked). Many of these are of 10+ depths, which is dangerously high. Due to reorgs, transactions up to 32 blocks ago can be completely reversed. In fact, up until the Delhi update (Jan 17, 2023), it was common to see reorgs up to 128-blocks ago (5 minutes). After the update, this has been reduced to a max of 32 blocks (1 minute). That's better than before the update, but it's still a lot. The reason behind this unique and dangerous Polygon phenomenon is due to the validator sprints that it uses on the Bor block production layer. [I wrote a separate article to explain this phenomenon](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/polygons-block-reorg-problem). > > Even after the Delhi update, there was still a massive [153-block reorg in Feb 2023](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/) and multiple-validator outage caused by an unrelated bug. > > ####**Centralization concerns** > > **Pausable tokens** > > The [MATIC token contract](https://etherscan.io/token/0x7d1afa7b718fb893db30a3abc0cfc608aacfebb0#code) is pausable. There is a private list of addresses (stored in the "_pausers" private role) that can unilaterally pause the entire MATIC token without needing any other members to approve. > > **Centralized control of Polygon contracts on Ethereum mainnet via its Multisig owner account** > > At any given time, Polygon can update its contracts using this Multisig Gnosis Safe, and it has already done so **40 times in the past year** and 170 times in the past 2 years. That's a lot of unannounced updates. > > It does this through a [5 out of 9 Multisig Gnosis Safe](https://etherscan.io/address/0xfa7d2a996ac6350f4b56c043112da0366a59b74c) (often misquoted as an 5 out of 8 Multisig) that controls all of Polygon's contracts on Ethereum (e.g. Plasma Bridge, PoS Bridge, Staking Contract, Governance Proxy, Ether Bridge, Root Chain Proxy, Polygon-to-Ethereum token mapping, and many other contracts). 4 of these owners are Polygon members, 4 are external DeFi users, and 1 is an unknown account (possibly the owner of Quickswap). > > **[My own investigation](https://mplankton.substack.com/p/investigating-the-59-polygon-multisig) discovered that this MultiSig account is one of the worst-documented parts of Polygon**: > > * Every media site, blog, and forum to this day still thinks it's an 5/8 Multisig based on an old letter back in May 2021. The fact that no one has mentioned the 9th owner (added 2 years ago) is a strong sign the public isn't actually auditing the Polygon admin actions on that Multisig contract. > * A 9th owner was added back [in June 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0xb02b91300e3cea5bb788513cd858f27f27410b3bc67b8e12dca10944b4d611c8) **unannounced**. An additional 2 Polygon owners were swapped in the past year **unannounced**. > * [Back in Aug 2021](https://etherscan.io/tx/0x9eca1e21c66d7a30bfb69dedb0857314cf7ed127d149328d518678f7e22fbdb9), ownership of all Polygon's contracts were replaced by a [TimeLock contract](https://etherscan.io/address/0xCaf0aa768A3AE1297DF20072419Db8Bb8b5C8cEf). This Timelock provides an acceptance window where any action on Polygon's contracts has to wait 48 hours before it takes effect. The Timelock is in turn controlled by the 5/9 Gnosis Safe account. > * Polygon's websites, forums, Discord channel, and subreddit don't mention the Timelock. > * **Even Polygon's own documentation team is unaware of the Timelock.** There is [one document that mentions the Multisig address](https://wiki.polygon.technology/docs/faq/commit-chain-multisigs/) suggests that a Timelock is a future update, when it's actually already active. > > ####**Upgrade process is centralized** > > Polygon Labs controls the upgrade process through centralized governance. > > Back in Dec 2021, the Polygon team [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > In Jan 2023, the **Delhi Hardfork, PIP-7**, was voted on by only [15 out of 100 non-dev validators](https://forum.polygon.technology/t/pre-pip-discussion-addressing-reorgs-and-gas-spikes/10623). The vote was only used as non-binding feedback, so Polygon Lab devs still maintained real control over the upgrade. > > In Feb 2023, there was a client bug that caused [a multi-validator outage and 153-block reorg](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2023/02/22/polygon-blockchain-suffers-apparent-outage/). Due to the outage and slow syncing where many out-of-sync validators were taking up to a day to resync, many of them were missing their 98% checkpoint SLA requirements for staying on as a validator. As a result, the Polygon team pushed **an emergency proposal, PIP-9**, to reduce the threshold back to 95%. In less than half a day, it passed and was activated. Even over 4 days, only 27 out of 100 validators had voted on it. > > **Future decentralized governance** > > It's been over a year since Polygon posted they were looking into [Governance Decentralization](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/). It wasn't until only Feb 2023 that they started the first steps towards decentralized governance via [PIP-1](https://foru... ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
A SFF or NUC PC is a good option here as well. Power draw ramps with load, but at idle I've seen low wattage within 50% of a desktop 25-35w. So 15w or less. Might actually be cheaper to setup than a Pi with an AC adapter and active cooling. USB 3.0 and dedicated gigabit ethernet as well as SATA and maybe NVMe storage built in. Ultimately I would work backwards from the power draw cost ( kWh) and decide what to budget for monthly.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
Well, the other thing is... unless you're paying like 35 cents a kWh, what's the true financial impact and, if substantial, how does that savings compare with reliability of a Dell Optiplex SFF or Micro vs a Pi? Lastly, the moment the hardware requirements change (like a Pi with 8GB RAM instead of the previous 4GB RAM) that Pi is a veritable "brick" because you cannot upgrade the RAM.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is a Polygon con-argument written by Maleficent_Plankton. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? Check out the [Cointest archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find submissions for other topics.
