O3 Live Recap #10
On Monday, September 20th, Polygon participated in an O3 Live AMA. O3 Live is an Ask Me Anything (AMA) style community event that takes place on the official O3 Telegram channel. Asif Khan, who leads Growth efforts at Polygon aimed at DeFi specifically, discussed the Updates & Future Roadmap of the Polygon Network.
The full transcript of the AMA can be found below:
Matt:
First, can you tell us more about yourself and Polygon? What is your role at Polygon and what is Polygon’s current mission? How does Polygon plan to achieve that mission?
Feel free to answer more informally since you’re in transit.
Asif Khan:
Hello O3 Community, I am Asif, I lead Growth efforts at Polygon aimed at DeFi specifically.
Polygon’s current mission is to scale Ethereum via different approaches, Polygon POS is one of them with Rollups pretty much in the pipeline.
Matt:
Yea we’re all super excited about scaling Ethereum which has definitely been the leader in DeFi! Recently, there’s been a lot of talk about Ethereum scaling solutions. What makes Polygon the best choice ahead of its competitors? How can we be sure that this Ethereum scaling solution will maintain its market share?
Asif Khan:
We believe scaling Eth is not a one-size fits all solution, as different dApps are built on Eth, which needs different security assumptions, thus getting different throughput. An NFT dApp or gaming dApp transaction may need somewhat lesser security than a $100 million TVL swap protocol. It is low in gas fee so that NFTs can thrive and get mass adoption. This approach is something that separates us from other scaling solutions.
Matt:
As I understand it, Polygon’s rollups can provide different security options and different throughput speeds depending on the project. Is that assumption correct?
Asif Khan:
Exactly, the current Polygon POS chain can serve DeFi, NFTs, and games. This has different security assumptions than polygon roll-ups that have different security assumptions. We envision a future where developers and users both have a right to choose the solution they want to use. This is how we will bring the next 10 million users into DeFi.
Matt:
That’s highly encouraging for Polygon investors-the idea that very different projects can join the same ecosystem. Next question though: What current or yet-to-be launched projects in the Polygon ecosystem are you most excited about and why? What dApps on Polygon will be the most popular ones and why?
Asif Khan:
Qidao Protocol is one project I am really excited about, as that lets users derive great usage from their base assets (collateral). Take it as similar to MakerDao on Polygon, but the team is really agile and fast to ship. They have been shipping products nearly every fortnight. This is extremely pleasing from a user and token holder standpoint. Most of all, they have great composability across the polygon ecosystem, where you mint miMATIC with your collateral and use it across the ecosystem.
Matt:
Wow, shipping every fortnight is unreal! I can see you chose something from the DeFi side of the ecosystem and that should be of interest to our community since O3 Swap is heavily involved in DeFi. Moreover, shipping products every fortnight proves the worth of the team. That’s an insane pace.
Asif Khan:
Haha, apes gotta ape and love DeFi.
Matt:
MiMatic you say?
Asif Khan:
Yes, miMATIC is the stablecoin, Mai Finance/Qidao Protocol.
Matt:
Yes, certainly! I myself am very excited about GALA games launching games on Matic. I think that games are going to thrive on Polygon!
You heard it here first guys. There’s a MakerDao-like product on Polygon already!
Let’s move to the next question.
How does Polygon plan to attract new products to the network especially when it comes to DeFi and crypto gaming? What elements of Polygon’s MATIC chain are attractive to new projects and how can developers get started?
Asif Khan:
I would say the biggest positive for any blockchain from a DeFi perspective would be the composability it offers. Right now, we have nearly every DeFi primitive protocol in the space which makes it really attractive for users and developers alike.
Developers have so much to build upon, and users have so much to do on-chain.
This is why our DAU has been growing steadily in spite of another L1 gaining some traction.
Asif Khan:
Higher highs and higher lows.
https://polygonscan.com/chart/active-address
Matt:
I think that has a lot to do with the price to do business on Ethereum as well. Speaking of that, what will happen with MATIC when Ethereum 2.0 is launched?
Asif Khan:
Solidity developers can pretty much get started right away, our dev tooling is very similar to Eth, which makes it really easy for devs (to get started).
Matt:
Are there any plans to update MATIC’s core architecture or tokenomics in the long term?
Asif Khan:
Ah, nice. This question has been asked in many forums.
Matt:
Is MATIC dependent on ETH? Or do they grow in tandem together?
I’ve noticed (the ease for developers to launch on Polygon. I think this is why it was very easy for our devs at O3 Swap to launch on MATIC very quickly because they’d already launched on Ethereum, so they were very familiar with EVM and solidity.
Asif Khan:
We believe when Eth gets mass adoption, the TPS even after Eth 2.0 would be somewhat lesser to service everyone as the global settlement layer vision. In such a world, Polygon is pretty relevant and helps Eth scale to the level of demand. Saying this wouldn’t be wrong exactly as demand for Eth grows, tps grows, and demand for Polygon solutions grow.
Matt:
Yes, I think that we have to consider a world where Eth 2.0 doesn’t solve all of the problems it’s meant to solve. It’s an interesting dynamic for sure. It’s hard not to look at the two as competitors, but Polygon’s success somewhat depends on ETH’s ability to attract users and continue to be widely adopted.
Asif Khan:
Yes, if DeFi has to service millions, we need scaling solutions, rollups, and commit chains. Eth has great network effects and probably the biggest mindshare of developers, so it’s hard to be not bullish on eth.