Thanks for the reply, the SFF would be dedicated as the node as I have another PC for other tasks. I was just was worried if the Pi would make up the difference in energy costs in a year or so.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/12r9jim/daily_general_discussion_april_19_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/12e2rm7/daily_general_discussion_april_7_2023_gmt0/).
I guarantee you the people with these tens of millions of dollars were in direct talks with SBF and FTX. These are businesses that likely were courted by FTX reps, maybe even SFF himself. They probably shopped around different exchanges, found FTX that would give them good deals on trades and chose them. It's not like they just signed up like you and me and deposited 75m. And that's why they kept their money on there. They could do quick big trades, trusted FTX/SBF, etc. And I bet you that as things went down these were the users calling SBF's cell phone going "What the fuck Sam, we trusted you" > But the worst part is this: this user lost over 75 million, while holding 3 million FTT! Probably a business that was bought out by FTX or loaned FTX money for FTT and kept it on the exchange.
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/11v58f9/daily_general_discussion_march_19_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/11tat64/daily_general_discussion_march_17_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/11sdux4/daily_general_discussion_march_16_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/11dr46a/daily_general_discussion_february_28_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: 1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/11acxf9/daily_general_discussion_february_24_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. Submit an argument in the Cointest yourself and earn Moons if you win. Moon prizes are: *1st - 600, 2nd - 300, 3rd - 150, and Best Analysis - 500. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Pros and cons per topic will likely change for every new post. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/118jam4/daily_general_discussion_february_22_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/115w2mm/daily_general_discussion_february_19_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1151l7p/daily_general_discussion_february_18_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/110u63u\/daily_general_discussion_february_13_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/110u63u\/daily_general_discussion_february_13_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10yakql/daily_general_discussion_february_10_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10xfaxf/daily_general_discussion_february_9_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10xfaxf/daily_general_discussion_february_9_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10whfyz/daily_general_discussion_february_8_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10urrwr/daily_general_discussion_february_6_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10szhfn/daily_general_discussion_february_4_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10ralbq/daily_general_discussion_february_2_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10qprda/monthly_optimists_discussion_february_2023/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10pid71/daily_general_discussion_january_31_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10ntjbo/daily_general_discussion_january_29_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10ntjbo/daily_general_discussion_january_29_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10ntjbo/daily_general_discussion_january_29_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10n0btk/daily_general_discussion_january_28_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10m6lv1/daily_general_discussion_january_27_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10m6lv1/daily_general_discussion_january_27_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10m6lv1/daily_general_discussion_january_27_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10m6lv1/daily_general_discussion_january_27_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10m6lv1/daily_general_discussion_january_27_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10ldwad/daily_general_discussion_january_26_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10kkgfg/daily_general_discussion_january_25_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10kkgfg/daily_general_discussion_january_25_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10jrpkm/daily_general_discussion_january_24_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10iydf2/daily_general_discussion_january_23_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10i5m0a/daily_general_discussion_january_22_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10hdaqg/daily_general_discussion_january_21_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10hdaqg/daily_general_discussion_january_21_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10erynt/daily_general_discussion_january_18_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10dwvz3/daily_general_discussion_january_17_2023_gmt0/).
#Polygon Con-Arguments Below is an argument written by Maleficent_Plankton which won 1st place in the Polygon Con-Arguments topic for a prior [Cointest](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_policy) round. > **Background - Polygon is many-sided**. There's the main Polygon PoS network that acts as a sidechain to Ethereum, and then there are so many side projects, many of which deal with Layer 2: > > - MATIC: The main Polygon token, which is present on multiple networks > - Polygon PoS: The main Ethereum side-chain network that most are familiar with. It saves checkpoint state on the Ethereum network every [256 blocks (5 minutes)](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network). > - Polygon [Hermez](https://docs.hermez.io/#start-here-for-hermez-10-documentation): ZK-rollup Ethereum Layer 2 > - Polygon [Zero](https://blog.polygon.technology/introducing-plonky2/): A fast ZK-stark/ZK-snark hybrid solution built on the Plonky2 protocol. It proofs are theoretically [100x faster than current ZK proof calculations](https://blog.polygon.technology/zkverse-polygons-zero-knowledge-strategy-explained/). > - Polygon [Miden](https://blog.polygon.technology/polygon-announces-polygon-miden-a-stark-based-ethereum-compatible-rollup/): Stark-based ZK-rollup Ethereum layer 2 > - Polygon [Nightfall](https://blog.polygon.technology/zk-proofs-protocol-polygon-nightfall-launches-on-testnet-to-provide-low-cost-private-ethereum-transaction/): Enterprise version of Polygon that uses "ZK-Optimistic Rollups" (ZK proof for privacy and optimistic-rollup for scalability) > - Polygon Avail: Standalone network or side-chain solution > - Polygon Plasma Bridge: A legacy bridge that shouldn't be used anymore. > > This post will mainly focus on the Polygon PoS network. > > ------------------ > > **CONs** > > **Still requires the Ethereum network** > > The Polygon PoS network is a side chain for Ethereum. It has its own network security, but staking is still done on the Ethereum network and requires paying expensive Ethereum smart contract gas fees. > > Similarly, going from Layer 1 Ethereum to Polygon is mainly done through the Polygon PoS bridge, which also costs expensive Ethereum gas fees. (This will gradually phase out as more CEXs provide direct onramp to the Polygon PoS network.) > > **Has plenty of competitors** > > There are just too many competitors, which dilutes adoption and liquidity for Polygon's ecosystem. While Polygon PoS isn't a direct competitor to most Layer 2 rollups and monolithic "Ethereum killers" because it is designed from ground up to be Ethereum sidechain, it does experience indirect competition. And the other Polygon Layer 2 rollup projects are direct competitors. As of Jan 2021, Polygon Hermez is only in [17th place in TLV](https://l2beat.com/). > > **Less resistant to DDoS attacks** > > Like all networks with low transaction fees, it at risk to DDoS attacks since the barrier to making transactions is low > > In early Jan 2022, [Sunflowers Farm \(SFF\) unintentionally DDoS-attacked the Polygon PoS network](https://www.coindesk.com/tech/2022/01/06/polygon-under-accidental-attack-from-swarm-of-sunflower-farmers/) and completely congested the network because it was more profitable to play the game and spam transactions than pay network fees. Transaction fees shot up 20x. Eventually, a hacker exploited the SFF game and reduced its price to zero, and users rejoiced because it cleared the congestion. > > **Centralized governance of the PoS chain** > > Governance is currently centralized. > > The Polygon team single-handedly [increased the transaction fee from 1 to 30 Gwei in Oct 2021](https://thedefiant.io/polygon-transaction-fee-hike/) to combat spammers. They didn't communicate this with the community or ask for feedback ahead of time. > > The Polygon team also [secretly hard-forked the network](https://cryptobriefing.com/a-hacker-stole-1-6m-after-exploiting-a-polygon-bug/) by pushing out a patch 1 day after a hacker stole $1.6M from the network from the Polygon PoS genesis contract in Dec 2021. The team didn't publicize the reason for the emergency patch until over 3 weeks later. > > They have only very recently starting looking to decentralize governance through a [Polygon Ecosystem DAO](https://blog.polygon.technology/state-of-governance-decentralization/), but that could be a long time away. > > Also, the top 4 staking validators out of a total of 100 validators [own 49% of the supply](https://wallet.polygon.technology/staking/) of MATIC, but the staking validators are only used for validation and [block production](https://forum.matic.network/t/matic-system-overview-bor/126), not governance. > > **Split attention on multiple projects** > > For better or worse, Polygon is working on multiple Layer 2 solutions (Polygon PoS, Hermez, Zero, Miden, Nightfall, Avail) and constantly researching different protocols. This is a rather Google-like decision to have multiple competiting products where it becomes the Jack-of-all-trades, Master-of-none. Some of these protocols are really exciting, but the crypto community doesn't know about them because there are too many to focus on. > > **Tokenomics of MATIC Tokens** > > The MATIC token has limited utility. It's used for staking (validation and block production). Once the pool of staking rewards runs out of funds, all staking rewards will need to come from transaction fees, which are tiny. Currently only 75% of the coins are in circulation, and the Polygon Team has an ongoing [token release schedule](https://research.binance.com/en/projects/matic-network) for dumping tokens on the open market. > > ------------------ > > Disclaimer: I currently do not own any MATIC. ***** Would you like to learn more? [Click here](/r/CointestOfficial/comments/qk4yk4/coin_inquiries_round_polygon_conarguments_november/) to be taken to the original topic-thread or you can scan through the [Cointest Archive](/r/CointestOfficial/wiki/cointest_archive#wiki_Polygon) to find arguments on this topic in other rounds. Since this is a con-argument, what could be a better time to promote the Skeptics Discussion thread? You can find the latest thread [here](/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/10c4tbq/daily_general_discussion_january_15_2023_gmt0/).